After playing FBC: Firebreak for the last week or so, I had finally begun to gather my thoughts well enough to write a coherent review. Remedy distributed codes late last week, so I didn’t get much of a chance to spend time with the game prior to the Tuesday release date, but by the end of this week, my thoughts were mostly crystallized. Then, right as I was about to submit a draft for editing, Remedy released a patch seemingly fixing most of my problems with the game.
FBC: Firebreak’s new requisitions screen, which has far lower costs and fewer pages to get through.
Progression, which was convoluted, grindy, and locked fundamental upgrades and weapons behind hours of gameplay, has been completely overhauled. According to the patch notes, cosmetics and gameplay upgrades have been separated, upgrade currencies are easier to see, and all unlockable materials have had their costs “rebalanced,” making it easy to unlock your preferred loadout sooner.
In my now outdated review, the progression system was not just a small problem I had with the game – it was the main problem. I need to reevaluate it top to bottom, both because my opinion of the game might drastically change and because, as executive editor Brian Shea put it, I essentially reviewed a game that doesn’t exist anymore.
In a game where there isn’t a story, competitive play, or procedurally generated combat, players need something to motivate them. Ideally, the game is just so fun that people will come back and play it over and over, but, realistically, developers need to include rewards for playing and to encourage more engagement. The old version of FBC: Firebreak was so grindy that it would take hours and hours just to unlock the full suite of abilities associated with a crisis kit, the main mechanic that sets the game apart. By the time you have the upgrades, you’ve already played every mode, and even though you might want to jump back in, there’s not much incentive to do so.
Now, mechanical upgrades and cosmetic upgrades are separate, so after you get the gear you want, I imagine it’ll feel much more rewarding to be working towards items to customize your character. At the very least, there are fewer obstacles between players and their upgrades, and there’s something different to work towards once you’ve got what you want.
That said, this is just speculation – I haven’t had the chance to spend time with the new update yet, but the changes seem good on paper, and I plan to spend some time with the game to properly evaluate how it’s changed. Reviewing online games can be a bit like hitting a moving target at times, given how drastically they can change with post-launch updates, but we’d like to get as close as possible to hitting a bullseye. We’ll have a review of FBC: Firebreak sometime in the coming weeks.