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

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for May 15, #234

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 234, for May 15.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Connections: Sports Edition has a tough blue category, but you might get it easily if you’re a fan of a certain international sport. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Get to that ball.

Green group hint: Think Jack Nicklaus.

Blue group hint: Ted Lasso.

Purple group hint: J.R. Ewing.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Handle a baseball.

Green group: Found in a golf bag.

Blue group: Premier League team nicknames.

Purple group: Dallas ____.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is handle a baseball. The four answers are catch, field, glove and scoop.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is found in a golf bag. The four answers are balls, clubs, tees and towel.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Premier League team nicknames. The four answers are Bees, Cherries, Saints and Tractor Boys.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is Dallas ____. The four answers are Cowboys, Goedert, Mavericks and Stars.

Technologies

Marvel Rivals’ Galacta’s Gift Event Makes Ranking Up Even Easier

Marvel Rivals’ ranked competitive mode has been mired in controversy since the game’s release. Despite this, it’s about to be even easier to climb the ladder.

There has been no shortage of criticism for Marvel Rivals’ ranked competitive system since the game’s launch in December. Players earn far more rank points from a win than they lose from a loss, leading players with sub-50% win rates to climb the ladder to Diamond or Grandmaster — and in some people’s eyes, the rank distribution has lost much of its meaning and prestige.

Now, Marvel Rivals’ latest event risks further muddling the skill divisions of the competitive mode when it launches on May 15. The Galacta’s Gift event pass will include eight consumable Chrono Shield Cards, which will prevent players from losing rank points after a competitive match loss.

Read More: Marvel Rivals Season 2: The 6 Best Heroes to Start Learning Now

The decision to add further safeguards to the Marvel Rivals’ ranked experience is puzzling. But it might be another way to retain high player engagement, especially as support players have gone on strike during Season 2.

Steam player counts are a flawed metric to measure a game’s success, as player count naturally picks up and drops depending on what is going on in-game, and these charts account only for a subset of PC players among the broad console-inclusive playerbase. Even so, Marvel Rivals reportedly had more players at the end of Season 1 than at the beginning of Season 2. This event could be a quick way to scrape back some of those lapsed players, even if it harms the game’s competitive integrity.

Whether the Chrono Shield Cards will be detrimental to the game’s competitive environment, they’re here to stay. Here’s how to get them — among the other rewards included in the new Galacta’s Gift event.

Chrono Shield Cards will protect your rank points

Completing event challenges during the Galacta’s Gift event will level up a free event pass, containing seven tiers with different rewards.

At tiers two and four, players will earn separate bundles of four Chrono Shield Cards. That means you’re able to earn eight total Chrono Shield Cards during the item’s debut.

Once you activate a Chrono Shield Card, it will remain active until you lose a competitive match. Upon that loss, your Chrono Shield Card will be consumed — but you won’t lose any rank points for that defeat.

You can have up to 20 Chrono Shield Cards at a time, and they are cleared from your inventory at the end of the season. This seems to suggest that the consumables will be plentiful enough for you to stack up on, though we don’t yet know how players will be able to earn more outside of this event. Regardless, it’s healthy to be skeptical about the new addition to the game — especially if these items are moved into paid bundles sometime in the future.

Chrono Shield Cards will not remove the existing Chrono Shield system for Bronze, Silver and Gold players, which charges as they lose ranked games. After enough losses, lower-ranked players gain a Chrono Shield — protecting them from a rank demotion for a single game. Since this system protects ranked points in the lowest ranks, I’d recommend saving your Chrono Shield Cards until you reach at least Platinum rank on the competitive ladder.

How to get a free costume during the Galacta’s Gift event

The Chrono Shield Cards are likely going to be the most controversial event rewards in Marvel Rivals to date, but the juiciest prize in the new event is the costume coin on the final tier.

This special currency has only been obtainable during one other event — the paid Hyper Orange Venom Pick Up Bundle. If you have a costume coin, you’re able to trade it in for a premium skin from the costume shop.

Many of these skins cost 1,600 units, the standard premium currency in Marvel Rivals, which is roughly equivalent to $16. Spending $3 to earn the costume coin in the Pick Up Bundle was a very good deal. Being able to earn a costume coin for free during the new event is even better.

There are a number of caveats to the costume coin exchange, however. Only costumes for Season 0 heroes are available — that means you can get a costume for a hero that was available at launch. That means costumes for the members of the Fantastic Four and Emma Frost will not be available in the costume coin exchange.

Once you have your costume coin, you can trade it in by navigating to the Exchange tab located under the Store menu. I highly recommend you nab the Incognito Dolphin skin for Jeff the Shark, so you can look cute and cuddly while you harass the enemy backline.

Want to get your hands on more free costumes? We have a guide for every current (and previous) free skin in Marvel Rivals.

Technologies

Act Fast to Get This Limited-Time Deal on the Best Portable iPhone Charger I’ve Found

For just $32, you can get my favorite ultra-compact iPhone charger, the Anker 622 MagGo, which snaps neatly onto the back of my iPhone and goes everywhere I do.

Like most people living in the modern world, I use my phone for just about every aspect of life — from staying in touch with work, family and friends to getting driving directions, news and weather updates. And like most people, I also live in fear that my iPhone’s battery will die on me right when I need it most. Fortunately, I bought a handy magnetic charger that is so portable and practical that I can take it everywhere I go and now my dead-battery fears are a thing of the past.

The Anker 622 MagGo is a small slab of battery with a few features that make it an ideal on-the-go accessory. Right now, Amazon has a limited-time deal going on that means you can get one for as much as 33% off, bringing the price down to $32. The charger comes in a variety of colors, with Interstellar Gray being the cheapest at the moment and all other colors running $34. For me, it’s more about power than color, but if you want to snap up a battery pack that complements your phone, you can choose from Buds Green, Dolomite White, Lilac Purple and Misty Blue.

Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.

Here’s why I’ve stuck with this little charger for so long

Have you seen people walk around with a loop of cable hanging from their pocket to their phone? I’ve been there and hooked that loop on too many chairs and table corners. Never again. The ring of magnets in the Anker 622 MagGo aligns with the MagSafe magnets in every iPhone since the iPhone 12, latching securely and charging without wires. (The notable exception is the iPhone 16E, which does not offer MagSafe but does charge wirelessly using Qi technology. The Anker 622 MagGo will charge the iPhone 16E but won’t latch to it magnetically.)

It’s also compact — a little backpack feeding power to the phone while you’re holding it or have it stashed in a pocket, even a jeans pocket if your fit isn’t too tight.

Those features alone would have convinced me but the Anker 622 also includes a fold-out back flap that props up my iPhone and can also hold the phone in its wide orientation for StandBy mode. With a power adapter such as the Anker Nano Pro (not included) and a charging cable, I’ve taught long classes with the phone angled to help me keep track of the time without checking my watch.

Essential Anker 622 MagGo specs

Here’s what you need to know.

Battery capacity: 5,000 milliamp hours
Voltage: 1.55 volts
Output: 7.5-watt Magnetic (compatible with MagSafe-equipped devices, iPhone 12 and later) or 20-watt USB-C port. Can charge only one device at a time.
Input: The same single USB-C is also how you recharge the device.
Size: 4.13-inch by 2.61 inches by 0.5 inch
Weight: 5 ounces
Included: Magnetic battery, 60cm (23.6 inches) USB-C to USB-C cable
Warranty: 24 months

MagSafe-compatible charging

I’ve owned several battery chargers and each one has some sort of compromise. They’re bulky. They require a cable. They charge wirelessly but don’t include a magnet to keep the phone in place so it’s hard to maintain that connection. There’s always something.

The Anker 622 is half an inch thick and snaps onto the back of my iPhone using the MagSafe-aligned magnets. I don’t have to turn it on to start charging — power flows as soon as the connection is made.

Now, this isn’t the highest-capacity (5,000 mAh) or fastest portable charger. That’s fine. What I usually need is a way to eke out a few more hours of battery life on my iPhone. I can typically get a full top-off of my iPhone 15 Pro.

Making a stand

The other appealing feature of the Anker 622 MagGo for me is its built-in stand. Honestly, it doesn’t look like it should work well: It’s a fabric-covered set of plastic pieces that lie flush against the case, folds in two places and attaches to the back of the unit with a magnetic strip when extended. Yet I’ve had no problems with the stability of my iPhone 15 Pro or even the larger iPhone 15 Pro Max size.

This also lets me use standby mode by turning the iPhone to landscape orientation (the magnets are strong enough to hold the phone in place) when it’s on a table or desk.

Smart port placement matters

The charger gets its juice from a single USB-C port, which is positioned on the edge of the case, not the bottom. That means you can replenish it while the stand is open — many chargers’ ports are stuck on the bottom.

That USB-C port also acts as a charger for other devices when you plug in a cable, such as when your Apple Watch needs a boost.

How the Anker 622 MagGo compares to similar power banks

Before getting the Anker 622 MagGo, I carried an Anker PowerCore III 10K Wireless, which doubles the battery capacity, includes a USB-A port and charges wirelessly but without magnets to hold the phone in place. That meant if I didn’t use a cable, the phone and charger needed to be stable and level; too often I’d find the iPhone slid off its wireless perch and not charged. It’s also larger and heavier. I still use it, but it’s the power bank that goes into my carry-on suitcase as a backup charger.

Since I’ve owned this Anker 622 MagGo, the company has released a few updated models. The $55 Anker 633 (currently on sale for $45) packs 10,000 mAh into a slightly thicker brick, includes a USB-A port in addition to USB-C and has a metal kickstand for resting the phone upright.

You can also consider getting the chunkier Anker MagGo Power Bank that delivers 10,000 mAh and follows the same idea of compact magnetic charging and a convenient kickstand. Its main appeals are faster 15-watt magnetic charging and Qi2 compatibility, plus a small display on the side that reports the battery capacity and an estimate of the remaining battery in hours.

For more smart buys, check out this amazing multitool and a portable TV that can go anywhere. And if you happen to be gift shopping, check out our roundup of the best gifts for grads and the best tech gifts for anyone, anytime of year.