Remedy says it’s hearing your feedback on FBC: Firebreak “loudly and clearly” and is committed to improving things, particularly the shooter’s opening hour, “starting now”.
Collating feedback from across social media, Discord, and Steam, the developer – for which Firebreak is its first self-published title – said that while “several things have gone well”, “clearly, not everything has”. Consequently, its first priority is to improve the game’s “first hour experience”, making progression faster and more rewarding.
“The game’s first hours do not provide a great experience due to a combination of things. Some of this is down to a lack of onboarding (more about that in a bit), explaining the game’s systems, how to take advantage of the tools at your disposal, and a lack of clarity as to what to do in the Jobs and how to do the work effectively,” the team said in its first patch notes.
“In addition, the power fantasy isn’t great in the first hours of the game as starting (tier 1) weapons feel weak, and unlocking higher-tier weapons requires a bit too much grinding,” the studio added. “We can see from the data and are seeing feedback that players who stick around and unlock more powerful tier 3 weapons and Perks, playing on higher Threat levels and Full three zone Job runs, are having a better time.”
Because of this, Remedy says it wants to get you “to the fun faster”, which also means getting us to the better tools and weapons. With better onboarding, user-interface clarity, and making Jobs easier to access, the studio thinks we’ll get a more rewarding start.
That’s not all, though.
“We hear you: the grind is too slow,” the team added. “You want to try different builds, equip stronger weapons, use Altered Augments and experiment with Perks. Right now, getting to that takes too long.
“The upgrade economy was balanced with players finding a good amount of Lost Assets currency during Jobs, but as the currency (the folders on the ground) does not particularly stand out from the environments, players completely ignore them and are thus earning Lost Assets roughly 3x slower than hoped,” the notes admitted. “Then, players do not earn Lost Assets unless they finish a job. If you exit a job midway or disconnect, you’ll get nothing. That’s frustrating. We are looking into what we could do about this, but there are no changes to announce yet.”
For the full notes, head on over to Steam.
In Eurogamer’s FBC Firebreak review, we awarded it 3 out of 5 stars, writing: “A bold approach to the concept of work marks this game out as a singular enterprise”.