Control Ultimate Edition (PC) – Review

Note: Control Ultimate Edition is a Steam Deck Verified game.

While playing through the Alan Wake series, I knew ahead of time that another Remedy game, Control, is canon with the former, being part of a shared universe. So I made sure to play it in between Alan Wake’s American Nightmare and Alan Wake 2. Truth be told, Control’s base story only contains a few references to the first Alan Wake and you wouldn’t really notice a strong connection between the two until you get to Control’s second DLC expansion, AWE. That said, it was still worth it for me to play Control. Barring some frustrations here and there, the game is a fantastic experience.

I. Base Story

Control centers around the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), an American government agency that secretly investigates supernatural phenomena called Altered World Events (AWEs) as well as contain and study Objects of Power, special items related to AWEs. The game follows Jesse Faden (Courtney Hope), a woman who got caught in an AWE many years prior, resulting in the disappearance of her brother Dylan (Sean Durrie) and her establishing a psychic link to a mysterious entity called Polaris. Tipped off by Polaris, Jesse finds the FBC’s headquarters, the Oldest House, which itself is a supernatural area that is bigger on the inside. Jesse hopes to learn the whereabouts of Dylan from the FBC. Upon her arrival however, Jesse finds the Oldest House under lockdown and overrun by a malevolent entity she dubs “the Hiss”. Appointed to become the FBC’s new director by the organization’s mysterious Board, Jesse is tasked with exploring the Oldest House, gaining special abilities from Objects of Power, and suppressing the Hiss’s influence on the headquarters.

The story of Control can be a bit unwieldy at first. The game doesn’t immediately explain to you much about its lore, let alone Jesse’s situation, and it wastes no time in throwing you into its chaos. Once the game settles down, it does actually elaborate on everything in concise and organic fashion and when that’s taken care of, you’re free to just sink your teeth into some of the cool supernatural stuff that occurs throughout Jesse’s adventure in the Oldest House. The main story alone is a terrific experience but there are also some side missions and collectibles that greatly expand on the world and I highly recommend checking those out.

Complementing the story is the game’s cast of characters. I quite like Jesse as the main protagonist. Her reactions to all the crazy stuff that happens in the game is always on point and there’s a great arc where she goes from helping the FBC out of self-interest to caring about its members and accepting her new responsibility as the bureau’s director. You do have to go out of your way to learn more about the other characters but there are some standouts to be found when you do. My favorite is Dr. Caper Darling (Matthew Poretta), the FBC’s Head of Research who has gone missing during the Hiss takeover but whose presence is still felt thanks to some nerdy science videos he’s left throughout the Oldest House. Another highlight is Ahti (Martti Suosalo), a janitor working in the Oldest House whose eccentrics are heavily implied to be more than just a personality quirk.

Control is played in third-person and it has you take control of Jesse as she explores the Oldest House, combat the Hiss, and complete objectives. Jesse is armed with the Service Weapon, a gun-shaped Object of Power that can assume a handful of different firearm modes such as the shotgun-like Shatter mode and the sniper-like Pierce Mode. Jesse can only have two modes equipped at any given time but you are allowed to pause in the middle of combat to change your loadout however you want. After firing an entire clip, the gun enters a cooldown to replenish its ammo, saving you the trouble of finding ammo but leaving you vulnerable. Shooting with the Service Weapon is competent enough and the procedurally generated enemy encounters do a good job encouraging you to try a different loadout every once in a while.

Jesse gradually gains access to a variety of different, upgradable superpowers, some of which require expending an Energy bar to be executed. Melee has Jesse attack opponents at close range with kinetic energy. Launch allows Jesse to telekinetically grab objects and fling them at a locked on target. Shield enables Jesse to pull out rubble to protect herself from incoming damage. Seize enables Jesse to take control of enemies once their health is low enough. Levitate lets Jesse fly around the map for a few seconds and with the right upgrade, it can be used to initiate a ground slam.

The superpowered kit is a little bit unbalanced. Like, Launch is objectively the best ability in the game due to how strong and applicable it is as well as how well it improves with upgrades. It also looks and sounds the coolest too, what with the sheer speed at which you grab and fling objects and the whirring sound that accompanies an object as it comes into Jesse’s telepathic grasp. Hitting something with Launch is often accompanied by destructive physics and particle effects that never ceases to amaze and satisfy. All the other abilities have their uses but they are more situational compared to Launch.

This one nitpick aside, these abilities are really where Control’s gameplay shines. As competent as the shooting is, it’s frankly more fun chucking stuff at an enemy from across the room or making an enemy fight against its allies. Even cooler is that you’re allowed to do all of this while floating in the air. You admittedly can’t spam these abilities all the time due to the Energy mechanic and a couple other limitations but that does lend itself to a compelling loop where you need to efficiently juggle between firing the Service Weapon and using the superpowers.

Control lacks a traditional difficulty setting but it is still pretty challenging. One factor is Jesse’s inability to regenerate health. To replenish it, she needs to pick up blue orbs called Health Elements, that are dropped by an enemy when they’re killed or significantly damaged. This does encourage you to make great use of cover and abilities such as Shield and Levitate but it is sometimes difficult trying to run out to pick up Elements and keep Jesses alive. Another factor is the enemies themselves. You predominantly encounter FBC agents possessed by the Hiss. Some are just standard riflemen but others are mutated with special abilities and these guys demand more skill and strategy from you. Definitely the unfairest fights in the game are the bosses, be they mandatory or optional. These guys deal an overturned amount of damage and if that somehow isn’t enough, some of them are accompanied by high level reinforcements.

I do have to be a little lenient on Control’s difficulty as Remedy eventually added into the game an “Assist Mode” to make the game easier. Some of the settings in this feature let you tweak variables such as how much damage Jesse takes and how quickly she recovers Energy and ammo. Others straight up break the game by making Jesse immortal or allowing her to kill every enemy, including bosses, in just one hit. I would still argue that any badly designed encounter is still at the fault of Remedy but I also can’t deny that there is an official way to cheese through everything. Those who are also just in it for the story and/or don’t want a stressful time may find Assist Mode helpful as it will allow them to get through the narrative with as little interference as possible.

Control presents the Oldest House as a series of large, Metroidvania styled maps that you explore nonlinearly and that gradually opens up as your kit expands. To Remedy’s credit, this building does invite you to explore it, thanks to its superb visual designs. From the Brutalist interiors to the large maintenance facilities and laboratories, the Oldest House has a very distinct and memorable look to it. Some imagery such as the bodies of FBC staff hanging from the ceiling and the red glow of a Hiss controlled object adds an mousiness to the areas. Other visual details feel completely random or nonsensical and these denote the presence or effects of a supernatural object that’s gone loose. Even on low graphical settings and without ray tracing, the maps enjoy some very pronounced shadows and lighting that make them feel eerie, sometimes otherworldly even. None of the maps really connect to each other and they’re absurdly large what’s supposed to be a federal facility but that befits the idea that Oldest House is bigger on the inside and it makes the building feel unpredictable and curious. All things considered, the Oldest House is an incredibly immersive setting. 

That all said, actually exploring the Oldest House is a giant pain in the butt. While the game always tells you where you need to go, it seldom gives you a hint on how exactly you should reach a destination. You can access a map but it isn’t too helpful as it does not distinguish areas by elevation and it only marks the general area and not the specific spot you need to be at. With the map turned off, there is no objective marker for you to follow. There are signs that can point you in the right direction but only vaguely so and those don’t inform you if you need to take a detour or where a specific item you might need is located. As a result, I often find myself lost or struggling to find the objective and this annoyingly happens on a regular basis. 

Despite being a single-player action-adventure game, Control weirdly has some live service and looter shooter inspired elements to its design. Aside from the story driven missions, you can also accept Board Countermeasures, which are repeatable tasks that you can do for rewards. Every once in a while, the game will also spawn in a Bureau Alert, side missions similar to Board Countermeasures but must be fulfilled within a 20 minute time limit. Throughout the game, you can find and equip randomly generated Mods to augment either Jesse or the Service Weapon. You can potentially obtain Mods from killing enemies and opening chests. Alternatively, you can use Source points, Control’s form of EXP, and gamble away in a gacha system to get a bunch of Mods at once (no really, this is a real mechanic in the game).

I can kind of see the reasoning with these features. They can in theory allow the player to play the game for longer. That said, I find the execution to be rather questionable. Apart from achievements, neither the Board Countermeasures nor the Bureau Alerts are worth doing. Control also has a bad habit of spawning a Bureau Alert at a completely different area than the one you’re currently in. These missions aren’t a thorn on my side but they add so little value that I don’t think they should’ve been included in the first place.

As for the Mods, it feels like a waste to gamble Source for them as you need the EXP to upgrade your Service Weapon forms which, unlike mods, are upgrades you’re guaranteed to get. You could grind for Source but doing that kills the momentum in the main story and it’s far too time consuming without turning on One Hit Kills. It doesn’t help that the Mods themselves seldom make for interesting loot. All the early game Mods are just general stat upgrades. There are some really cool endgame Mods but a lot of them are extremely situational such as taking explosive damage to regain Energy. I was able to clear through Control without needing the most optimized Mods so I don’t want to harp on this issue but I still would’ve preferred if Mods were less randomized and more traditionally obtained.

II. DLC Expansions

Control‘s Ultimate Edition release comes with the game’s two DLC expansions, The Foundation and AWE. The first DLC, The Foundation, takes place after the base story and it has Jesse explore an unusually cavernous sector of the Oldest House called the Foundation to fulfill a mission for the Board. I really dig the aesthetic of the Foundation. The cavernous interior is a refreshing contrast to all the offices, laboratories, and maintenance facilities found in the base game and perfectly conveys how unpredictable and supernatural the Oldest House really is.

Unique to The Foundation are two new abilities called Create and Fracture. Both of these abilities pertain to certain crystal formations highlighted in the game. Create allows Jesse to make these crystal grow, providing her with platforms to traverse the area and giving her a new way to kill enemies. Fracture allows the Service Weapon to destroy crystals, opening up paths and setting up environmental kills. I found Fracture to be the easier of the two abilities to use as all you have to do is point and shoot with the gun. Create is a little more awkward as its input is the same as Launch and making sure you’re targeting the crystals in the heat of combat can be easier said than done. That said, it is extremely satisfying to bait enemies near an unformed crystal and then using Create to impale them with a newly formed spike.

The second and finally expansion, AWE, is unlocked around the midpoint of the game. But unless you’re really good or you decide to turn on Assist Mode, I recommend saving this expansion for last as it’s pretty long and very challenging. As mentioned earlier, AWE is the only time where Control is explicitly connected to Alan Wake. In this DLC, Jesse is seemingly summoned by the writings of Alan Wake (Matthew Poretta) to explore the Investigations Sector of the Oldest House. There, she learns of the FBC’s investigation on the events of Alan Wake as well as the fate of one of the previous game’s antagonists. The plot of AWE is fanservice through and through but I must admit that it’s a really cool crossover and it does provide some interesting updates to Alan Wake‘s lore.

Like in Alan Wake, Jesse must use light to counter the influence of darkness festering in the area. As awesome as it is to see Alan Wake‘s main gimmick implemented in another game, the execution in Control is a little awkward. Hilariously, Jesse lacks the in-game ability to hold a flashlight so she has to instead resort to more contrived methods such as using Launch to telekinetically hold onto a light source or solve puzzles to restore the power in a given room. Admittedly, this is only a detriment in certain sections involving a boss that can easily kill you and is stingy in dropping Health Elements for you to pick up. Even then, the challenge of those sections is technically up to you as you still have Assist Mode as an option.

Closing Words

Control is a quirky and fantastic game by Remedy Entertainment. From its arresting world to its entertaining plethora of superpowers, there’s a lot to like about this game. There are some ideas that I would like to see improved upon in a potential sequel. In particular, I would love to be able to find myself through a map for a change. Despite these issues, I still really enjoyed my time with the game from beginning to end and I’d strongly recommend the game in a heartbeat.

Score: 8/10

Pros (+): Terrific story, setting, and art direction; awesome superpowers (especially Launch)
Cons (-): Questionable inclusion of live service/looter shooter elements; could never find anything on the map.

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