PS4, Windows, Xbox One 27 August 2019 Amazon Luna 20 October 2020 Nintendo Switch 30 October 2020 PS5, Xbox Series X/S 2 February 2021 Stadia 27 July 2021 macOS 26 March 2025 iOS, iPadOS, visionOS 2026
Control is a 2019 action-adventure game developed by Remedy Entertainment. It follows Jesse Faden, the new Director of the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), a secret U.S. government agency that investigates and contains phenomena that violate the normal laws of reality. As Jesse, the player explores the Oldest House–the FBC's headquarters–and uses paranormal abilities and a shapeshifting gun known as the "Service Weapon" to combat the Hiss, a hostile, otherworldly entity that has invaded and corrupted the FBC. Players unlock new powers by locating Objects of Power, mundane objects imbued with energies from another dimension. The Oldest House has four distinct sectors that can be explored at a nonlinear pace, with players being free to complete side quests and explore hidden areas.
505 Games published the game for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in August 2019, and for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in February 2021. Remedy Entertainment began self-publishing the game in 2025. The game received generally positive reviews, with critics praising its setting, art direction, gameplay and characters, though its main story received a mixed response. The game sold over 5 million copies and was nominated for several end-of-year accolades, including Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2019. Two expansion packs were released, with the second one, AWE, being a crossover between Control and Alan Wake, forming part of a shared universe named the "Remedy Connected Universe". A sequel, Control Resonant, is set to be released in 2026, while a multiplayer spin-off, FBC: Firebreak, was released in 2025.
Gameplay
The player character gains psychokinetic powers, such as levitation. She is also armed with a "Service Weapon", a shapeshifting gun.
Control is an action-adventure video game played from a third-person perspective. The player assumes control of Jesse Faden, who arrives at the Oldest House, a featureless Brutalist skyscraper in New York City and the headquarters of the fictional Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), in search of her missing brother. Enemies in Control are predominantly human agents of the FBC possessed by the Hiss, an otherworldly force that is attempting to cross over through a dimensional barrier into this reality. They range from standard humans carrying firearms to heavily mutated variations that possess a variety of superpowers.[1]
To combat these threats, Jesse is equipped with the "Service Weapon", a modular firearm capable of shapeshifting into five distinct forms: Grip, Spin, Shatter, Pierce, and Charge.[2][3] Each form has its own unique gameplay properties, ranging from a close-range shotgun-like blast to a long-range sniper-like form.[2] The "AWE" expansion introduces a new form known as "Surge", which functions similarly to a grenade launcher, allowing her to launch explosives at enemies and manually detonate them.[4] Players can equip and swap between two weapon forms at any given time.[5] As the game progresses, Jesse interacts with various Objects of Power to gain psychokinetic abilities. These include "Launch", which allows her to telepathically hurl environmental objects as projectiles at enemies; "Evade", a quick dash to avoid attacks; "Shield", which pulls rubble from the ground to block incoming attacks; "Seize", used to briefly turn enemies into allies; and "Levitate", which enables Jesse to fly.[6] The first expansion titled "The Foundation" introduces a new ability named "Shape," which allows players to create platforms using crystals, and a weapon skill named "Fracture," which allows them to destroy said crystals.[7] Outside of combat and transportation, the powers are also essential in solving environmental puzzles.[8] Three of the five aforementioned base powers are optional, obtainable only through exploration or completing side quests.[9] The usage of the Service Weapon and Jesse's psychokinetic powers is governed by two separate cooldown systems, allowing players to alternate between these two combat options.[10] The game lacks a traditional cover system; players must remain mobile, as defeated enemies drop health necessary for Jesse's survival.[11]
The Oldest House has an interior far larger than its exterior; an enormous, constantly shifting supernatural realm that defies the laws of physics. Control is built in the Metroidvania format, with the Oldest House having four distinct sectors that can be explored at a nonlinear pace.[12][1] Throughout the building, players encounter Control Points, which are unlocked by clearing enemies and serve as hubs for fast travel, skill upgrades, weapon modifications, and outfit changes.[13] Reaching a Control Point will also heal Jesse without resetting the level.[14] As players progress, Jesse's security clearance level will increase, and players will gain new skills, allowing them to access previously locked rooms or reach hidden areas.[1] The game's campaign is divided into 10 acts, supplemented with 18 different side quests.[15] There are also "Board Countermeasures" quests, which are challenge activities that task players to eliminate different Hiss under certain conditions,[16] and timed challenges named "Bureau Alerts".[17] The Oldest House is filled with hidden documents, audio recordings, FMV footage and TV shows, which provide additional insights about the game's world and its backstory.[11][18] An artificial intelligence system known as the Encounter Director controls interactions with enemies based on the player's level and location in the Oldest House.[1]
Players can further strengthen the Service Weapon and Jesse's attributes by equipping mods, with a maximum of three Weapon and three Personal mods allowed at once. Players can also choose to craft their own mods through the "Astral Construct" system using materials and Source Energy, the latter of which is collected through killing the Hiss or decommissioning unwanted mods. Mods are divided into different levels of rarity. Rarer mods offer greater power but require more resources to produce.[19] Source Energy is also essential for upgrading the forms of the Service Weapons.[20] Completing quests also rewards players with Ability Points, which can be spent to upgrade Jesse's psychokinetic powers, increasing its damage, adjusting its properties, and widening its use. They can also choose to increase her maximum health, Energy, which dictates how frequently she can use her powers, and the strength of her melee attacks. Spending sufficient Ability Points grants players additional Milestone Rewards, which typically unlock additional mod slots for further customization.[21]
Synopsis
Setting
Control revolves around the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), a clandestine U.S. government agency that investigates supernatural Altered World Events (AWEs). These AWEs affect the human collective unconscious and have a variety of "paranatural" effects, including the creation of Objects of Power, archetypal items which grant special abilities to their wielders. Objects of Power are connected to the Board, a black pyramid-shaped entity that exists within the Astral Plane, an alternate dimension. The individual chosen by the Board to wield the Service Weapon, an Object of Power, is considered by default to be the director of the FBC.[22]Control takes place within the Oldest House, a Brutalist skyscraper in New York City that serves as the headquarters of the FBC. The Oldest House is a Place of Power with several paranatural characteristics: it resists being noticed by anyone other than FBC members and individuals with an innate sensitivity to the paranatural, it is larger on the inside than on the outside, and its internal architecture is prone to shifting and rearranging in unpredictable ways. The FBC can stabilize portions of the Oldest House for its use by harnessing nexuses of resonance called Control Points.
The protagonist of Control is Jesse Faden (Courtney Hope), who is chosen by the Board as the director of the FBC to replace the recently deceased Zachariah Trench (James McCaffrey). Seventeen years prior, Jesse and her younger brother Dylan (Sean Durrie) were involved in an Altered World Event in their hometown of Ordinary, Maine. After discovering an Object of Power in the form of a slide projector, the two children accidentally unleashed paranatural forces that caused Ordinary's adult population to vanish. Jesse and Dylan were rescued by Polaris, a mysterious telepathic entity. Shortly thereafter, the FBC arrived in Ordinary, capturing Dylan and the slide projector while Jesse fled. In the present day, Jesse arrives at the Oldest House seeking her brother's whereabouts.
Other notable characters in Control include missing Head of Research Casper Darling (Matthew Porretta), research specialist Emily Pope (Antonia Bernath), security chief Simon Arish (Ronan Summers), Head of Operations Helen Marshall (Jade Anouka), Panopticon supervisor Frederick Langston (Derek Hagen), and Ahti (Martti Suosalo), a mysterious Finnish janitor.
Plot
In October 2019,[23] Jesse Faden arrives at the Oldest House following a telepathic message from Polaris, seeking the whereabouts of her kidnapped brother Dylan. Inside the building, she discovers the lifeless body of Zachariah Trench and is instructed by Polaris to pick up his fallen Service Weapon. The weapon translocates her to the Astral Plane, where the Board appoints her as the new director of the FBC in Trench's place. Exiting Trench's office, Jesse is attacked by FBC agents possessed by an entity she dubs "the Hiss". She learns that the Oldest House is under emergency lockdown following the Hiss's spread, and that everyone in the building has been possessed by the Hiss except those wearing Hedron Resonance Amplifiers (HRAs), devices built by missing Bureau scientist Dr. Casper Darling. Jesse agrees to aid the surviving agents in reclaiming the building and containing the Hiss, in exchange for Dylan's whereabouts.
Using an Object of Power known as the Hotline, Jesse communicates with the deceased Trench and learns that his former management team knows the secrets of the Bureau. After lifting the building's lockdown in the Maintenance Sector, Jesse enters the Research Sector in search of Helen Marshall, one of the members of Trench's management team, whom she helps secure the production of more HRAs. Marshall reveals that Dylan, known to the Bureau as Prime Candidate 6 (P6), was being groomed to succeed Trench as the Bureau's director due to his immense supernatural abilities. However, after killing several Bureau agents, Dylan was deemed too dangerous and locked away in the Containment Sector. Jesse rushes to the sector to find Dylan, only to learn that he has escaped and surrendered to the Bureau in the Executive Sector. Dylan reveals to Jesse that he has embraced the Hiss, and that the Hiss infiltrated the Oldest House through the slide projector Object of Power the Bureau recovered from Ordinary.
Ahti, a paranatural entity who manifests as a janitor, gives Jesse a cassette player, which enables her to navigate an elaborate maze protecting the slide projector's chamber in the Research Sector. She finds the slide projector missing, but learns that Trench and Darling used the device to enter an alternate dimension known as Slidescape-36, where they discovered an entity they dubbed Hedron. Jesse finds Hedron and discovers that it is Polaris, but moments later, the Hiss attacks and destroys Hedron. Jesse's mind is invaded by the Hiss, but she rediscovers Polaris within herself, allowing her to fight off the Hiss and save the Bureau. In the process, Jesse learns that Trench was the first individual to be possessed by the Hiss during the expeditions to Slidescape-36 and was responsible for releasing the Hiss into the Oldest House. Jesse finds the slide projector in the Executive Sector, where Dylan and the Hiss are attempting to enter the Astral Plane through a portal and overtake the Board. She deactivates the slide projector and seemingly cleanses the Hiss from Dylan, which closes the portal but leaves him in a coma. In the aftermath, the Oldest House remains infested by the Hiss and under lockdown to prevent its escape, but Jesse has come to terms with her new role as director and resolves to find a solution together with the FBC's surviving personnel.
The Foundation
Jesse is summoned by the Board to the Foundation, a cavernous area lying at the center of the Oldest House, which houses the Nail, an object that connects the Oldest House to the Astral Plane. Jesse finds that the Nail has been seriously damaged, which is causing the Astral Plane to leak into the Oldest House, with potentially catastrophic consequences. As Jesse attempts to restore the Nail, she seeks the whereabouts of Helen Marshall, who entered the Foundation during the Hiss invasion and has gone missing. Meanwhile, Jesse discovers logs left behind by Theodore Ash, Jr., the former Head of Research, who was part of the first expeditions to the Oldest House in 1964. Ash reveals that Broderick Northmoor, the director who preceded Trench, fell under the Board's influence during the expedition and was responsible for radically changing the Bureau in order to serve the Board's interests.
As Jesse continues to restore the Nail, she encounters Former, an extradimensional entity that grants Jesse a new ability, enraging the Board. Former claims to have once been a member of the Board, but was exiled after being blamed for an unknown transgression. Torn between the two entities, Jesse is eventually able to restore the Nail, but tremors occur between the Oldest House and the Astral Plane, which threaten to destroy both dimensions. Jesse reaches the base of the Nail, where she finds Marshall possessed by the Hiss. With the aid of Former, Jesse kills Marshall and cleanses the Nail. Jesse learns that it was Marshall who damaged the Nail, as a preventative measure against both the Hiss and the Board. Marshall's HRA was destroyed soon after, with her believing it to be retaliation by the Board, allowing her to be possessed by the Hiss. With the crisis averted but her faith in the Board shattered, Jesse vows to lead the Bureau her own way.
AWE
AWE is a crossover between Control and Remedy Entertainment's previous game, Alan Wake. Alan Wake takes place in Bright Falls, Washington; in that game, writer Alan Wake finds himself coerced and trapped by the Dark Presence that inhabits Bright Falls' Cauldron Lake, a dimension able to turn works of art into reality. Following the events of Alan Wake (as described in Control), Emil Hartman, a psychologist who attempted to investigate and exploit this power, was confronted and arrested by agents of the FBC, who confiscated all of his research on the lake. In a final act of desperation, Hartman dove into Cauldron Lake and was possessed by the Dark Presence. Hartman was subsequently captured and brought to the Oldest House by the Bureau, who attempted to contain him in the Investigations Sector. However, after Hartman breached containment, the Bureau was forced to abandon and seal off almost all of the sector. During the Hiss invasion, the Hiss mixed with the Dark Presence in Hartman, twisting him into a monstrous entity that haunts the sector.
Jesse is summoned to the Investigations Sector by an apparition of Alan Wake, who was otherwise considered missing after the events of Alan Wake. She encounters Hartman and is warned by Frederick Langston that Hartman cannot be allowed to escape the sector. As Jesse attempts to traverse the Investigations Sector and destroy Hartman, she receives visions of Alan, revealing that he was responsible for writing Hartman's escape into existence, using Cauldron Lake's power to influence reality using works of art. Alan also implies that his writing helped cause the Hiss invasion, to create a "crisis" for his "hero", Jesse, as part of his attempt to escape from Cauldron Lake.[23] Jesse reaches the Bright Falls AWE area of the Investigations Sector and destroys Hartman. She is informed by Langston of a newly detected AWE in Bright Falls, the date of which is several years in the future.
Development
Control is one of the first games to support new graphics cards with real-time ray tracing. Here, the bottom image, with ray-tracing enabled, shows reflections of light and other surfaces in the marble floor, compared to the more traditionally rendered version shown on top.
Control was developed by Finnish studio Remedy Entertainment. As their first major release since their initial public offering in 2017 and separation from Microsoft as a publishing partner, Control was developed using more efficient development strategies to keep costs and time low. Control was completed within three years with a €30 million budget, lower than the typical costs of a triple-A game.[24] Mikael Kasurinen, who worked on Alan Wake (as lead gameplay designer) and Quantum Break (as lead director), was Control's director, and Sam Lake was the writer and creative director. Lake created the game's story and characters during the pre-production stage, before passing it to narrative lead Anna Megill to flesh out its content.[25][26][27]
Control is built using Remedy's proprietary Northlight Engine, which was first used on its previous game, Quantum Break.[28] It was one of the first major games to be released after the introduction of graphics cards that support real-time ray-tracing through DirectX Raytracing. It was the first major game with a nearly full implementation of all available Nvidia RTX features, along with support for Nvidia's DLSS for resolution upscaling on supported graphics cards.[29]
Gameplay
Gameplay was one of Remedy's development priorities for Control.[25] Whereas previous Remedy games explored supernatural themes, Control was the first game in which the protagonist wields supernatural powers. The powers were designed to be easily recognizable and grounded in reality, with the team avoiding magical abilities that would otherwise feel outlandish within the game's setting.[30] The telekinetic powers were designed to feel intuitive: players don't need to manually target the environment to pick up objects, and any grabbed object can be hurled to deliver devastating damage. To achieve this, Remedy replaced the Havok physics in Northlight with PhysX.[31][32] The abilities and the Service Weapon are designed to complement each other in combat. One resource slowly recharges while the other is in use, encouraging players to switch between them strategically. The Service Weapon was crafted as a highly capable tool for dispatching enemies, though the artificial intelligence of the enemies in the game was designed to be aggressive, forcing players to use all skills in their toolset.[33][34] Internally, the Service Weapon had been compared to Excalibur, as whoever wields the gun became the director of the FBC.[25] Remedy considered the game to be a challenging experience, with Thomas Puha, Remedy's head of communications, comparing the game to Dark Souls.[35] The team wanted to give players more options in combat and introduced various enemy variants, which forced players to change strategy on the spot, as different enemies have different vulnerabilities.[1] Mods expand gameplay variety by allowing diverse builds. Players often need to adapt their approach to combat encounters based on their equipped mods and weapon forms.[33]
To give players more agency, Kasurinen wanted the game to be more nonlinear, and adopted elements from sandbox games, role-playing games and Metroidvania games.[32][31] It was a response to Quantum Break, a linear action game that took five years to develop but only took players about 8 hours to complete.[36] These design also meant that the game became less curated. As a result, the team adopted a minimalistic head-up display and removed wapoints. The mission logs will only inform players about the locations of interest, and it is up to players to find their way there. This approached avoid funneling players towards a certain direction, and let players immerse themselves in its world, encouraging exploration and forcing them to pay attention to its world.[32] Areas in the game were interconnected with each other, and each FBC sector has a large, central area with multiple exits that lead players to diffrent directions.[31][37] In-game signage were also created to guide players to different rooms in a sector.[11] As some of the powers in the game are optional, it created a unique challenge for the team designing combat encounter and level layout as they did not know what powers the player character has in a given moment during a combat encounter. As a result, the team spent a lot of time in quality assurance (QA) process to ensure that players will not accidentally exploited the game and ventured to unintended areas using Faden's powers.[34] Early version of the game included cooperative multiplayer, though this was ultimately cut from the game.[38]
The Oldest House setting was based on brutalist architecture, a style utilizing large concrete blocks popularized in the 1950s and used in many government buildings at the time. The world design director, Stuart Macdonald, described brutalism as a good science-fiction setting, as it has "this sense of power, weight, strength and stability to it".[39] The clean, utilitarian design of the Oldest House provided juxtaposition against the Hiss, a supernatural, otherworldly being that transforms and reconfigures its architecture to suit its needs.[40] Among real-world influences in the architecture is 33 Thomas Street, formerly known as the AT&T Long Lines Building, a windowless building in the center of New York City. Macdonald used this building as a modern example of brutalism and created the Oldest House as a "bizarre, brutalist monolith" to house the FBC.[39] Other real-world locations used as inspiration included the Boston City Hall, the Andrews Building at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and the Met Breuer.[39] The relatively flat colors of the background walls made it an ideal canvas to showcase other design and lighting effects. It worked well with the telekinesis powers, as the concrete walls would be used in lieu of a target object when the player throws debris at foes via telekinesis, and the initially pristine spaces end up showing the results of a large, destructive battle.[39] Ultimately, it made environmental destruction visually easy to communicate to readers.[37][1]
Other real-world architects inspired the game's structures. Carlo Scarpa's work was used heavily in designing stairways that ascended with other parts of the structure, while Tadao Ando's focus on lighting and spiritual spaces was reflected in other parts.[39] The interior design drew inspiration from the Yale Center for British Art (particularly Louis Kahn's blend of concrete and wood), as well as the office designs of architect Kevin Roche and efficiency pioneer Frederick Winslow Taylor. Both Roche and Taylor emphasized compartmentalized layouts that prioritized productivity and operational efficiency.[41] Additionally, the design team turned to film for other inspiration. Films of Stanley Kubrick, particularly A Clockwork Orange, as well as films featuring oppressive government agencies, such as The Shape of Water, served as part of the design basis.[39] Other films, like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, evoke the concept of repetitiveness, process, and ritualism in these agencies, and that was used to define some of the internal artwork and architecture.[39] Art director Janne Pulkkinen stated they looked at real-world churches and other places where ritualism is common, as lighting and design of those spaces are often used to draw attention to specific points of interest.[39]
Unlike previous Remedy games, Control breaks away from common tropes of genre fiction. Kasurinen added that it allowed the team to retain "Remedy quirkiness without the setting limiting it" and allowed the team to incorporate elements that were "a lot stranger".[31] As Control was Remedy's own intellectual property, the studio was not afraid to be controversial with it.[36] The gathered writings of the fictional SCP Foundation website were a major influence on Control. Stories on the SCP Foundation's site are based on singular objects with strange paranormal impacts, and as a whole, they are narratively linked by the common format of reports written by the fictional SCP Foundation, which catalogs and studies the objects. Control was built atop this, having the various Objects of Power and Altered Items, along with numerous collectible writings about these objects.[42] They fixed the story in the genre of the new weird, a modern variant of weird fiction with stories that combine science fiction and fantasy, often with a bureaucratic government agency involved in these events. In Control, they reversed the role to make the bureaucracy at the center of the story, with narrative designer Brooke Maggs adding that an oppressive bureaucracy in a corporate office environment contributed to an unnerving experience.[43] Kasurinen added that the Hiss was also inspired by the genre. He described them as a "disease" trying to invade a human body, and that it will slowly try to corrupt and take over its host.[44]
Kasurinen highlighted one of the game's core themes: the "conflict of collision of strange and mundane". The game is filled with familiar, commonplace objects that initially seem innocuous until players discover their altered, often horrifying or incomprehensible nature through paranatural phenomena.[45] According to the team, unease and tension emanate from knowing that even the most ordinary items, such as a fridge, a floppy disc, or a Merry-Go-Round horse, could be immensely powerful and dangerous.[43] Typical of new weird stories, the FBC will never know the true purposes or the extent of power of these commonplace items, and the FBC's approach of applying scientific theories to them would not have worked.[17] Maggs added that Control was not a terrifying experience. Instead, the game built tension and created a sense of dread and a sense of awe due to the unknowable and elusive nature of the threat.[43] Works of David Lynch, the Southern Reach trilogy, including Annihilation, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Mr. Robot, Inception, Stalker, and Legion, were all cited as sources of inspiration for the game.[46][47][48]
Narrative design
Sam Lake served as Control's creative director who developed its original story.
Mikael Kasurinen envisioned a Remedy game that broke from tradition, one that emphasizes world-building instead of being character-driven.[38] The team came up with a vision for the game's world first, instead of building its world around a screenplay.[32] The first concept down was creating the fictional FBC, a realistic setting that would serve as a basis for paranormal events and a catalyst for events in the story.[32] This enabled Remedy to consider multiple stories they could tell, not just about the player-character but other individuals in the FBC, but this also created the challenge of how to present the stories of the other characters in the open-world format. As a result, the team relied less on cutscenes and focused more on creating in-game conversations with other non-playable characters. Kasurinen wanted to give players more autonomy to figure out its mystery to create a more gripping and haunting experience.[32] He once again cited Dark Souls as an inspiration for the game's approach to storytelling,[35] and added that some story threads are intentionally left open for players to interpret.[47] Whereas the main story focused on Jesse's personal arc, the side stories focused on the game's world and its inhabitants.[49] The team used environmental storytelling to spark players' interest in optional content, rewarding their curiosity and exploration with additional narrative and new playable powers.[45] These areas, however, are not necessarily tied to the main narrative.[37]
The main voice cast consisted of various actors from Remedy's previous games. Courtney Hope stars as Jesse Faden, James McCaffrey plays the role of Zachariah Trench, and Matthew Porretta is featured in both voice roles and live-action videos as Dr. Casper Darling.[50][51] Jeremiah Trench was the first character created for the game. According to Lake, he represented the FBC and its questionable morals, and that he was "a man of action" and "a cynic" who had "suffered a great tragedy". The team designed the protagonist as an FBC outsider with insider connections. This concept formed the basis of a key narrative plot point concerning the FBC's involvement in a tragedy from Jesse's childhood.[31] Jesse faced the crisis with a sense of relief, as the unfolding events confirmed that what she remembered from her childhood was not a delusion, but reality.[51] Hope was inspired by Vera Farmiga's performance in The Conjuring and how her character was able to remain calm during extraordinary situations.[52] As with Max Payne, self-narration formed a part of the game's narrative, allowing players to know more about Jesse's true feelings about the world and characters around her.[46] There was a desire to make the game feel less "American",[53] with Lake adding he had been yearning to add his native Finland to one of their games. Finnish actor Martti Suosalo voices the janitor Ahti, one of the game's supporting characters. Among these pieces is a Finnish tango which Lake wrote, Petri Alanko composed, and Suosalo sang.[54][55] The game also includes a voice cameo by Hideo Kojima and his English translator Aki Saito in one side mission.[56]
Remedy toned down the live-action elements in the game when compared with Quantum Break. Most of the live-action footage in the game is of Dr. Casper Darling explaining parts of the Oldest House and Objects of Power within it. According to Lake, these videos were designed to be "slightly crude, clumsy, amateurish by design" and "slightly awkward and clumsy" because they were intended for internal training for FBC agents.[46] Another set of videos is short episodes of a fictional show called "The Threshold Kids", a puppet-based show seemingly aimed at children who may reside within the Oldest House.[43] Extra story elements were delivered through environmental objects, such as audio recordings and documents, or via live-action video footage played on in-game TVs. Given the game's heavy emphasis on environmental destruction, these methods allowed the team to convey backstory organically without interruption, avoiding disruptive cinematics that could pull players out of the experience.[45]
The core game includes Easter eggs referring to Alan Wake, which shares similar paranormal themes with Control; one such Easter egg discusses the aftermath of Alan Wake as part of the FBC's case files, which concerns what happened in Bright Falls, the primary location of Alan Wake, to have been an AWE.[57] A secret area includes a vision of Alan Wake. The past event in the town of Ordinary was alluded to by a backmasking track in the credits sequence of Alan Wake: American Nightmare.[58][59] Kasurinen said that the inclusion of such references helps to establish a type of continuity between its games, elements to be found and shared by its player community, but not meant to necessarily establish a shared universe.[60][61] However, Sam Lake later confirmed the existence of a shared universe between Alan Wake and Control known as the Remedy Connected Universe.[62] This was cemented with the release of the AWE expansion, directly bringing characters and events of Alan Wake into Control.[63]
Music
The game's soundtracks were composed by Petri Alanko and Martin Stig Andersen. Alanko worked on the main themes and cutscenes in Control, while Andersen worked on the themes of exploration and combat. Alanko regularly joined Remedy's meetings to stay informed about the game's story to better understand the emotional materials he had to work with. To create the haunting sound of the Hiss, Alanko used a microphone that can record electromagnetic radiation to record sounds of heavy wood being dragged across the floor. He also burnt a piano and destroyed various electronic equipment to record its sound. These sounds were then processed to hearing range, generating droning sounds that were cacophonous.[64][65] The Hiss's main six-note leitmotif was created very early. Alanko used old choir recordings and then processed the voices to strip away their normal pitch, creating a discordant sound to demonstrate the otherworldly nature of the Hiss.[66]
Poets of the Fall, an alternative rock group that are close friends of Remedy, provided songs, including "Take Control", in-game stated to be by the fictional band "The Old Gods of Asgard", itself an allusion back to Alan Wake.[59]Remedy used this song as part of the "Ashtray Maze", a section where Jesse fights through an ever-changing set of rooms set to the song. Remedy worked with Poets of the Fall so that they could incorporate the song dynamically as the player progressed through sections of the maze.[67] Music from Poets of the Fall's album, including the track "My Dark Disquiet", is also featured in the game.[68]
Release
In May 2017, Remedy announced that they had partnered with 505 Games to publish Control, then codenamed "P7". 505 provided marketing and publishing support and a fund of €7.75 million to assist the development, while Remedy retained the intellectual property rights to Control. In the press release, Remedy revealed that it would have complex gameplay mechanics and that it would be a "longer term experience" than its previous games.[69]P7 was being worked on by Remedy alongside two other projects.[70]Control was officially revealed at Sony Interactive Entertainment's E3 2018 press conference.[71]Control was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on 27 August 2019.[72]Epic Games had secured a year-long exclusivity deal for Control on the Epic Games Store with Digital Bros, the parent of 505 Games, for €9.49million (US$10.5million).[73] In January 2021, The Art and Making of Control, a companion book about the development of Control, was published by Future Press.[74]
Remedy supported the game with post-launch content, including two expansions that were set after the main game, with Jesse taking on her role as the FBC Director.[51] The first expansion, "The Foundation", was released on 26 March 2020 for PS4 and Windows and for Xbox One on 25 June 2020.[75] It takes place in the Foundation of the Oldest House, a cave system where the Astral Plane is set to collide with reality. It also introduces a new character ability, new enemy types and side quests.[76] The second expansion, "AWE", was released on 27 August 2020.[77] This expansion explores the event in Alan Wake, establishing a shared universe.[78] Additionally, smaller, non-narrative content has been released.[51]Photo Mode for the game was released in October 2019.[79] "Expeditions" was released as a free update on 12 December 2019, and presents standalone missions of various difficulty with power-up items for their character.[75] There are three difficulty tiers, with the more difficult tiers providing better rewards, and each run lasts for a maximum of 25 minutes.[80] A free update, released alongside "AWE", increased the number of control points, or "hard" checkpoints where saving is possible, including adding ones before boss fights, as well as several "soft" checkpoints where players can restart without having to travel back to a control point should Jesse die. A new "assist mode" was also added to allow the player to have more control over customizing the difficulty, with Remedy intending this to make it possible for novice players to complete the game.[81]
On 27 August 2020, the first anniversary of the release, Control: Ultimate Edition was released via Steam, including the base game, both the "Foundation" and "AWE" expansions, and the additional free updates.[82] The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions and updates were delayed from their original release window of late 2020 to improve the quality of the product.[83] Players who owned the Ultimate Edition on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One were able to update their version to the newer consoles for free.[84][85] 505 Games stated that while they looked to find a free upgrade path that would work for all users, there was "some form of blocker and those blockers meant that at least one group of players ended up being left out of the upgrade for various reasons".[86] Digital versions were released on 2 February 2021, and retail copies on 2 March 2021.[87]Cloud gaming-based versions were released for Amazon Luna and Nintendo Switch on 20 October 2020 and 28 October 2020.[88] It was the first cloud-based game released on the Switch outside of Japan.[89]Control was released on Google Stadia in July 2021.[90] A version for macOS was released on 26 March 2025.[91] It is set to be released for iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS in 2026.[92]
Control received "generally favorable" reviews from critics for most platforms, except for the Nintendo Switch version, which received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.[93][94][95][106]
Ben Reeves from Game Informer described the game's setting as "bizarrely fascinating" and an "eerie, dreamlike experience" that players will remember even after finishing the game.[100] Andrew Webster from The Verge similarly lauded the game's unsettling atmosphere, writing that the Oldest House felt both surreal and authentic, and commended Remedy's world-building.[107] Peter Brown from GameSpot praised the game's art direction, writing that it instills a sense of dread and awe.[101] Sam Loveridge from GamesRadar called the Oldest House a "captivating" and innovative setting that serves as a "character of its own".[102] In The Guardian, Steve Boxer described the game as an "immaculately conceived paranormal fantasy" that "manages to feel simultaneously believable and beyond bizarre".[105]Control on PC was considered by several critics to potentially be a "killer app" for Nvidia's RTX graphics cards, citing the hardware's capacity to enhance the game's visual style.[108][109][110]
The gameplay received generally positive reviews. Reeves wrote that Jesse's psychic power, in particular her Launch ability, was central to the game's combat, adding that their controls were intuitive. However, he finds other psychic powers to be underwhelming in comparison. James Davenport from PC Gamer noted that Control had the strongest gunplay in a Remedy game to date, and liked the gameplay cycle of switching between the Service Power and Jesse's powers. He further compared the game to Doom (2016), especially how they rewarded players for playing aggressively.[104] Dave Tach from Polygon wrote that the combat was "bombastic and satisfying", and added that the game's world interactivity was its "most impressive technical achievements".[111] Several critics felt the progression system to be lacking as they failed to evolve the experience in the later part of the game, as the upgrades did not significantly change the experience,[100][104] and the game did not have enough enemy types, forcing players to change their strategy.[103] Andrew Webster from The Verge found the gunplay to be generic, and he felt that the gameplay was not varied enough as it almost entirely relied on combat. However, he found the telekinetic powers to be exhilarating.[107] Critics generally liked the game's Metroidvania elements, with some noting that this gameplay structure made narrative sense within the context of the game's story.[112][107] Boxer compared the game to Prey (2017), noting that the additions of superpowers made exploration even more rewarding and fun.[105] The in-game signage was also praised for being surprisingly helpful for navigation.[112][101] The in-game map, however, was criticized for being confusing to read.[101][102]
The story received mixed reviews. Matthew Gault from Time wrote that Faden's story kept him engaged from start to finish.[113] Reeves liked how the story slowly reveals Jesse's backstory, but he found the motives of certain characters to be unclear and overly vague, resulting in plot points that can be confusing.[100] Brown liked Remedy's restrained storytelling and its handling of strange themes, adding that "obfuscation is part of what makes Control so spellbinding".[101] Davenport remarked that the narrative was inaccessible at first, but the game excelled at making "mundane objectives" "fascinating and sinister".[104] Loveridge liked the strangeness of the story, and praised how Remedy for telling a "surreal narrative that's capable of making even the ordinary feel extraordinary".[102] The game's cast of characters and their voice performances were praised.[103][101] Jonathon Dornbush from IGN described the cast as "eclectic" and liked how each of them has an "engrossing" personality. While he praised Remedy's quality of writings, he felt that Jesse's main story was an "afterthought".[103] Davenport found Jesse's personality to be "vapid" and disliked how her story seemed fairly disconnected with the rest of the cast.[104] Several critics noted that the game ended abruptly, though they recognized that its side quests helped extend the game's length even after the campaign had ended.[102][100][104]
Sales
During its debut week, it was the fourth best-selling game in the United Kingdom, behind Astral Chain, Wreckfest, and Man of Medan.[114] It failed to debut as the top 20 best-selling games in the US in August 2019.[115] In Japan, the PlayStation 4 version sold 10,336 physical copies, making it the 13th best-selling retail game during its first week of release.[116]
By December 2020, Control had sold over 2 million copies, and Remedy said it was their fastest-growing intellectual property since Max Payne.[117] While Remedy was happy with the game's performance, CEO Tero Virtala remarked that the game had not been "a major hit in our industry" in terms of sales.[118] By August 2021, Remedy stated that over 10 million people had played Control, accounting for those who played it through Xbox Game Pass and other non-sales routes.[119] By February 2024, Control had sold over 4 million copies, with over €100 million in revenue.[120] By November, it had sold over 4.5 million copies and reached over 19 million lifetime players.[121] By June 2025, it had sold over 5 million copies.[122]
In June 2021, Remedy announced an agreement with 505 Games for a multiplayer spin-off and a "bigger-budget" project to further expand the Control series.[155] In February 2024, Remedy acquired full ownership of the Control series from 505 Games.[156] In August, Remedy partnered with Annapurna Pictures to adapt existing Remedy games to films and television, including the Control series.[157]
The "AWE" expansion of Control established the "Remedy Connected Universe". Lake further added that each game in the shared universe will be a standalone experience, but they will also serve as "a doorway into a larger universe with exciting opportunities for crossover events".[158] Ahti, as well as agents of the FBC, appear in Alan Wake 2, while Dylan Faden and the Oldest House appear briefly in its DLC pack "The Lake House", which also sets up a sequel to Control.[159][160]Control Resonant, an action role-playing video game which stars Dylan Faden as its protagonist, entered full production in February 2025 and is set to be released in 2026. In Resonant, Dylan must find his missing sister and prevent the Hiss from consuming the whole world after they escape containment from the FBC into downtown Manhattan.[161][162] A spin-off game, FBC: Firebreak, was released in June 2025. As a 3-player cooperative multiplayer game, it sees players assuming control as agents of FBC's containment unit, who must venture into the Oldest House to eliminate various human enemies controlled by the Hiss. The game was released to mixed reception, though development continues.[163]
↑Staff, GamesRadar (20 December 2019). "The 25 best games of 2019". gamesradar. Archived from the original on 20 December 2019. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
↑Frushtick, Russ (12 December 2019). "GOTY 2019 #2: Control". Polygon. Archived from the original on 17 July 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
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