Control

These days, it’s pretty rare for a game to be so engrossing and so captivating that I’d lose track of time and keep binging it till 2:30 AM in the morning. And yet, that’s exactly what I found happening with Control, the latest surprise hit from Remedy Entertainment. I was poring over documents, research notes, audio logs, live-action video clips, and trying to piece together the complex plot and setting of the world for hours after every session of playing it. I binged it very hard in less than a week, and boy was it blissful.

When I originally saw the reveal trailer for Control, I was definitely intrigued by the telekinetic powers gameplay, but I expected this to be another over-the-top superhero action game where the focus is on explosions and combat with the plot taking a backseat. I could not have been more wrong. Control has — and I’m dead serious when I say this — the best worldbuilding and narrative exposition that I’ve ever seen in a video game, hands down. Yeah, that’s high praise coming from someone who basically lives for these kinds of games.

The game takes place entirely in the Federal Bureau of Control, and you play as the newly appointed Director of the FBC, Jesse Faden. The game gets weird right from the beginning, with you acquiring strange objects for weapons and interacting with creepy janitors that are definitely hiding more than your average joe. The setting is wacky, the world is crazy, the story is insane, and you’ve got magical powers. And here’s where the game really starts to shine and show its true power.

Scattered throughout the gloriously designed levels are tons of correspondence logs, research documents, inter-department communication memos, handling procedures, containment logs, and hundreds of other seemingly nonsensical text files. But they’re all meticulously written and carefully crafted. They paint the world and its inhabitants in such a vivid light that it leaves you with more questions than you had before and practically begs you to find the answers.

For instance, you’ll come across many documents for “altered items” and the history behind them, and you’ll see their current location at the bottom of the document (something like Containment Sector – Panopticon, Section 03, Cell 24). It’s useless at the time, but if you remember this location, you can actually find the thing in the Panopticon when you access it later in the game in that exact location. Everything you’ve come across about the object is referenced or given homage to in a very satisfying way, and it rewards your curiosity and exploration greatly without gamifying it with some silly experience points or quest completion points. The whole world feels like a crazy mashup of The X-Files, Warehouse 13, and Twin Peaks combined with the SPC fandom on the internet. And it’s a glorious conglomeration that really pays off and works shockingly well.

Then there’s the FMV sequences with Doctor Darling. Scattered throughout the various sectors of the FBC, you’ll come across live action sequences of Dr. Darling, the Head of Research, explaining certain parts of the world and dropping tons of narrative exposition on the player. These are really good and keep you hooked in learning about this character, because his fate is left ambiguous and you don’t quite know what happened to him in the midst of the all the chaos. Beyond that, there’s even more ridiculous FMV sequences in the game, like Threshold Kids, that involves Bureau employees staging a very creepy puppet show that’s meant to educate the children of the employees about what they’re really dealing with. I absolutely love the absurdity and nonsensical tone of these, they’re just so well done.

The game has its fair share of “what in the world is happening” moments too. The first time you come to the Oceanview Motel is sure to be a strong memory. You’re not quite sure what you’re doing, why you’re there, how you even got there, or how to leave. Heck, you don’t even know what the place is or why it exists. It just…is. And the game masterfully sidesteps explaining what’s happening in favor of keeping you intrigued and try to figure it out for yourself. Most players will simply assume it’s a puzzle mechanic that they need to keep solving in order to proceed (which it is), but there’s a lot of cryptic clues and lore buried here for the players willing to investigate deeper and pay closer attention to what’s really happening.

Control reminds me of another one of my all-time favorite games, 2017’s Prey by Arkane Studios. Similar to Control, Prey lets you loose in an abandoned space station and lets you figure out wha happened at your own pace. There are no forced boss fights, no overly gamified elements for the sake of it, and no narrative dump cutscenes. Instead, you get a laser-sharp focus on worldbuilding and setting. The place is built up to be a believable space where employees live and work, and it’s so so satisfying to walk around at your own pace slowly uncovering the mysteries of what went so horribly wrong.

These are the types of games that are cerebrally stimulating and slow-paced. They don’t fall neatly into any genre but instead encompass gameplay elements from a wide variety of genres with a solid focus on setting and tone. We haven’t even talked about Control’s visual style yet. The game has one of the most solid aesthetic presentations that I’ve ever seen. There’s a strong emphasis on proper use of color in the environments, beautifully brutalist interior design throughout, a restrained sense of minimalism in the architecture and lighting, and a killer taste in sixties’ avant-garde sans-serif typography boldly announcing your arrival into a brand new location. It takes a lot of visionary thinking and tight collaboration between many departments and teams to pull off something as visually striking as this game is, so a huge kudos to the team at Remedy for absolutely knocking it out of the park here.

The game wouldn’t be fun without its gameplay, and you can be sure as hell it’s a blast. Being able to hurl iconic pieces of art deco furniture at corrupted levitating zombie monsters is just as fun as it sounds. You get to dash, levitate, shield, and even control minds with your telekinetic powers. You even have a magical gun that can morph into various forms for a lot of versatile firepower. You end up getting into a solid rhythm of gameplay between using your energy and unloading your bullets into the enemies as you wait for one of the two abilities to recharge. It never gets old, and it really helps that a lot of the environment around you is constantly being destroyed and smashed apart into a thousand little pieces as you’re chucking sofas and forklifts at possessed demonic armored agents of chaos.

Oh, and the game leaves its best secrets to the most dedicated players. There are tons of interesting side stories, optional side missions, and hidden secrets that most players bee-lining through the main quest would never ever encounter. It actually surprised me how much of the great writing, dialogue, enemies, and boss fights were saved for optional content. I really appreciated it, because it made those experiences feel that much more impactful. It takes a lot of guts to gate high-quality content like this, so once again I’m blown away by how the team at Remedy accomplished this.

And then there’s the Ashtray Maze sequence. My goodness. This has got to be in my top five best gaming moments of all time. I really don’t want to spoil it for anyone (yes, it’s that good), so I’m not even going to mention it. The design, the appeal, the feels while you go through this sequence is unparalleled and is among the best gaming has to offer. This is the part of the game Control fans will remember the most fondly and this it the part they’ll look back on twenty years from now when recounting their experiences with the game. It leverages the power of the medium and only works in a game, because it wouldn’t have the same impact in any other medium. Seriously, it’s that good.

So yeah, needless to say, I like this game a lot. It’s quite rare for a game with such a solid foundational vision and extremely precise execution to come out these days, and I’m really really glad this one hit it out of the park with its crazy, weird, unique, and memorable story. It was exciting, strange, confusing, mesmerizing, and most of all, incredibly enjoyable. This is by far my frontrunner for Game of the Year in 2019 and is without a doubt the best thing I’ve played all year. Remedy has recently announced expansions for the game along with full support for Photo Mode, so I’ll definitely be hopping back in soon. Especially because I still need to beat a bunch of bosses in the side missions that I got completely wrecked by. Well, off to complete my duties as Director of the FBC!