Control Review

Release: August 27, 2019
Developer: Remedy Entertainment
Publisher: 505 Games
Reviewed on: Xbox One X
Available on: PC, PS4, Xbox One

Stranger Things Have Seldom Happened

To a fan of Remedy’s previous works, their latest game, Control, feels both familiar and novel. Combining the cinematic and highly story-driven action the developer is known for with more open-ended level design and a new emphasis on exploration, the game represents an evolution of the Remedy formula, and a largely successful one at that.

Serving as Control’s setting is the Oldest House, a mysterious building in New York City housing a fictional agency called the Federal Bureau of Control. Working in secrecy to protect the people, the FBC investigates what they call paranatural phenomena. In other words, they deal with all kinds of oddities ranging from objects with supernatural powers to interdimensional travel and whatever weirdness lies between.

Playing as Jesse Faden, you enter the Oldest House with one simple goal: to find your brother, Dylan, who was abducted by the Bureau after a massive supernatural incident which took place in your hometown when you were kids. For 17 years Jesse has been searching for her brother, and now she’s finally about to get him back and get some answers from the FBC.

However, things soon transpire into something wildly different, as Jesse walks into the Bureau’s director’s office only to arrive at the scene of his suicide. In a strange turn of events, she then finds herself as the FBC’s new director, chosen by the mysterious Board who exist in the astral plane, and bound to the Service Weapon — a shapeshifting firearm that only obeys the Bureau’s director.

From there on, you’re not only looking for your brother but also trying to win back control of the Oldest House from a mysterious, hostile force called the Hiss, which has somehow invaded the building and turned most folk into its minions.

The story of Control is probably the weirdest yet from Remedy, which is saying something considering their track record. There’s a lot going on both narratively and visually that oozes with quirkiness and, honestly, feels quite unique within the medium. The plot’s not too hard to follow, per se, if you pay attention to the dialogue and watch all the video clips you come across while exploring, but much of the lore and background remains clouded in mystery all the same.

Hats off to Sam Lake and co. for the incredible writing, and to the phenomenal cast for delivering great performances across the board. Control sees the return of many a familiar face — or voice — from Remedy’s past games, including Courtney Hope, Matthew Porretta, and James McCaffrey. Hope and Porretta play Jesse Faden and Dr. Casper Darling, respectively, and were both nominated at last year’s Game Awards for Best Performance. McCaffrey, for his part, lends his ever-amazing voice to the former, now deceased Bureau director Zachariah Trench.

Oh, and there’s also a Finnish janitor named Ahti in the game, played by actor Martti Suosalo. Ahti’s presence adds yet another dimension of weirdness to the narrative, and as a Finn, it was certainly funny hearing him use word-for-word translations of Finnish proverbs as part of his lingo and slip more than a few Finnish cuss words into the mix. But I must say, a part of me also wishes I could experience it from the (undoubtedly perplexed) perspective of a non-Finnish speaker.

Psychic Mayhem and Secret Spaces

Control’s combat is based around using your gun in conjunction with your psychic powers. The Service Weapon can take on five different forms which essentially equate to a pistol, shotgun, submachine gun, marksman rifle and grenade launcher. While the idea of a transforming firearm is certainly cool, the selection of weapons did strike me as somewhat uninspired considering the game’s nature. Not only that, I actually ended up using the pistol for the majority of the game, as it honestly felt like the best option in most situations.

All in all, the gunplay is good, though not extraordinary. Playing with a controller, I personally found the aiming to be a teensy bit less smooth compared to Alan Wake or Quantum Break. Whether this had to do with aim acceleration or some difference in how the aim assist works, I’m not sure. All I know is, I wasn’t always able to land my shots with quite such ease as in Remedy’s previous games. The best way I can describe the issue is that the aiming feels slightly heavier and less snappy.

The other side of the combat equation are the psychic powers, which mostly revolve around telekinesis. In all likelihood, the one you’ll be using the most is the Launch ability, which lets you pick up objects and hurl them at your enemies. It’s very satisfying to use, too, especially when getting one-hit kills on the weaker enemy types. As for the other abilities, you can dodge attacks and move around quickly with Evade, block enemy fire with Debris Shield, turn enemies into allies with Seize, and reach higher ground and far-away platforms with Levitate.

You can also improve your weapons with mods and your powers with ability points. While mods can either be found as loot or constructed using the in-game currency, ability points are earned by completing missions and finding secret areas.

Which brings us to one of the game’s biggest strengths: exploration. As you proceed on your quest, you often revisit old locations equipped with new abilities that let you reach places you couldn’t reach before. Moreover, the walls of the Oldest House are ever-shifting and can sometimes literally alter the routes you can take. All of this adds to the strong sense of exploring a mysterious world-within-a-building, for lack of a better noun. Much like the nightmarish woods in Alan Wake, the Oldest House is definitely a character of its own in Control. When it comes to navigating the environment, the only cause of occasional irritation is the small and simplistic map.

It may have been done many times before by other games, but Control marks the first time Remedy has ventured into this type of level design. Having considered the studio a last bastion of linear, story-driven triple-A games, I must admit I was originally worried when I heard of their new design philosophy. However, while I love their shorter and more linear titles to death, I also love exactly this kind of exploration element in games. In fact, my other favourite from last year was Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which also did the same thing.

Verdict

Overall, Remedy’s latest is a roaring success, as evidenced by the numerous awards it has won. The game is not flawless — the combat, while generally fun and intense, can get somewhat repetitive, and the difficulty seems strangely unbalanced at times — but the good overwhelmingly outweighs the bad. Thus, whether you’re an old Remedy fan yearning to experience another amazing story or just someone who enjoys quality third-person action games in general, you will most likely have a gratifying time with Control.

All images sourced from: www.igdb.com/games/control/presskit