Control (video game)

Control revolves around the titular Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), a clandestine U.S. government agency which investigates supernatural Altered World Events (AWEs). These AWEs are affected by the human collective unconscious and have a variety of "paranatural" effects, including the creation of Objects of Power, archetypal items which grant special abilities to their wielders. Objects of Power are connected to the Board, a black pyramid-shaped entity which exists within the Astral Plane, an alternate dimension. The individual chosen by the Board to wield the Service Weapon, an Object of Power, is considered by default to be the director of the FBC.[5] Control takes place entirely within the Oldest House, a Brutalist skyscraper in New York City which is the headquarters of the FBC. The Oldest House is larger on the inside than on the outside, and constantly experiences shifts in which its architecture unpredictably rearranges. The FBC controls the Oldest House using Control Points, which stabilize the building's resonance.

The protagonist of Control is Jesse Faden (Courtney Hope), who at the start of the game is chosen by the Board to replace the recently deceased Zachariah Trench (James McCaffrey) as the director of the FBC. Seventeen years prior to the game's start, Jesse and her younger brother Dylan (Sean Durrie) were involved in an Altered World Event in their hometown of Ordinary, Wisconsin. After discovering an Object of Power in the form of a slide projector, the two children accidentally unleashed paranatural forces which caused Ordinary's entire adult population to vanish. Jesse and Dylan were rescued by Polaris, a mysterious telepathic entity. Shortly thereafter, the FBC arrived in Ordinary, capturing Dylan and the slide projector while Jesse fled. In the present day, Jesse arrives at the Oldest House seeking her brother's whereabouts.

Other notable characters in Control include missing Head of Research Casper Darling (Matthew Porretta), research specialist Emily Pope (Antonia Bernath), security chief Simon Arish (Ronan Summers), Head of Operations Helen Marshall (Brig Bennett), and Ahti (Martti Suosalo), a mysterious Finnish janitor.

In October 2019,[6] Jesse Faden arrives at the Oldest House following a telepathic message from Polaris, seeking the whereabouts of her kidnapped brother Dylan. Inside the building, Jesse discovers the lifeless body of Zachariah Trench, and is instructed by Polaris to pick up his fallen Service Weapon. Jesse is translocated to the Astral Plane, where the Board immediately appoints her as the new director of the FBC in Trench's stead. Exiting Trench's office, Jesse is attacked by FBC agents possessed by an entity Jesse dubs "the Hiss." Jesse learns that the entire Oldest House is under emergency lockdown following the Hiss's spread, and that everyone in the building has been possessed by the Hiss except those wearing Hedron Resonance Amplifiers (HRAs), devices built by missing Bureau scientist Dr. Casper Darling. Jesse agrees to aid the surviving Bureau agents in reclaiming the building and containing the Hiss, in exchange for seeking Dylan's whereabouts.

Using an Object of Power known as the Hotline, Jesse communicates with the deceased Trench and learns that his former management team knows the secrets of the Bureau, including the location of Dylan. After lifting the building's lockdown in the Maintenance Sector, Jesse enters the Research Sector in search of Helen Marshall, one of the members of Trench's management team, whom she helps secure the production of more HRAs. Marshall reveals that Dylan, known to the Bureau as Prime Candidate 6 or P6, was being groomed to succeed Trench as the Bureau's director due to his immense supernatural abilities. However, after killing several Bureau agents, Dylan was deemed too dangerous and locked away in the Containment Sector. Jesse rushes to the sector to find Dylan, only to learn that he has escaped and surrendered to the Bureau in the Executive Sector. Dylan reveals to Jesse that he has embraced the Hiss, and that the Hiss entered the Oldest House through the slide projector Object of Power the Bureau recovered from Ordinary.

Ahti gives Jesse a cassette player which enables her to navigate an elaborate maze protecting the slide projector's chamber in the Research Sector. She finds the slide projector missing, but learns that Trench and Darling used the device to orchestrate several expeditions to an alternate dimension known as Slidescape-36, where they discovered an entity they dubbed Hedron. Jesse finds Hedron and discovers that it is Polaris, but moments later, the Hiss attacks and destroys Hedron. Jesse's mind is invaded by the Hiss, but Jesse is able to rediscover Hedron's resonance within herself, saving her and the Bureau. In the process, Jesse learns that Trench was the first individual to be possessed by the Hiss during the expeditions to Slidescape-36, and was responsible for releasing the Hiss into the Oldest House. Jesse finds the slide projector in the Executive Sector, where Dylan and the Hiss are attempting to enter the Astral Plane and overtake the Board. Jesse deactivates the slide projector and seemingly cleanses the Hiss from Dylan, who falls into a coma. Accepting her new role as director, Jesse resolves to defeat the remaining Hiss in order to restore order to the Bureau.

Jesse is summoned by the Board to the Foundation, a cavernous area lying at the center of the Oldest House which houses the Nail, an object that connects the Oldest House to the Astral Plane. Jesse finds that the Nail has been seriously damaged, which is causing the Astral Plane to leak into the Oldest House, with potentially catastrophic consequences. As Jesse attempts to restore the Nail, she seeks the whereabouts of Helen Marshall, who entered the Foundation during the Hiss invasion, and has gone missing. Meanwhile, Jesse discovers logs left behind by Theodore Ash, Jr., a Bureau scientist who was part of the first expeditions to the Oldest House in 1964. Ash reveals that Broderick Northmoor, the director who preceded Trench, fell under the Board's influence during the expedition, and was responsbile for radically changing the Bureau in order to serve the Board's interests.

As Jesse continues to restore the Nail, she suddenly encounters Former, an extradimensional entity which grants Jesse a new ability, enraging the Board. Former claims to have once been a member of the Board, but was exiled after being blamed for an unknown transgression. Torn between the two entities, Jesse is eventually able to restore the Nail, but tremors occur between the Oldest House and the Astral Plane which threaten to destroy both dimensions. Jesse reaches the base of the Nail, where she finds Marshall possessed by the Hiss. With the aid of Former, Jesse kills Marshall and cleanses the Nail. Jesse then learns that it was Marshall who destroyed the Nail, as a preventative measure against both the Hiss and the Board. The Board destroyed Marshall's HRA in response, allowing her to be possessed by the Hiss. Her faith in the Board shattered, Jesse vows to lead the Bureau her own way.

AWE is a crossover between Control and Remedy Entertainment's previous title, Alan Wake. Alan Wake takes place in Bright Falls, Washington, and revolves around Cauldron Lake, a supernatural lake in Bright Falls, Washington with the power to turn artists' works into reality. Following the events of Alan Wake, Emil Hartman, a psychologist who attempted to investigate and exploit this power, was confronted and arrested by agents of the FBC, who confiscated all of his research on the lake. In a final act of desperation, Hartman dove into Cauldron Lake and was possessed by the Dark Presence, the main antagonist of Alan Wake. Hartman was subsequently captured and brought to the Oldest House by the Bureau, who attempted to contain him in the Investigations Sector. However, after Hartman breached containment, the Bureau was forced to completely abandon the sector. During the Hiss invasion, the Hiss mixed with the Dark Presence in Hartman, twisting him into a monstrous entity which now haunts the sector.

Jesse is summoned to the Investigations Sector by an apparition of Alan Wake, who disappeared years prior after diving into Cauldron Lake. As Jesse attempts to restore the Investigations Sector and destroy Hartman, she learns from Alan that he was responsible for unleashing Hartman, using his power to rewrite reality using works of fiction. Wake also strongly implies that he was responsible for the Hiss invasion, in order to create a "crisis" for his "hero," Jesse, for unknown reasons. Jesse eventually reaches the Bright Falls AWE area of the Investigations Sector and destroys Hartman. She is then informed by FBC agents of a newly detected AWE in Bright Falls, the date of which is several years in the future.

The first concept down was creating the fictional FBC, a realistic setting that would serve as a basis for paranormal events and a catalyst for events in the story.[11] This enabled them to consider multiple stories they could tell, not just about the player-character but other individuals in the FBC, but this also created the challenge of how to present the stories of the other characters in the open-world format.[11] The gathered writings of the fictional SCP Foundation ("Secure, Contain, Protect") website was a major influence on Control. Stories on SCP Foundation's site are based on singular objects with strange paranormal impacts, and as a whole, they are narratively linked by the common format of reports written by the fictional SCP Foundation, which catalogs and studies the objects. Control was built atop this, having the various Objects of Power and Altered Items, along with numerous collectable writings about these objects or other stories in line with SCP.[14] They fixed the story in the genre of the new weird, a modern variant of weird fiction with stories that combine science fiction and fantasy often with a bureaucratic government agency involved in these events. In Control, they reversed the role to make the bureaucracy at the center of the story. Narrative Designer Brooke Maggs stated "there is an invisible, assailing presence of bureaucracy in the corporate office setting that is in itself, unsettling".[15] The mundane features of the Oldest House helped to contrast against the paranormal aspects of the game, thus well-suiting the new weird, according to World Design Director Stuart MacDonald.[15] The design team's goal in using the new weird approach was not to create terrifying moments as one would do in a horror game, but instead create a continuing sense of dread for the player.[15]

The everyday objects that would become Objects of Power in the game were selected to be within the concept of the new weird. One such Object of Power is a floppy disk. MacDonald said he was drawn to use a floppy disk in this manner after reading a story about how many of the United States national missile defense sites had only recently transitioned off floppy disks, and prior to that, these disks could be seen as proverbial weapons that were held with high reverence.[15] The copious presence in the Oldest House of 1960s and 1970s technology such as pneumatic tubes, slide projectors and monochrome monitors, and the absence of modern-day technologies such as cell phones, is explained in-game as the result of the tendency of newer technologies to fail or malfunction within the boundaries of the Oldest House.

AT&T Long Lines Building served as inspiration for the Oldest House.

The Oldest House setting was based on brutalist architecture, a style utilizing large concrete blocks popularized in the 1950s and used in many government buildings at the time. The game's world design director, Stuart Macdonald, described brutalism as a good science-fiction setting, as it has "this sense of power, weight, strength and stability to it", and when the Oldest House's geometries are affected by the Hiss, "it makes for a really good contrast with the impossible architecture".[16] The relatively flat colors of the background walls made it an ideal canvas to showcase other design and lighting effects in the game, It also served well into the telekinesis powers of the game, as the concrete walls would be used in lieu of a target object when the player throws debris at foes via telekinesis, and the initially pristine spaces end up showing the results of a large, destructive battle.[16] Among real-world influences in the game's architecture is 33 Thomas Street, formerly known as the AT&T Long Lines Building, a windowless building in the center of New York City. Macdonald used this building as a modern example of brutalism, and created the Oldest House as a "bizarre, brutalist monolith" to house the FBC.[16] Other real-world locations used as inspiration included the Boston City Hall, the Andrews Building at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and the Met Breuer.[16]

Other real-world architects inspired the game's structures. Carlo Scarpa's work was used heavily in designing stairways that ascended with other parts of the structure, while Tadao Ando's focus on lighting and spiritual spaces were reflected in other parts of the game.[16] Additionally, the design team turned to film for other inspiration. Films of Stanley Kubrick, particularly A Clockwork Orange, as well as films featuring oppressive government agencies, such as The Shape of Water, served as part of the design basis.[16] Other films, like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, evoke the concept of repetitiveness, process, and ritualism in these agencies, and that was used to define some of the internal artwork and architecture.[16] Art director Janne Pulkkinen stated they also looked at real world churches and other places where ritualism is common, as lighting and design of those spaces are often used to draw attention to specific points of interest.[16]

Certain areas of the game feature full-motion video sequences. Most of these are of Dr. Casper Darling explaining parts of the Oldest House and Objects of Power within it, with Darling played by Matthew Porretta. Another set of videos are short episodes of a fictional show called "The Threshold Kids", a puppet-based show seemingly aimed at children that may reside within the Oldest House. "The Threshold Kids" were written by narrative lead Anna Megill and produced by their senior cinematic designer Mircea Purdea.[15] Poets of the Fall, an alternative rock group that are close friends of Remedy, provided songs for the game, including "Take Control", in-game stated to be by the fictional band "The Old Gods of Asgard", itself an allusion back to Alan Wake.[17] Remedy used this song as part of the game's "Ashtray Maze", a section where Jesse fights through an ever-changing set of room set to the song. Remedy worked with Poets of the Fall so that they could incorporate the song dynamically as the player progressed through sections of this maze [18]

The game includes Easter eggs referring to Alan Wake, which shares similar paranormal themes with Control; one such Easter egg discusses the aftermath of Alan Wake as part of the FBC's case files, which considered what happened in Bright Falls, the primary location of Alan Wake, to have been an AWE.[19] A secret area includes a vision of Alan Wake. The past event in the town of Ordinary was alluded to by a backmasking track in the credits sequence of Alan Wake: American Nightmare, with an unknown speaker stating "It will happen again, in another town. A town called Ordinary."[20][17] Kasurinen said that the inclusion of such references helps to establish a type of continuity between its games, elements to be found and shared by its player community, but not meant to necessarily establish a shared universe between the games.[21] However, Sam Lake later confirmed the existence of a shared universe between Alan Wake and Control known as the Remedy Connected Universe.[22]

The game's main voice cast was announced at New York Comic Con in 2018, consisting of various actors from Remedy's previous games. Courtney Hope, who played the character Beth Wilder in Quantum Break, stars as Jesse Faden, while James McCaffrey, known for his roles as the title character of Max Payne and Thomas Zane in Alan Wake, plays the role of Zachariah Trench. Matthew Porretta, who portrayed the titular character of Alan Wake, is also featured in both voice roles and live-action videos as the character of Dr. Casper Darling.[23][12] Finnish actor Martti Suosalo voices the janitor Ahti. Remedy's Sam Lake said that he had been yearning to add his native Finland to one of their games, and Control presented that opportunity to incorporate this. Among one of the these pieces includes a Finnish tango which Lake wrote, Petri Alanko composed, and Suosalo sang.[24]

The game includes a voice cameo by Hideo Kojima and his English translator Aki Saito; in one side mission, a recording by Dr. Yoshimi Tokui, voiced by Kojima, relates a dream-like experience in Japanese, with the English translation given by Saito.[25]

Control is one of the first games to support new graphics cards with real-time ray tracing. Here, the bottom image, with ray-tracing turned on, shows reflections of lights and other surfaces in the marble floor, compared to the more traditionally rendered version, shown on top.

A further challenge in the game's design and implementation involved creating an environment that would encourage the player to explore, get lost in it, and learn by observation. Kasurinen felt they did not want to include a traditional heads-up display for the player, with mission markers or other clutter, and instead have the player use mission descriptions in their log and careful observation of the environment to figure out where to go next.[11] This further led to the decision to only tell player critical information via some means, leaving the player to fill in the missing parts with their own observations and imaginations.[11] They also wanted a fluid environment, where nearly any object in it could be used as part of the player-character's telekinetic powers, so that the game world could be both a weapon to be used by the player, or a weapon against the player-character. To achieve this, Remedy replaced the Havok physics in their in-house game engine with PhysX, and improved their artificial intelligence to enable enemies to take advantage of these changes.[11]

Control represents one of the first major games to be released after the introduction of graphics cards that support real time ray tracing (RTX), and considered the first game with a nearly-full implementation of all possible RTX features.[26] The game also supports more standard rendering techniques suitable for less powerful graphical hardware. Nvidia heavily promoted Control among its campaign alongside its first RTX graphics cards featuring hardware ray-tracing support.[27] The game was bundled with sales of graphics cards supporting the RTX technology.[28] Nvidia created or hosted nine videos, including an exclusive gameplay trailer, to display the game's ray tracing integration.

In May 2017, Remedy announced that they had partnered with 505 Games to publish the game, then codenamed "P7". 505 provided marketing and publishing support and a fund of €7.75 million to assist the game's development, while Remedy retained the intellectual property rights to Control. In the press release, Remedy revealed that the game will have complex gameplay mechanics and that it will be a "longer term experience" than its previous games.[29] P7 was being worked on by Remedy alongside two other projects.[30] The game was officially revealed at Sony Interactive Entertainment's E3 2018 press conference.[31]

The game was released on 27 August 2019 for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.[32] Epic Games had secured a year-long exclusivity deal for Control on the Epic Games Store with Digital Bros, the parent of 505 Games, for €9.49 million (US$10.5 million ).[33]

On 27 August 2020, the first anniversary of the game's release, Control: Ultimate Edition was released via Steam, including the base game, both the "Foundation" and "AWE" expansions, and the additional free updates. Control: Ultimate Edition launched on the Epic Games Store, GOG.com, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on 10 September 2020, and will to be available for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2021. Those that own the Ultimate Edition on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One will be able to update their version to the newer console for free.[34][35] 505 Games stated that while they looked to find a free upgrade path that would work for all users but that there was "some form of blocker and those blockers meant that at least one group of players ended up being left out of the upgrade for various reasons."[36] The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions and updates were delayed until early 2021 in an announced just prior to the consoles' launches in November 2020 to improve the quality of the product;[37] digital versions were released on February 2, 2021, while retail copies are planned to release on March 2, 2021.[38]

A cloud gaming-based version of the game was released for the Nintendo Switch on 28 October 2020. It was the first cloud-based game released on the Switch outside of Japan.[39]

Remedy has affirmed plans for at least two additional content expansions to Control, titled "The Foundation" and "AWE", both narratively set after the main game with Jesse taking on her role as the FBC Director. However, at the time of Control's launch, the specifics of this content had yet to be determined, according to narrative designer Brooke Maggs, as the team's focus was on addressing performance issues for the console version of the games.[12] "The Foundation" released on 26 March 2020 for PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows and for Xbox One on 25 June 2020.[40] The second expansion "AWE" was released on 27 August 2020, marking the game's first anniversary.[41][42][43]

Additional smaller, non-narrative content is also planned.[12] The first, "Expeditions", was released as a free update on 12 December 2019, and presents standalone missions of various difficulty with power-up items for their character.[40] A free update, to release alongside the "AWE" DLC but available for all players, will increase the number of control points, or "hard" checkpoints in the game where saving the game is possible, including adding ones before boss fights, as well as several "soft" checkpoints where players can restart without having to travel back to a control point should Jesse die. A new "assist mode" will allow for the player to have more control on customizing the game's difficulty, with Remedy intending this to make it possible for even novice players to complete the game.[44]