Image via Remedy Entertainment
As Remedy Entertainment gears up for the release of Control Resonant, it’s beefed up the offerings in another title in its shared universe: FBC: Firebreak.
Endless Shift is a brand new, wave-based survival game mode for FBC: Firebreak, and it’s pretty bloody good. The base game is a co-op shooter that sees you clearing out threats across levels in stages, and the change in pace is not only welcome but it’s also completely open for those looking to jump into the title for the first time.
Endless Shift Feels Fun, Frantic, And Somehow Unique
When I heard about Endless Shift’s launch, I downloaded FBC: Firebreak and dove in for a few matches. I’d played the tutorial a few days earlier, meaning I was as fresh as they come to the game going into this brand new mode.
Thankfully, Endless Shift is a completely self-contained game mode that doesn’t require experience fighting enemies or various unlocks. You can go in blind and have just as good a time as if you’d been playing since the main game came out.
Every match offers you a choice between one of three weapons, your steadfast ally for the entire time, and then throws you to the wolves. In this case, the wolves are waves of enemies from other dimensions that are attempting to overrun The Oldest House.
Waves of enemies batter you until you’ve either killed them all or the timer runs out. This is as much about surviving the onslaught as it is about defeating it. Mercifully, there’s a lot of fodder that’ll go down fast as long as you aim well, but larger enemies love to pop in and make a nuisance of themselves.
Defeating enemies earns you Corruption, and that’s what you need to buy upgrades at the end of every wave. These range from full-on deployable weapons to slight changes to your speed, damage, health, and so on. What I love about the upgrades is that your increase in power, mobility, or whatever boon you gain comes with a drawback.
As you become more proficient, so too do your enemies. The system ensures that no wave is ever boring. The enemies vary much more in power and numbers as you get deeper into these waves, but their improved abilities as a direct response to your enhanced power make the mode feel extremely special.
Making Endless Shift feel even more individual among wave-based shooters are the environments of The Oldest House. Sticky Notes are still around to clog up your screen, and fire can make for a real challenge for both you and your foes.
Even player classes are still at play here, with showers and equipment getting broken but able to be repaired, and the impacts of elements such as water on full display for those who see an opportunity to use them correctly. For example, water can put out fires and clear obstacles as well as make foes susceptible to electrical damage, but you might want to leave fire hazards out to clear out enemies.
Once you finish a round, when the enemies have finally proven too much, and no one on the team can reach each other for revives, you’ll hit the absolutely massive rewards screen. You can pick rewards based on the number of rounds you managed to fight through, but only one, and you’ll need to pick wisely because they vary in rarity.
These rewards are new upgrades that you can pick from in your next foray into Endless Shift. It’s an exciting gameplay loop that gives you the little nudge that you barely need to dive in for another round.
Honestly, this one is a banger, and you can play for ‘free’ if you’ve got a PlayStation Plus subscription since the game’s included in the offerings. If you want to read more impressions about awesome games as they come out, be sure to follow all our socials and check out our free Patreon tier for instant updates.
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