FBC: Firebreak bombed. The multiplayer spin-off of Remedy’s hit game Control, which imagines players as squads of gun-toting supernatural janitors meant to clean up the messes inside its eerie and magical setting, did not find the audience that the original game did. If the readily available Steam charts are any indication, it missed the mark by a sizable margin and Remedy itself has since confirmed that the title underperformed. And yet, the multiplayer title, which Remedy has spent the better part of a year tuning up and molding into something more appealing to players, isn’t just disappearing from the face of the Earth after failing to connect with audiences. With its dying breath, it is actually setting a standard that the rest of the games industry ought to rise to meet.

When Remedy announced that it would be sunsetting FBC: Firebreak after one final update, I was prepared to see an expiration date: a finish line or resignation of sorts. Instead, I found this: “FBC: Firebreak will stay online and continue to be playable for years to come. We have done engineering work to ensure we can sustain the upkeep of the relay servers when the player volume is lower.” This move, and the addition of a friend pass system–allowing one person to own the game and share it with others who don’t–has assured that FBC: Firebreak will have legs for some time to come.

This is a shocking, and very welcome, development at a perilous time for multiplayer games. While titles like Marathon try to find an audience (let alone one the size of its most immediate competition, the viral sensation Arc Raiders), others, like Highguard, have come and gone seemingly in the blink of an eye. And when a game like these is deemed dead, the industry all but assures it stays that way. Like Concord, games are ripped off of physical and digital store shelves. They are delisted and pulled from libraries. Teams are laid off and studios are outright shuttered. The servers powering these games are given an end date and, before long, they are shut down and all we’re left with is memories of them.

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