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Hear me out: this game’s title is unfortunate. It is somewhat (ok, very) informative of plot points you will discover very quickly into playing it, but, my god, does it make searching for anything related to it a hassle. Why did no one think of that? It’s one word, closely linked to everything videogames related, your search results will always be a massive list of irrelevant stuff. Having said that, brace yourself, because that is the one bad thing there is to point out about this absolute treasure. Finnish developer Remedy Entertainment’s 2019 Control (ugh) is a mildly spooky, hugely entertaining action-adventure game where you play as Jesse Faden, the newly appointed director of the Federal Bureau of Control (that’s where they got the title from), a secret American government agency that investigates and attempts to contain paranormal activity.
Excellent Story, Even Better Battles
As Jesse, you’re thrown in the middle of the action from the get go and it takes a few moments before you understand what on Earth is even happening. Like other Remedy games, the narrative element is heavy. I used to say about Alan Wake (the first one) that the game itself is just a tool they found to tell the intricate story they wanted to tell. With Control, the plot is also given tremendous care and effort, but it is more traditionally a game. Exploration is well handled and encouraged, as you have the unnaturally large space of the FBC’s headquarters to walk around in. As you progress in the story, you will gain new navigation skills, so there will be a certain level of revisiting previously inaccessible areas, which has made this game flirt with the metroidvania genre.
Where Control shines the most however is in its combat. Jesse has strong psychokinetic abilities, and you have no idea how fun it is to hurl heavy objects like a refrigerator on to goons until you have done it in this game. This element of it is so tightly implemented, fights are completely satisfying, even as they become sometimes frustratingly difficult (one particular optional boss comes to mind). I have seen a strong element of psychokinesis since in Scarlet Nexus, and, to be fair, they hold their ground as well, but in Control it is flawless. On top of that, Jesse also carries a shapeshifting gun called the Service Weapon, which you can modify to suit your fighting style.
Without giving much away, the first thing that happens as you start the game is Jesse all but breaks into the FBC looking for her kidnapped brother Dylan, whose whereabouts were informed to her by a telepathic message. She immediately runs into the dead body of the director of the agency and, by picking up his gun, is made the new director. The agency itself is overrun by an entity called the Hiss, which possesses (or would say Controls?) the FBC agents and makes them do their bidding and whisper or chant eerily. The rest is for you to find out. The unnerving hissing sounds will keep you on edge throughout the game, so be mentally prepared for that. However, my tolerance for scary games is very low and I still thoroughly enjoyed this one. It never really becomes too much.
As you uncover some of the mysteries – emphasis on some, since a game set in an agency that deal with the paranormal will never and does not even attempt to explain everything to you – you will come to realize how vast the lore of Control is. And how well put together every detail is. The writing really cannot be praised enough. It is very noticeable that Remedy has a lot of love for the universes they create (Alan Wake is a visible exercise of that).
Since the release of the game and the positive feedback it received, there have been two narrative expansions launched for Control. The first one, called The Foundation, explores some of the human and supernatural characters / entities introduced in passing during the main game, and sees Jesse settle a bit more into her new role as Director of the FBC. It is more of the same, which could not be more welcome. The second one is more daring. It’s called AWE (for Altered World Event, which is what the FBC investigates) and is in fact a crossover with Remedy’s Alan Wake. It, for all effects and purposes, starts up a shared universe between both franchises, in ways that will be interesting to see unravel. The main bad guy here is a known baddie from Alan Wake, and this chapter digs a bit more boldly into the direction of horror. Lots of playing with light and darkness, numerous meagrely lit environments, big bad nasty monster, a constant feeling of being on edge. Again, it didn’t go over my threshold for horror, but it was definitely the scariest part of the game. Very much worth playing though, because if this expansion is deemed canon, it will have very significant repercussions in the already announced sequel.
Remedy was a successful studio before Control, but since its release, it has somewhat elevated them to a new level of prestige, and deservedly so. It received a lot of attention in many publications’ Game of The Year lists and may have given the studio permission to be more bold and inventive with their IPs. With a game that has a mystery story at its core, replayability isn’t usually a forte, since you have no motivation to reveal the same secrets more than once, but because Control has some of the coolest combats seen in recent videogame, you may just find yourself picking it up again for the joy of burying possessed people under heavy objects.