Three and Out – ‘Control’

I fell in love with Control the moment I saw the first teaser trailer. Control breathed life into the supernatural space of mainstream gaming, borrowing from tropes and archetypes from series like The X-Files and Twin Peaks, something increasingly rare in big budget titles. The entire premise of the game wraps itself in mystery. You control Jesse Faden, a young woman in search of her long-missing brother, who discovers a hidden government building, The Federal Bureau of Control. Jesse speaks to “you,” known later in the game as Polaris, a kind of sentient entity that lurks invisibly – and reminded me of Aiden from Beyond: Two Souls. Polaris you along your quest to unravel the mysteries of this building. 

Everything about Control looks and feels refined. It was the first PC game I played with ray tracing enabled, which was a joy to experience. The brutalist architecture enhances the game’s atmosphere, featuring long and cold corridors, tight spaces and massive ones. Jesse’s character model has many variations, many of which look stunning in terms of graphical quality. (The NPCs lurk in the uncanny valley, however.) The game rarely leans on a soundtrack except when you encounter The Hiss, enemies that are possessed by a seeming multiplicity of spirit consciousness. You later find out that The Hiss were allowed into the world by a kind of portal that was opened by the previous – now dead – administration within the Bureau. Living characters who aren’t controlled by The Hiss are rare, with only a few agents and soldiers aiding you through the game’s continuous missions. Elements of horror dominated this game’s tone throughout, which isn’t something I was expecting but loved. It is an isolating but thrilling experience to play Control. 

Control is nearly a masterful game but is bogged down by two primary flaws: the mini-map and the checkpoint system. As a metroidvania, the game opens up new areas as you unlock and discover new abilities such as levitation, air-dashing, and telekinesis, all of which feel great in terms of controller responsivity. The navigation, however, is god awful. I don’t know how this wasn’t addressed in the playtesting phase, but it is nearly impossible to discern useful or meaningful information from the map. And bizarrely, you can only navigate the entire map at specific checkpoints. The checkpoint system, similar to Dark Souls’ bonfires and Hollow Knight’s benches, require you to “cleanse” a point of control, which opens up both the map and fast travel. Towards the end of the game, however – the ending sequence in particular – you can spend 10-15 minutes on a sequence, only to die and retrace your steps with none of your progress saved and established. I lost my mind in frustration as I repetitively killed the same enemies, cleansed the same satellites, over and over again. This final sequence of the game soured the otherwise incredible experience, which I found to be a shame, considering how polished the rest of the game is. If this game improved these two elements, it would be a masterclass title. Instead, I hesitate to recommend this game on those two terms.  

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