Alan Wake 2 studio's FBC Firebreak is a fun multiplayer experience without the headaches of battle passes and live service elements.
Remedy CEO Tero Virtala is stepping down after 9 years. This could be related to the financial disaster that was the launch of FBC Firebreak.
The only people who need to step down are the ones who thought FGC Firebreak was a good idea in the first place. Alan Wake 2 was a masterpiece, it's sad to see Remedy fall on hard times after creating such an amazing game.
a lot of people boycotted the game because it was digital only at release. Such a shame, because the game was my favorite game in recent memory. Really was a masterpiece.
An amazing game with major pacing issues? Are you sure it's really amazing? I say it's good go very good and even on metacritic user scores are around 85. Masterpieces need to sell gaming isn't a charity like many gamers like to assume. There are only 2 ways to judge a game. It's successful and met its goals or it didn't and Alan wake 2 definitely didn't
Combat is clunky
Pacing is a major issue
Objectives aren't always clear
Neo
More than that for right or wrong there are gamers who don't buy in epic game store. Thing is Remedy makes games for the niche and that's not where we see games that sell big time. They need to go after a bigger piece of the pie IMO. They are an amazing development studio and deserve better support
I played it on my PS5, so I didn't have to worry about the Epic Store nonsense, but yes, I'm sure that turned off a lot of PC gamers.
I dunno about the pacing part, this game was awesome from start to finish. But the original Alan Wake was one of my favorite games from the 360 era, so this franchise will always be near and dear to me. Plus I loved the subtle integration to the other franchises in this newly created "Remedyverse".
The only thing that was confusing to me at first was when you were first inside Saga's head and you had to piece together clues on the board to progress.
FBC was a terrible and tone deaf idea that screamed we want some live service money to. but at the same time it seemed like a low budget asset flip so I'm surprised it's had such a huge impact to the studio financially.
FBC reminds me of the bolted on multiplayer mode of the late 2000s every game had one and it wasn't particularly interesting or did anything worth the players time.
Control was one of the best games I played. FBC is a POS that I deleted as soon as the "kill 1000 post it notes" came up. Who came up with this sh1t? Please just make a really good Control 2 and a new May Payne. Don't care about Alan Wake because it's boring and way too easy.
I swear if Remedy closes im gonna be really depressed 😔 they are so incredibly talented and jave literally my dream game in development with the Max Payne remakes. We really don't need to lose anymore vetted talent
Just shy of two weeks after launching its 'bold gambit' to save the multiplayer shooter FBC: Firebreak, Remedy says the game is still underperforming, to the point that the studio has issued a "profit warning" for 2025 and says it's going to eat a big loss on the whole thing.
Well…it’s their own fault thinking something like this would even be appealing
Remedy are known for their single player games, why waste time on something like this? I’d rather the manpower went on the Max Payne remakes or Control 2.
It's such a strange move from them.
I can sort of understand it when this happens to developers like Rocksteady and Bioware, where the company that owns them (and seemingly doesn't know anything about different genres of games) pushes them to shift to a multiplayer focus.
But Remedy is independently owned and run. They really should have known better. Pretty much the ONLY reason people play their games is for the narrative journey. A multiplayer shooter simply isn't likely to appeal to the same audience.
There is a narrative out there that seems to suggest that the big publishers are always the ones pushing for live service multiplayer and the small independent devs are the ones always fighting against them. What people fail to realize is that a successful live service game is enticing to both because it guarantees a revenue stream and helps the dev avoid laying off their staff between single player launches. That’s not to say that these types of games are a good idea, but it is an understandable move, even for a single player studio like Remedy.
It doesn’t help when anyone with a single player game gets scrutinized crazy. They need a masterpiece or their efforts are not rewarded.
Most companies will try a live a service gamble here and there because of the money that’s possible. But it’s a double edged sword and they got the wrong side of it.
The game is not bad, it's just that it doesn't feel rewarding, and the chaos artifacts in the game are annoying, there are ways to kill them, but it's often to hard to find, also the constant ramping up of the enemies numbers, when the objectives are being hamstrung by the chaos artifact with no way to kill them makes some runs plain out frustrating instead of challenging, not to mention the limited healing and ammunition stations...oh and who's idea was it to make my own ultimate dangerous to me? That should be the thing that saves you, not kill you lol.
Maybe me and my friends are playing it wrong.
Oddly enough that's how i feel playing just about every remedy game, it's like they nail everything but the difficulty balance, and it's full of random difficulty spikes all over the place and just makes it not very fun to play unless i drop the difficulty, which then just loses all challenge. It's always just a choice between frustrating or boring, but story, world, visuals, etc carry the game so i usually stick with it. But with a mp game where story just isnt there, i knew immediately it was not gonna be my thing
Isarai, I agree,
The thing is, I love and beat almost all of their other games.
The Alan Wake series and Control, are excellent games, I'm still working on Alan Wake 2 only because I'm not to fond of the whole detective board thing, takes me out of it sometimes.
But FB is just outta control with its difficulty, the normal levels are not that hard, it's just that nothing seems to really power you up to get ready for the higher difficulty levels, you always feel underpowered in a bad way. They needed to revamp not only the way you level up, but the actual benefits of the perks.
I mean you try to milk the universe with a live service game no one wanted... that'll do it
Remedy Entertainment reports strong Q2 2025 earnings, confirms Control sales over 5 million, and provides updates on Control 2, Max Payne 1 & 2 Remake, and FBC: Firebreak.
I played with friends for a few sessions then stopped. For me, biggest problems is too repetitive and not enough content.
