Following mixed reviews for their previous title, Quantum Break, Remedy are back—this time in partnership with 505 Games — with their new baby, Control. As promised, this new title comes without the transmedia experience of its predecessor.
Just what goes on inside the head of Remedy’s Creative Director, Sam Lake? Control feels like he has found the right idea for both himself and his team to let loose artistically — more so than with Alan Wake — while offering gameplay honed by development on Max Payne and the aforementioned Quantum Break.
That sounds like the perfect formula for the Finnish studio, doesn’t it?
- Genre: Third-Person Action Adventure, Metroidvania
- Release Date: 27 August, 2019
- Platform(s): PC (via Epic Games Store), PlayStation 4, Xbox One
- Developer: Remedy Entertainment
- Publisher: 505 Games
- Price: $59.99 (Standard Edition)
- Review Version: PC
Control sees us assume the role of Jesse Faden, played by Courtney Hope — a mysterious young woman who goes to the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC) to get answers. A kind of unofficial paranormal agency, Jesse believes it took her younger brother seventeen years previous. She’d like to know why, and whether or not he’s still alive.
However, Jesse is not your ordinary woman. Within her resides a mysterious entity which speaks to her, advises her, and guides her. This entity directs her towards the Bureau, and what she finds there is far from welcoming. The place is deserted and torn asunder, and Jesse finds the director dead from a gunshot wound to the head.
His service weapon, an ‘Object of Power’ (just as Mjöllnir, Excalibur or Varunastra might be), reacts to whom it wishes and defines the position of director through a psychological test. It decides she is to inherit the role, giving her both the means to get her answers and the overwhelming responsibility of getting the house in order.
It is through this mysterious scenario that Control establishes its playground. As with Alan Wake, you’ll disseminate the story through files, audio cassettes or films to discover just what went on in this strange place, but also how the universe works.
You see, the FBC is contained within The Oldest House, a gigantic building which belongs to a certain category of events: an Altered World Event (AWE). These can be absolutely anything and everything, and cause unexplainable disturbances in the world around them — whether a cowboy boot that causes vibrations and strident sounds, or a surfboard which restores self-confidence, creating a cult in the process.
The Oldest House has the ability to change its form as it sees fit. It’s an excellent idea on paper, but sadly it remains poorly exploited. The changes are scripted, and we would have found it far more interesting should it have changed its topography more regularly — forcing us to take other paths.
The House’s colossal energy also makes it alter any recent technology, a subtle spin which gives the game a somewhat neo-retro atmosphere — cathode-ray screens and video projectors to boot.
The first thing that strikes us is the crazy artistic direction. Control has us on the edge of our seats, reduced to uttering monosyllabic expressions. Photorealism often mixes with Scandinavian minimalism, thanks to clean, bright rooms with a model-house look — all with breathtaking lighting and reflection, even without the advantage of Nvidia’s RTX technology.
Then, everything is ransacked by the Oldest House with some regularity, mixing geometric deconstruction and flashy colors, all accompanied by incredible particle effects which perfectly represent the chaos you’re tasked with cleaning up as you traverse this immense labyrinth of rooms and corridors.
Control works like a Metroidvania, in that it is a dense setting with several floors, and your progress blocked by constraints which you will have to note, decode and find your way around by consulting your map and paying attention to the signs — a process which is somewhat unclear. By passing checkpoints, you clean up the mess little by little, purifying the area of the Hiss — entities capable of contaminating altered objects, areas of the Oldest House, and even humans.
When it comes to purging the Hiss, it can be done via Jesse’s mind-control abilities, but there will also be times where the service weapon is necessary, too. Some contaminated humans will remain in suspension, uttering strange incantations, but others will be fighters — from the simple guard to a brutalized corpse with frightening, violent, erratic movement.
Gameplay in Control is quite similar to how it played out in Quantum Break or Max Payne. A third-person shooter, you have two ways in which to inflict damage — via your service weapon, which takes many different forms as the game progresses, or your telekinetic powers, which unlock as you purify Objects of Power.
Your weapon has ammunition and your powers require energy. Both recharge over time, meaning you’ll need to alternate between the two to eliminate your opponents, who will certainly attempt to resist. While lesser fights remain small (and it’s highly satisfying to fell an enemy in one swoop), some battles with stronger enemies will give you trouble — some are constantly healed, some gain a double shield, and some dodge your powers, for example.
Despite everything, your weapons complement each other rather well, and it will always be satisfying to use all your tools without getting hit. Jesse responds well to your input, whether via controller or keyboard, but one might have hoped for a little more ‘fantasy’ on the side of the talent tree.
The Bureau isn’t particularly empty, and you’ll meet a few characters here and there on your journey. Whether your assistant, the different department managers, or even a janitor who acts like a kind of G-Man, they will guide you, answer your questions about the plot, and offer side quests.
Control is a classic third-person shooter, but it will not ask you to only move forward blindly. It often asks you to help these characters purify a specific location on the map or find particular people — even to help the janitor clean the sewers of a strange material. From time to time, the game will give you random missions — often to clean a room — and are mainly used to gain resources to craft mods to improve your equipment.
We completed Control in one sitting across fifteen hours or so, and with side quests it should take you past that symbolic twenty-hour mark. Remedy have done well not to push the duration of the game any further, and if they had it could quickly have led the player to tire in the long-term.
Control plays the ‘cryptic atmosphere’ above all — the more we advance the story, the more the mystery surrounding the FBC and what is going on there intensifies. This absorbs you, making you want to find answers in the files you come across along the way — including one which throws a massive twist into the works of Remedy.
Of course, we’ll let you discover that for yourself!
Written by Xavier "Howler" Larrey. Translated from the French by Millenium.
