Summary
- FBC: Firebreak maintains Control's DNA but adds absurdity, turning cosmic horror into comedy.
- Firebreak is an exaggerated and humorous take on Control's bizarre premise.
- The co-op shooter offers a different kind of descent but still functions as an echo of Control.
It has now been nearly six years since the release of Remedy Entertainment's action-adventure game Control, and Control 2 is still likely a ways off. However, fans of the game may still be able to find what they love so much about it in its upcoming co-op spin-off FBC: Firebreak, though it is already proving itself to have a vastly different attitude than its younger sibling. Based on some early hands-on previews of FBC: Firebreak, fans of Control may be able to tide themselves over for a bit with the live-service shooter, which maintains the DNA of Control but almost coils it in the opposite direction.
At its core, FBC: Firebreak still looks to capture what popularized Control's gameplay, tone, and world-building in the first place. However, it has already shown its true colors as quite an exaggerated take on Control's bizarre premise, and the fact that it is an online cooperative first-person shooter sets it even further apart. With gameplay that is humorously chaotic, mechanically absurd, and endlessly demanding, FBC: Firebreak looks like Control if it were taken off its hinges, and that might be the best thing for it in the long run.
FBC: Firebreak’s Flexibility Lets It Bend the Playstyle Curve Without Breaking It
FBC: Firebreak looks like it plays by the rules, but its design quietly hands control to the player in ways most co-op games would likely never risk.
FBC: Firebreak Goes From Federal Bureau to Full-Blown Mayhem
Control's DNA Is Still in Play, But It's Drenched in Absurdity
If there's one thing that's true about Control's pacing, it's that it feels more like a slow spiral into bureaucratic madness than an explosive, action-packed joyride of a game from the get-go. At its deepest depths, Control clearly hosts an outlandish world, but it isn't until its greatest mysteries begin unfolding that players bear witness to how truly tumultuous it is. As a Control spin-off, FBC: Firebreak is just as peculiar, only it takes what Control gradually leans into and makes it a springboard on which it propels itself forward.
At its core, FBC: Firebreak still looks to capture what popularized Control's gameplay, tone, and world-building in the first place.
Control is more quietly absurd, in that it presents the impossible with a straight face. In doing so, it delivers an eerie calm reinforced by bureaucratic seriousness, making it feel unnerving rather than comedic. FBC: Firebreak, on the other hand, wears its absurdity on its sleeve and exaggerates what Control bakes into its formula to the point of spectacle. If Control is the cake, then FBC: Firebreak is the icing, along with all the elaborate designs and extras that put a spotlight on the occasion — the style — rather than the cake itself — the substance.
FBC: Firebreak Turns Control's Cosmic Horror Comic
For all intents and purposes, FBC: Firebreak is founded on Control's DNA, but it's ultimately drenched in layers of absurdity to the point that it turns cosmic horror comic. It's not so much that FBC: Firebreak abandons Control's identity, but simply that it presents that identity in a different way. Control might see players fighting a haunted traffic light, but the game's tone and atmosphere still manage to make that fight feel harrowing, tense, and even a bit horrifying.
FBC: Firebreak's tone, however, sees those same encounters framed within a comedic context that changes the mood entirely. The Hiss in FBC: Firebreak are still just as dangerous as ever, but when players are required to perform unconventional actions like showering together to remove status effects or battling large monsters nicknamed "Sticky Ricky" who are made up of millions of sentient sticky notes, things take a turn for the funnier. As a result, FBC: Firebreak carries the undertones of Control's cosmic horror, but it makes what would normally be a bit unnerving a hilarious joke that should still be taken seriously.
FBC: Firebreak may twist Control's unsettling weirdness into something more flamboyant and irreverent, but that doesn't mean it loses its edge. If anything, the game seems to embrace its strangeness with open arms, doubling down on the surreal as its foundation but covering it with a ceiling of joy. It still draws from the same paranormal well as Control, but it chooses to splash in it rather than sink. For fans waiting on Control 2, FBC: Firebreak may offer a different kind of descent, but it still functions as an echo of its younger sibling.
FBC: Firebreak
-
OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 65 /100 Critics Rec: 25%
- Released
- June 17, 2025
- ESRB
- T For Teen // Violence, Blood
- Developer(s)
- Remedy Entertainment
- Publisher(s)
- Remedy Entertainment
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Northlight Engine
- Genre(s)
- FPS
