15-05-2025
As A Parent, I'm Excited To Play Remedy's FBC: Firebreak This Week
Father sits in home office with his six-month-old Photo by Jens Büttner/picture alliance via Getty ... More Images)
This week, Remedy is hosting a closed technical test for FBC: Firebreak—their next release slated to come out on June 17th. Remedy has been upfront about the fact that Firebreak was made for parents, by parents, and is designed to respect your time.
Firebreak is a three-player co-op, first-person-shooter set in the Control universe. In the game, you and two teammates work your way through sections of the Oldest House (essentially the headquarters for the paranormal branch of the federal government) and have to eliminate Hiss (essentially zombies) who have overrun the place.
While there have been some early complaints about the way the game's guns handle, overall, the buzz has been extremely positive.
Online multiplayer is not a genre I typically play. Part of this is just personal preference. I love the solitary quiet of walking through a beautiful RPG world. I also love playing local multiplayer with my partner.
But part of my hesitation about online multiplayer is also practical: my friend group is rarely online at the same time, and I appreciate the ability to dip in and out of a game quickly. If my toddler wakes up unexpectedly, or something at work has to be dealt with right away, I need games that allow me to walk away, without ruining someone else's good time.
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However, my love for the Remedy extended universe—the quirky sense of humor, powerful storytelling, and clever world and level designs—have pulled me into the Firebreak hype.
That said, it sounds like Remedy intentionally designed Firebreak to appeal to players who are wary of certain coop conventions, including never ending cycles of season passes, loot crates, and long play sessions.
It also sounds like Remedy intentionally designed Firebreak for parents. In an interview with VGC's Jordan Middler, Firebreak's lead designer Anssi Hyytiäinen, emphasized that the game was made 'by middle-aged dads for middle-aged dads.' Hyytiäinen explains that this shaped the game's design, 'we wanted to make the game easy to pick up.'
I'm not a middle-aged dad, I'm a middle-aged mom, but I am excited to see games that take seriously the ways that the real-world shapes play and are respectful of the different needs and lifestyles of players out there.
This attention to multiple play styles and player experiences, is one of the reasons I fell in love with both Alan Wake 2 and Control.
Remedy's focus on short, meaningful play sessions is in line with what many parents are looking for—including the 87% percent of moms who game and represent a growing slice of the gaming marketplace. The decision to allow short play sessions is also wise in light of shifting age demographics. The video game market has been diversifying rapidly over the last several years. In 2024, the biggest age demographic of gamers in the US were people aged 30 to 39 years.
Remedy's decision to make a coop FPS game that respects your time is good news for everyone. The fact that you can play short missions is a bonus not just for moms, but for anyone who has commitments that might interrupt play sessions: e.g., being an on-call nurse, caregiving for an elderly parent, working multiple jobs, etc.
I'm looking forward to seeing how Remedy's design focus translates into my play experience this week and I am excited to provide a deeper dive into Firebreak after it comes out on June 17th.
