Jesse Faden walks into the Federal Bureau of Control looking for answers about her missing brother. Within minutes she is holding the Director's sidearm and fighting for the building itself. Control is Remedy Entertainment's 2019 supernatural third-person action-adventure. It blends telekinetic combat and a shape-shifting weapon with some of the most inventive world-building the studio has ever put on screen.
A Secret Agency Under Siege
The Bureau studies Altered World Events, the moments where reality bends, and locks away the objects they leave behind deep inside its New York headquarters. That headquarters is the Oldest House, a brutalist tower most people in the city walk past without ever noticing. When an otherworldly force called the Hiss breaks containment, it possesses the Bureau's agents and turns the halls into a war zone. Jesse arrives just in time to be chosen as the new Director, and her search for her brother Dylan gets tangled up in the agency's darkest experiments.
Remedy's storytelling is at its most confident here. Redacted case files, research recordings, Dr. Casper Darling's live-action video logs and the cryptic messages of the Board fill in the world at your own pace. Allies like Emily Pope and the enigmatic Finnish janitor Ahti give the Bureau a strange, very human texture. The result sits somewhere between government thriller and the New Weird, and it rewards players who stop to read.
Combat Built on Physics and Powers
Control's fights are fast, loud and gloriously destructive. You'll rarely stay in cover. Instead you're pushed to keep moving, mixing gunfire with powers and tearing the environment apart as you go.
- The Service Weapon
- An Object of Power that changes form as you unlock it, from the dependable Grip pistol to the close-range Shatter, the fully automatic Spin, the precise charged shot of Pierce and the explosive Charge. You equip two forms at once and switch between them instantly mid-fight to suit the threat in front of you.
- Telekinetic abilities
- Launch turns desks, fire extinguishers and chunks of concrete into projectiles. Shield pulls debris into a protective wall, Evade dashes you out of harm's way and Seize turns weakened Hiss into temporary allies. Levitate lets you hover above the battlefield and slam down on the enemies below.
- Upgrades and mods
- Ability Points earned by completing missions expand Jesse's health, energy and powers through a skill tree. Weapon and personal mods, found in the field or crafted at Control Points, let you build around precise shooting, ability-heavy play or anything in between.
Exploring the Oldest House
The Oldest House is the real star. Its concrete halls are bigger on the inside than any building should be, and whole sections shift and rearrange themselves as the Hiss tightens its grip. Cleansing Control Points takes territory back from the Hiss and opens up fast travel across the building. New abilities let you reach areas you could only glimpse earlier, which gives exploration a satisfying Metroidvania-style rhythm.
- Side missions and Bureau Alerts send you back into cleared sectors to face fresh threats, track down dangerous Altered Items and help the Bureau staff caught up in the crisis.
- Hidden rooms, sealed-off areas and optional bosses reward your curiosity, and some of the game's strangest and most memorable encounters wait well off the main path.
- The Ashtray Maze, a shifting labyrinth set to a pounding rock track, is one of the best set pieces Remedy has ever built and a moment players still talk about years later.
Remedy at Its Most Ambitious
From Max Payne to Alan Wake and Quantum Break, Remedy has always paired cinematic action with stories that refuse to play it safe. Control brings that pedigree to a more open structure and a more surreal world. The studio's Northlight engine delivers moody lighting, dense particle effects and physics-driven destruction that leaves every office looking like a storm passed through. Control went on to win more than 80 awards and remains one of the standout action games of its generation.
If you love games that trust you to piece a mystery together while handing you a telekinetic arsenal to do it, Control is an easy recommendation. Pick up the Service Weapon, step through the Bureau's doors and find out what the Oldest House has been hiding.
