The initial reception of Remedy's FBC: Firebreak was lackluster

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 6/18/2025 at 8:22 am EEST.

Remedy’s three-player co-op multiplayer game FBC: Firebreak was released on Tuesday at 1:00 pm EEST. Initial feedback from critics and players is mixed, but overall leans towards disappointment. So, at least the possibility of a positive surprise that we had previously envisioned has been taken off the table. However, it is still too early to draw definitive conclusions, and in our opinion, the following weeks and months will give a better indication of how the game's player base will begin to take shape. Our expectations for the game have already been cautious, but at this point it is still difficult to say how the game will develop in relation to them. We are therefore monitoring the situation calmly and will review our forecasts when the picture becomes clearer (at the latest in connection with the Q2 result on August 12). We also remind that our positive view on the share is primarily based on Remedy's earnings potential after the release of Control 2 (our forecast for release is H1'27). However, as anticipated, FBC: Firebreak is a key short-term driver for the stock, as evidenced by yesterday's clearly negative share price reaction.

The initial critic and player reviews were generally weak

So far, critic reviews have been received in practice only from critics who tested the game while it was still in development, and we believe that reviews based on the game released on Tuesday are to be expected in the near future. So far, the Metacritic score from 17 critics on the PC platform is 65/100, and 66/100 based on 13 reviews for the PS5 platform. Based on 32 reviews collected by Open Critic, the game's score is 67/100, and only 40% of critics recommend the game. The scores are weak and clearly below Remedy's latest single-player releases (Alan Wake 2 and Control). This was also somewhat expected, as multiplayer games that are constantly being developed after release cannot be directly compared to single-player games that are polished as much as possible. The game's budget (around 30 MEUR) is also more at the AA level than the aforementioned AAA games. Still, there were hopes for better reviews than what we have seen now.

In multiplayer games, it is also most important to find and develop a fun core gameplay loop that encourages players to return to the game. In this regard, the preliminary Steam reviews from players received on Tuesday were worrying. On Tuesday evening, only about 40% of the players (~350 reviews at that time) had given the game positive feedback. Some of the negative feedback is related to the fact that the gaming experience does not work when playing alone. However, the game is primarily designed to be played among 3 friends, which makes communication and task completion much easier and more enjoyable. Yesterday's own gaming experiences with unknown fellow players also gave me the feeling that the game would be much more fun to play with friends. Still, the game was quite fun to play with strangers even without a microphone as a means of communication. I also tried playing a few short rounds of the game alone, and I couldn't really enjoy the experience then. The game also becomes more fun after playing for a few hours, as you can develop your character and weapons. However, some of the players who immediately gave negative feedback with 1-2 hours of playtime may have dropped out before this point. On Wednesday morning, the share of positive feedback on Steam had risen to 59% (total reviews around 730), which supports the idea that players' experience improves as the number of hours played increases.

There is no visibility into Firebreak's player numbers on console platforms, but on Steam, the game was played by a maximum of 1,992 players simultaneously yesterday. The figure is still very weak, and in the case of a very successful game, we could be talking about tens of thousands of simultaneous players.

Our expectations for FBC: Firebreak sales have been cautious for some time

At its Capital Markets Day at the end of last year, Remedy commented that FBC: Firebreak, which was made with a development budget of 30 MEUR, needs to sell roughly 3 million copies in order for the game to achieve the minimum 100% return on invested capital that Remedy targets for each game. This calculation includes payments from Sony and Microsoft for the game now being immediately available via PC Game Pass, Game Pass Ultimate and PlayStation Plus Game Catalogue (Extra and Premium). We have assumed the value of these agreements to be approximately 10 MEUR for Remedy. Overall, we expect FBC: Firebreak to generate only about 50% of the capital invested in the project by 2028, which would require about 2 million copies sold at an average price of EUR 30 in the example calculation. Currently, the basic version of the game sells for around EUR 40 and the deluxe version costs EUR 50. So, the expectations are not particularly demanding, but even this level of sales could remain a pipe dream if the game ends up in a negative spiral in the coming months and players lose interest. However, the game's development will continue after the release, and time will tell what level the game's player numbers will settle at. However, the start of the first 24 hours is a disappointment.