Technologies

FBC Firebreak Hands-On: Saving the Office With Super Soakers and Shotguns

A preview for Remedy Entertainment’s squad shooter showed off its weird and fun co-op action, like Left 4 Dead meets Ghostbusters.

Minutes into my mission, I’m having second thoughts. Gunning down a dozen zombie-like enemies is a lot for a lowly office worker in the Federal Bureau of Control. At first, it’s hard to have faith in my gear — a backpack water jug with a cannon for drenching enemies. But then my fellow FBC squad mate (a secretary or middle manager, I forget which) uses his kit to zap all the soaked foes at once. With our third coworker slamming their wrench into anything that moves, we barely manage to fix up some broken fans before sprinting for the elevator as the doors close on the enemy horde.

Welcome to FBC Firebreak. Media got a chance to play the game for a few hours in an online preview ahead of its release on June 17.

Six in-game years after the events of Remedy Entertainment’s seminal 2019 game Control, the FBC headquarters is still partially occupied by the otherworldly Hiss invaders. But the brave workforce of the FBC has stepped up, and as one of the agency’s rangers or secretaries or middle managers, it’s up to players to drive them out of the offices.

FBC Firebeak is a departure for Remedy as its first game built to be multiplayer rather than its decades of single-player adventures. But the studio’s newest title is a smaller-scope «AA» game, unlike the flagship AAA releases like Alan Wake II, Control and its other prior hits. However, Firebreak’s $40 price tag (or $50 for the deluxe edition) that matches its more modest scope will be welcome to players reeling from the sticker shock of $80 games coming from Nintendo and Microsoft.

In my preview, I could see how Remedy is attempting to blend its signature style of weird, funky gunplay into a multiplayer setting, and mostly succeeds. There’s a lot of character to the world it’s built, and players will likely enjoy taking on the role of supernatural emergency responders as a change of pace from the gunplay-heavy squad shooters they know. But diehard fans of the studio’s storytelling-heavy approach will have to adjust to the new game’s fast co-op pace.

And they’ll have to get used to its difficulty, because FBC Firebreak is hard.

I’ll give you an example: My two squad mates — one of whom was CNET video editor Sean Booker — and I dropped into one of the three missions available to us. We each picked a gun and one of three equipment backpacks, each offering unique tools that work best when combined — a key way the game encourages teamwork. We set the mission to normal difficulty, and out we went.

The mission (or «job» in Firebreak talk) we chose was Paper Chase, wherein our squad is tasked with cleaning up a plague of supernatural Post-it notes. Like other areas of FBC headquarters, the offices we explored — faithfully recreated with ’60s shag rugs and retro decor from 2019’s Control — had been warped by the invading Hiss, making things even stranger. That meant we weren’t just fighting Hiss-possessed FBC workers clawing and shooting at us — we also had to gun down humanoid golems made of Post-its.

Our third squad mate dropped out due to GPU compatibility issues, so our CNET twosome cleared out gobs of Post-its haunting the office floor, all while getting slammed with unending hordes of enemies. We ran out of bullets pretty quickly. My colleague Booker had a mechanic’s kit with a mean wrench he could swing around — it also let him repair gadgets scattered around the level faster. Meanwhile, my backpack water blaster did little more than stagger enemies, relying on a one-two combo with the shock kit carried by our now-dropped-out squad mate.

With my weak melee and frequent deaths, Booker and I barely made it back to the elevator to finish the job. For the rest of our preview, we stuck to the easiest difficulty.

Squad up or die trying

Technically, you can drop into a «job» all by your lonesome, but I wouldn’t recommend it. They’re built to be challenging for three people, and I can attest how it’s a difficult enough experience with two, even on an easier setting. Four-person squads just weren’t balanced, as Remedy developers previously told me, which made sense as I fought tooth-and-nail through narrow hallways, roomy offices and spacious mines that would’ve felt crowded with more than two other teammates.

There are other tools at your disposal to take into jobs, like grenades, deployable equipment to use with your backpack kit and a rechargeable super ability (which we didn’t get far enough along to tinker with) — all gradually unlocked as you level up. Decked out in more gear, we stood a better chance of withstanding hordes of enemies. When I slammed down a jug filled by my water backpack that sprayed healing in a radius around it, we withstood waves of foes that had previously wiped us out.

But we still weren’t eager to tip the difficulty back up to normal, and how much players struggle may be a make-or-break point for Firebreak’s player experience. It’s a balance that could be tweaked in many ways before the game comes out in June, from enemy health and behavior to kit effectiveness and ammo availability. Remedy reinforced that the preview we saw was a work in progress, so I’d expect some tinkering to come, but the game walks a tricky line in encouraging (and borderline requiring) cooperation through its unique mechanics and tasks while allowing player flexibility — after all, the strangers filling your online co-op squad will come in a variety of skill levels and attitudes.

In its current state, getting swamped by wave after wave of Hiss while feeling my kit’s inadequacy is a bit worrisome. The game shows promise with its unique setting, gameplay and niche in the multiplayer shooter space — one that favors weirdness and intriguing mechanics over sweaty gunplay.

Co-op in the Alan Wake universe

As the FBC Firebreak developers explained in our briefing before the preview, the game was designed with three core pillars. The most obvious of those was on display when we booted up the game: there should be as little standing between players booting up the game and getting to the action. No cutscenes, plot diversions or dense dialogue to get in the way of jumping into a job.

That leads to the game’s second pillar: every player gets the same content — no progression roadblocks or paid DLC to split up a squad. For the $40 entry fee, players will get whatever the Firebreak developers introduce to the game — which at the moment are two additional jobs coming sometime after the game’s launch.

This ties into one of my main annoyances during the preview: progression felt too slow to unlock enough items that made me feel effective in the field. It makes sense if Remedy wants a longer progression runway to keep players coming back — for new equipment, better weapons and more cosmetics to outfit their Firebreak workers.

The last pillar was the one I saw the least of — mainly because we didn’t see much of the game: that FBC Firebreak delivers action and moments found «only in Control.» From the preview, this bore out in the reliance on kit equipment over guns — even without my third squad mate following up with an electricity blast, I discovered my water gun could stagger enemies when charged up, leaving my other squad mate to batter them with his wrench. This mixes in a dose of absurdity with the frenetic terror of Hiss hordes.

In practice, FBC Firebreak feels like a mixture of Left 4 Dead and Ghostbusters, which is a fun and funky blend that shakes up the tired squad shooter genre. But its focus on quickly moving players in and out of jobs leaves little room for the kind of secret-hunting and lore-digging that defined past Remedy games. To that end, it’s tough to imagine whether the studio’s diehard fans will embrace Firebreak’s loops running the same missions without heavy storytelling, let alone standout moments like Control’s Ashtray Maze or Alan Wake II’s We Sing musical sequence.

Firebreak’s developers previously told me they don’t believe those memorable moments really fit in a multiplayer game, especially if it means forcing players to relive them repeatedly. They’re probably right, but it means the new game will need to rely on emergent moments born from unpredictable, often ridiculous situations — the kind of had-to-be-there memories that help a game stand out.

With no more of FBC director Jesse Faden’s story until Control 2, and no required story content in Firebreak, the new game seems poised to truly stand on its own. And without any detail on how Firebreak ties into the greater Remedyverse storyline shared across the studio’s games, or how much lore it has tucked away waiting for players to discover, Firebreak will sink or swim based on how fun it is to run around as an office drone saving your workplace with wild gadgets and guns. A lot of that remains to be seen.

Technologies

Uber Adds Rental Car Delivery and Discounted Airport Rides Before July 4 Weekend Surge

Look for new airport pickup options and more flexibility for hotel food deliveries.

With AAA forecasting that a record-breaking 72 million Americans will travel during the week of July 4, ride-hailing and delivery company Uber is launching various updates to make summer vacations more seamless. Uber is significantly expanding its rental-car delivery service, introducing new airport options for ride-sharing and prescheduled pickups, and adding more flexibility for hotel food deliveries.

Read also: Uber’s Simplified App for Seniors Is Launching Nationwide

Car rental dropoff expands

One of the biggest updates is the expansion of Uber Rent — the service’s car-rental department — by adding car delivery, which allows users to have a rental car dropped off at their home, office or hotel. This summer, the service is rolling out to 15 additional US cities, including Dallas, Phoenix, Charlotte and Las Vegas, bringing the total to 24 cities nationwide.

Travelers can book a rental car as little as 2 hours in advance or up to six months ahead. Uber also notes that there’s no fee to cancel, as long as it’s at least 2 hours before the scheduled drop-off.

More affordable airport rides

Uber is also expanding Uber Share at Airports, a carpool-style option where travelers heading to or from the airport can share a ride with one other passenger and save up to 25% compared to a standard UberX, which is the regular Uber tier. Even if no match is found, riders still pay the discounted rate.

This feature is now available at more than 40 additional airports, including Chicago Midway, Nashville, Washington Reagan, and international cities like Paris, Lisbon and Stockholm.

Enhanced hotel food delivery

The company is adding new delivery options for travelers relying on Uber Eats while staying at hotels. Users can now select how they want their food dropped off: meeting the courier in the lobby, having the food left at the front desk or requesting direct delivery to their hotel room doorway.

Travelers staying at Marriott properties can also now earn Marriott Bonvoy points on Uber Eats orders, provided their loyalty account is linked in the app.

More airport pickup options in the suburbs

Uber is also expanding its Reserve Airport Pickup feature to 70 more airports in the US and Canada, with a focus on smaller towns and suburban destinations such as Reno, Green Bay and Sarasota. Reserve rides can be scheduled in advance, a convenience for travelers flying into areas with fewer transit options.

These updates are arriving just in time for one of the busiest travel weeks of the year. Additional changes are listed in the Uber Newsroom post.

Technologies

Microsoft Layoffs Are Here and These 3 Games Have Already Been Canceled

Microsoft is cutting more than 9,000 jobs — 4% of its global workforce — and as a result, Everwild and the Perfect Dark reboot have been put out to pasture.

Microsoft is moving ahead with mass layoffs, cutting a little less than 4% of its workforce or about 9,000 roles across the company. As a result, multiple games brewing within Xbox Game Studios were canceled, including some fairly high-profile projects.

When reached for comment, Microsoft directed CNET to reports Wednesday by Variety, confirming their accuracy.

«To position Gaming for enduring success and allow us to focus on strategic growth areas, we will end or decrease work in certain areas of the business and follow Microsoft’s lead in removing layers of management to increase agility and effectiveness,» Microsoft Gaming chief Phil Spencer wrote in a staff memo Wednesday morning, as published by Variety.

Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty confirmed the game cancellations in an internal email published by Variety, naming Perfect Dark and Everwild specifically, as well as other «unannounced» titles.

«We have made the decision to stop development of Perfect Dark and Everwild as well as wind down several unannounced projects across our portfolio,» Booty wrote in the email. «As part of this, we are closing one of our studios, The Initiative.»

Booty added that the decisions to axe these games «reflect a broader effort to adjust priorities and focus resources to set up our teams for greater success within a changing industry landscape. We did not make these choices lightly, as each project and team represent years of effort, imagination and commitment.»

What Xbox games have been canceled?

Perhaps the most significant title canceled amid these new layoffs was a reboot of the classic FPS series, Perfect Dark. The studio that had been working on this new title, The Initiative, will be shut down entirely.

The long-awaited new entry in the sci-fi espionage series has been in the works since the studio opened in 2018 and first showed off gameplay footage for the title during an Xbox Games Showcase in June 2024.

Another notable title getting the axe is Everwild, a long-gestating new IP from Rare, the revered British studio Sea of Thieves, which Microsoft acquired in 2002. Over the decades, the studio has also produced the original Donkey King Country games for the SNES, the original Perfect Dark for the Nintendo 64, Conker’s Bad Fur Day and the Banjo-Kazooie series.

According to unnamed sources who spoke to Video Games Chronicle, numerous job cuts and a broader restructuring are expected at Rare, resulting in the game’s cancellation. The sources also confirmed reports over the years about Everwild’s somewhat turbulent development, claiming that it had «struggled to nail down a clear direction for the title.»

The game has reportedly been in development for the better part of a decade, being officially announced in 2019, followed by a trailer in 2020. In 2021, reports emerged that development on the game had been «rebooted.»

The other title reportedly put out to pasture was an untitled new MMORPG from Zenimax Online Studios, the creator of the popular MMO Elder Scrolls Online, which has reportedly reached upward of 25 million players since launching in 2014.

Details about what this title was are sparse, with Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reporting that the game went by the codename «Blackbird» and had been in the works since 2018. Windows Central said in its report about Perfect Dark’s cancellation that Blackbird was once intended to act as a successor of sorts to Elder Scrolls Online.

David Lumb, a senior reporter at CNET, noted how these new developments at Microsoft underscored the recent job instability in the gaming industry, as well as the uncertainty the cancellations are sure to cause among gamers.

«The biggest losses are to the seemingly thousands of people who are out of a job in a tumultuous industry that’s seen record layoffs year over year,» Lumb explained, adding, «The cancellations of big games like the upcoming Perfect Dark and Rare’s next game Everwild are concerning for Microsoft’s next few years of releases, but also to confidence that a game being teased at, say, an Xbox Showcase will end up coming out.»

According to Variety, all games that were shown off during the 2025 Xbox Games Showcase in June will continue being developed.

Technologies

Razer Handheld Dock Chroma Follows Its Accessories’ Formula: High Quality With a Higher Price

Review: The Razer Handheld Dock Chroma is great for traveling with your gaming handheld, but it’s not the only option.

The Handheld Dock Chroma from Razer is a compact stand and dock for portable gaming consoles and tablets, offering charging and an interface to send your games to a bigger screen. As the name suggests, it includes RGB lighting that’s part of Razer’s Chroma ecosystem. It was announced at CES in January, and it recently started shipping. Is it any good? Well, largely yes, with some important caveats.

What I like about the Razer Handheld Dock Chroma

The Razer Handheld Chroma Dock is well built. It follows the company’s signature trend of delivering high-quality accessories that look great and are reliably durable. The metal build quality is a nice touch against all the other plastic, cheap-feeling options out there. It’s also fairly small, making it easy to drop in a bag as you head out. That’s kind of the point, as Razer designed this dock to be portable, fitting in nicely with the whole idea of handheld gaming in the first place.

One big difference of the Dock Chroma, compared to other docks and which also plays well into the portability aspect, is that the stand to hold the handheld is adjustable. It will lie flat, covering the mounting deck entirely and turning the whole thing into a little cube. Or you can adjust it as steep as 75 degrees to find the perfect viewing angle while gaming.

As the Chroma name suggests, there’s an RBG light strip on the front that syncs up with your Chroma settings. If you aren’t using a device that supports Chroma, there’s a button on the right side you can use to cycle between some preset lighting scenes.

What I don’t like about the Razer Handheld Dock Chroma

The first odd design choice almost flies in the face of the whole portable idea: There’s a USB-C cable sticking out of the back. This is what you connect to your handheld but oddly it can’t be detached or even folded into the dock itself. So it’s a bit clunky from a portability standpoint.

Then there’s the port selection. There’s a 100-watt USB-C port, three USB-A Gen 1 ports, a gigabit Ethernet port and an HDMI 2.0 port. That’s not a terrible port selection for a docking station, but the lack of a second USB-C, DisplayPort or a 3.5mm headphone port is rather disappointing.

Performance

For something that’s essentially a docking station for handheld gaming rigs, the Chroma Dock works well. I hooked it up to a ROG Ally and had no issues at all. It was cool to be able to drop the Ally onto the dock, Switch-style, and instantly have my games up on my monitor and TV. The plethora of ports navigating Windows 11 on the Ally makes it so much easier by letting me use a keyboard and mouse with it.

The Chroma Dock works with any device that supports USB-C, including the Nintendo Switch. Just be aware that it’s kinda awkward with the Switch because you have to set it upside down for it to work, and you’ll need to use the original Nintendo charger that came with it. You’ll also need to provide your own charger for any device you use as Razer doesn’t include one in the box. But for the Switch specifically, you’ll need the Nintendo one.

Technically, you could mount any USB-C device onto the dock, including a tablet or phone, to have an all-in-one sort of situation. If you’re on the go a lot, this might be a game-changer in more ways than one.

Should you get the Razer Handheld Dock Chroma?

If you’re ready to pay the Razer premium, then perhaps. The Chroma Dock will set you back $80, which is more than double the price of most other similar docks. That’s a lot to ask for something like this. But if you want that Razer brand and you have other Chroma lighting gear, it’s well-built, if lacking in some features.