It's been clear from the very beginning that , while inspired by Control and based in its world, is its own unique experience—it's quirky, absurd, and looks like a hell of a lot of fun. Now we're just a week away from Firebreak's release, game director Mike Kayatta wants to remind everyone again just how different this game is.

During the PC Gaming Show 2025, Kayatta sat down to talk about what players can expect from Firebreak and how it stands out from other games Remedy has made. "We're tonally towards the side of Control, which was a really big challenge for us because Control was very moody and atmospheric and had a horror tinge," Kayatta says. "But of course it did always have that edge of absurdity.

"This is why we leaned more into that absurd angle, because Control was very carefully built [[link]] for a singleplayer experience, and since we are doing a kind of joke around with your mates and have fun thing we didn't want to totally betray that franchise so we took those recipe components and flip them around."

Firebreak completely leans into that classic multiplayer FPS chaos that I really love. With chaotic missions, terrifying sticky note monsters, and even , it seems like an exciting game to play with friends.

But Firebreak's chaos isn't just restricted to its monsters—it stretches across everything it does, especially its loadouts and weapons. "The game is kind of built around a trifecta of saved loadouts that are centred around tools," Kayatta says. "We call them Crisis Kits, and each one was developed with a different playstyle in mind."

There's a gun that shoots out giant liquid globules, meant for the kinds of players who just want to spray bullets first and think later. Then there's [[link]] a tool which is like "a pogo stick mixed with a defibrillator" that allows for precision shots and some impressive mobility, as you can shoot yourself up into the air. But I think the last tool has my name written all over it.

"The last really complex tool is literally just a wrench," Kayatta says. "We thought, what if you were just really drunk playing this game, or what if you've never played a videogame before, you'd really just want one button to press." This essentially means that you need very little skill to excel [[link]] with this tool—simply aim for the head and swing the wrench blindly around, my perfect weapon.

But Kayatta also stresses that Firebreak is more than just goofy fights and absurd weapons: "We made a lot of active decisions to get people right into the gameplay. That's at the cost of some direct storytelling, but we haven't scrimped on the world-building and the big narrative and what it feels like to be inside the Oldest House." It's great news for those of us who love good old-fashioned Remedy storytelling, even if Firebreak isn't a typical Remedy game.

So, long story short, Firebreak may be inspired by previous Remedy games, but don't go convincing yourself that this is a total return to Control.

"It's fundamentally different," Kayatta says. "You shouldn't go into this game expecting those kinds of experiences. This isn't a push back on those kinds of games, but we just wanted to see if there was a way to just open the doors, to give that step in [for new players]. So even if [Firebreak] isn't what Remedy is today, I do hope that it will be part of what Remedy is in the future."

Check out