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Posting about Control feels a bit like being one of those reviewers who had to give their thoughts on Wandavision based on the first three episodes they were provided by Marvel. It’s not presented in the trappings of a sitcom but I feel like there’s a similar thought that maybe the rug of my perceptions will be yanked out from under me as I continue playing, and that’s acknowledging that things have already gotten really effing weird.
On its surface Control is a third-person shooter experience with superpowers tossed in. You play as Jesse Faden, a drifter who as the game starts seems to have drifted her way into the lobby of the Federal Bureau of Control (name drop!) at your behest.
No, really. Jesse narrates to herself as she goes along but also has internalized discussions with someone and as far as I can tell, that someone is you the player. If it turns out not to be the player, well, that’s one of the possible rug pulls that has me intrigued (and possibly unsettled). The lobby of this government agency is deserted and Jesse has next to no idea why she’s there, but as you explore a bit you pass portraits of directors and such and… uh, why is there a portrait of a janitor on the wall next to those, his back turned from your gaze?
You’ll meet that very janitor shortly and he is as enigmatic as he is Scandinavian, and says you must be here for the job as his assistant. Perhaps surprisingly, Jesse agrees with this even though she makes clear it wasn’t why she came. She’s no stranger to grunt work.
But then Jesse meets the Director of the FBC. And then Jesse is the Director, and the portraits you passed a few minutes ago now have you in them complete with nice suit and nameplate.
Of course the building turns out to be in lockdown due to an invasive and hostile presence and you have to stop it, often by shooting things or blowing them up, and in fact the environment turns out to be delightfully responsive to destruction even before you get your first psychic superpower. Afterwards, holy crap does shit get torn up in satisfying manner and that is (forgive the phrasing) a blast.
But nested on top of that is a huge labyrinth of mindfuckery where reality warps unexpectedly and break rooms become portals to other planes of existence. Jesse navigates all this with a degree of aplomb, even hinting to you that all the weirdness is a relief to her after years of stressing out at the mundane world and what she always felt was a veneer of normalcy laid over… something. That said, she’s both Director and Janitor’s Assistant now and has cleaning up to do.
The most fascinating bit which I only realized after I’d purchased the game and started playing it is that not only is it developed by the same team that did Alan Wake and Max Payne but Control goes a step further and is actually set in the same shared universe as the former. The events of Alan Wake are not the only anomaly in the world and the FBC was founded to keep tabs on and address such things so that the general public could go about their lives with a minimum of possessed former people trying to murder them. There’s all sorts of missives and dossiers to find detailing these activities, although a lot of it is redacted (even to the Director?! hmph). Well maybe that’s because the former Director is still talking to you from beyond the grave. Not to mention there’s The Board, which doesn’t seem to be made up of people at all.
Anyhow, much like in Alan Wake there’s a lot to think about and be creeped out by in between the blasting and I very much appreciate that. And there’s Ahti the Janitor and yes I’ll spell that with a capital J because hoo boy is he ever something more than he seems — but he’s also a foulmouthed Finnish(?) custodian who keeps muttering idioms that I suppose might make more sense if you were Finnish as well. If you’re a conspiracy buff you’ll probably also be pleased by a lot of easter eggs regarding various lore along those lines like MK Ultra.
And then you blast more baddies with your mentally reconfiguring gun (which might have been Mjolnir or Excalibur in a previous life?) and use your telekinesis to slam an explosive cannister into some fool’s head and send him ragdolling across the room. It’s this strangely satisfying dichotomy of Ego and Id and I have been totally there for it.
The Ultimate Edition debuted this year and I got it on sale, natch. Been well worth the pricetag for me even if the bottom drops out before the end, but when all was said and done they stuck the landing with Alan Wake so I have similar hopes here that when the answers to the questions start coming, they will at very least be tantalizing rather than disappointing.
In the meantime, pew pew. Boom.