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Subscribe to the world's #1 PC gaming mag Try a single issue or save on a subscription Issues delivered straight to your door or device From£35.99Subscribe now PC Gaming Show Tokyo Essential Hardware Battlefield 6 Don't miss these Remedy promises a 'major update' for FBC: Firebreak but not until late September, which doesn't seem great Remedy is 'unsatisfied' by poor sales of FBC: Firebreak and a tiny PC playerbase, but says 'despite the rocky launch, we believe we have a solid game to build on' 'We need to do a better job': FBC Firebreak devs are revamping progression after finding out that just 5% of players own a level 3 perk FBC: Firebreak's latest patch lets you turn off enemy health bars, which should be mandatory for all first-person shooters Witchfire's massive next update is inspired by games like Syndicate and Bloodborne, and it's the biggest one yet: 'We really mean it' Third Person Shooter Somehow, MindsEye is not dead: A new update promises to improve performance by removing 'ambient rubbish' Third Person Shooter Helldivers 2 devs say players are 'absolutely right to expect better' after latest update's crashes and stumbles—promise mid-October patch and 'better communication' Third Person Shooter Helldivers 2's new hive world update is absolutely kicking my ass, and it's just what the game needed Starship Troopers: Extermination implements a 'total overhaul' to its spawning system, adding a Left 4 Dead style AI director: 'We realized that our original spawning system, while functional, was starting to show its limit' Upcoming shooter Reaper Actual throws up some big red flags, but its creators are MMO and FPS heavyweights who can't easily be dismissed Capcom smashes second, larger pane of emergency glass—pulling a big endgame Monster Hunter Wilds update from September and getting it ready for next month instead Third Person Shooter As bugs and bad performance spoil an otherwise excellent Helldivers 2 update, Arrowhead CEO says its 'technical debt is crippling' With Steam launch concurrents at an all-time low for Destiny 2's latest expansion, I think Bungie is finally paying the price for years of mistakes—the biggest being the time it removed paid content Mycopunk Review: Long live wacky co-op shooters Rogue Point is a FPS roguelite that does everything in its power to encourage players to actually work as a team FBC: Firebreak Remedy's bold gambit to save FBC: Firebreak arrives on Monday, in the form of a massive update that aims to 'improve everything' about the underwhelming coop shooter 27 September 2025 Jobs are out. Crises are in. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Remedy) FBC: Firebreak was a bit of a disappointment when it released back in June. There was certainly potential in running around playing janitor within the brutalist interdimensional nexus known as The Oldest House. But Remedy's cooperative shooter simply didn't feel ready for action, as I discovered in my FBC: Firebreak review. It was too lean, too repetitive, too unbalanced, and lacked some fundamental features like a proper tutorial. Remedy has spent the last few months plugging holes in Firebreak's leaky hull, but the latest patch, which arrives next week, represents the studio's first proper attempt to turn the ship around. The dramatically named Breakpoint update seems, on paper, to represent a complete overhaul of Firebreak's core experience, while also adding a whole new mission and a bunch of smaller features, too. At the heart of Breakpoint is a total rework of how missions are selected. The Jobs board—from which players picked a mission to play and then customised its difficulty and length—has been hacked to splinters with a fire axe and tossed into a skip. It's replaced by a 'Crises' board that offers a tailored selection of Jobs with preset lengths that refresh every 30 minutes, a system that sounds similar to the mission selection screen from Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. Related Articles Remedy promises a 'major update' for FBC: Firebreak but not until late September, which doesn't seem great Remedy is 'unsatisfied' by poor sales of FBC: Firebreak and a tiny PC playerbase, but says 'despite the rocky launch, we believe we have a solid game to build on' 'We need to do a better job': FBC Firebreak devs are revamping progression after finding out that just 5% of players own a level 3 perk "[The] Firebreak (initiative) was formed to manage an ongoing crisis, and as a first responder, you should be reacting to dynamic, unpredictable dangers, not being asked to create danger for yourself," Remedy writes to explain the change. The Crises board would also appear to address one of my biggest complaints with Firebreak, namely, how it forced you to play each job in repeated increments. It's a decision that counter-intuitively reduced its replay value, as it meant you'd already played most of a mission several times over by the point you reached its end, leaving you with little inclination to go back. (Image credit: Remedy Entertainment) Remedy plans to further boost replay value by increasing the unpredictability of jobs, adding alternative objectives that can appear during a mission, and randomising health and ammo locations. Overall, it sounds like a big improvement, though the change does mean players have less control over missions they play, with Remedy saying it is "exploring ways to bring back more customisation in the future". This overhaul coincides with the addition of a new Job. Codename 'Outbreak' takes a leaf out of Resident Evil 7's blighted book, with players rushing to contain a rapidly spreading mold epidemic in the oldest house's research sector. This fungal fiasco introduces two new enemies, stationary Mold Turrets and lumbering Mold Walkers. As well as attacking you, these enemies can also spread the contagion to other characters, potentially turning enemies into Mold Walkers, or your Firebreak coworkers into Mold Turrets. Lovely. For its final major change, Breakpoint introduces more formal onboarding for new players. Breakpoint adds a playable Orientation level that guides rookie firebreakers through the basics, as well as a 'Welcome to Firebreak' video that introduces the overall premise, and overview videos for each Job. I'm glad Remedy has made these latter additions alongside the basic tutorial. Firebreak assumed far too much familiarity with Control when dumping you into The Oldest House, so having proper context for what the FBC is and what you're doing is not only useful, but given how weird The Oldest House is, also a big part of the fun. The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. While these are the big new features coming to Breakpoint, there's a ton of smaller stuff being tweaked and added to. This includes new weapons, three additional Hiss enemies, a gun mod system, an economy rework, and more still. Remedy states that its ultimate goal with Breakpoint is to "improve everything about the FBC: Firebreak experience" and lay a stronger foundation for future updates, with the next big patch due in November. Longer-term support for Firebreak will likely hinge upon how players respond to these changes. Remedy has already said it is 'unsatisfied' with the spinoff's sales figures and its negligible PC player base, so the onus is on Breakpoint and that November update to bring wayward FBC recruits back into the fold. 2025 games: This year's upcoming releases Best PC games: Our all-time favorites Free PC games: Freebie fest Best FPS games: Finest gunplay Best RPGs: Grand adventures Best co-op games: Better together Contributor Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims. You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. Remedy promises a 'major update' for FBC: Firebreak but not until late September, which doesn't seem great Remedy is 'unsatisfied' by poor sales of FBC: Firebreak and a tiny PC playerbase, but says 'despite the rocky launch, we believe we have a solid game to build on' 'We need to do a better job': FBC Firebreak devs are revamping progression after finding out that just 5% of players own a level 3 perk FBC: Firebreak's latest patch lets you turn off enemy health bars, which should be mandatory for all first-person shooters Witchfire's massive next update is inspired by games like Syndicate and Bloodborne, and it's the biggest one yet: 'We really mean it' Somehow, MindsEye is not dead: A new update promises to improve performance by removing 'ambient rubbish' Latest in FPS Borderlands 4 weekly update and latest patch notes How to get the Undead Eye in Borderlands 4 How to get the Kill Spring in Borderlands 4 How to get the Bod in Borderlands 4 How to get the Convergence in Borderlands 4 Borderlands 4's latest patch triggers a flurry of performance complaints, but Gearbox says new stuttering problems 'should resolve over time as the shaders continue to compile' Latest in News EA is reportedly about to be sold in a record-setting $50 billion buyout to an investor group that includes private equity and Saudi Arabia Silksong player uses every speedrunning trick in the book to lock poor Hornet in bug jail forever: 'I don't know why anyone would want to do this, but I have done it anyway' REPO devs are adding a new mechanic that'll let you grab things while tumbling and—more importantly—kill things with butt physics Brazil's president has signed a ban on selling loot boxes to minors as part of a larger online child safety law Path of Exile 2 is making a surprise Atlas overhaul next week to liberate its players from tower tyranny Worst people alive hack nursery chain and start posting pictures and personal info of literal toddlers on the dark web HARDWARE BUYING GUIDES LATEST GAME REVIEWS Best gaming laptop in 2025: I've had my hands on the best laptops for gaming of this generation and these are the ones I recommend Best SSD for gaming in 2025: the fastest and the best value solid state drives to perk up your PC Best Hall effect keyboards in 2025: the fastest, most customizable keyboards for competitive gaming Best PCIe 5.0 SSD for gaming in 2025: the only Gen 5 drives I will allow in my PC Best graphics cards in 2025: I've tested pretty much every AMD and Nvidia GPU of the past 20 years and these are today's top cards Corsair Sabre V2 Pro Ultralight Wireless gaming mouse review Glorious Model O3 Wireless review Hades 2 review: A sequel worthy of the throne Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles review: An extraordinary remaster of an essential RPG Baby Steps review: One of the funniest games I've ever played is also one of the most frustrating PC Gamer is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. 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