Hello all! Getting ahead of the Switch 2 Direct dropping tomorrow to give your ears our chit chat on Remedy’s 2019 game, Control. But a Switch 2 presentation is pretty exciting, y’all! I mean, we have to be excited about SOMETHING in these trying times. Control arrived after Remedy broke off from Microsoft following Quantum Break. Chasing that perfect mix of narrative and player freedom and tying directly into their other IP, Alan Wake, Control was snagged by 505 Games for publishing rights. 505 Games, a prolific publisher, gave Remedy room to make the game they wanted without intense expectations of selling an entire new console. The industry learned so much about what not to do with that Xbox One launch! While Quantum Break is a great game and one I have learned to appreciate more with time, it was a controlled player experience and heavy on the narrative. Remedy wanted to allow the player to explore a realm on their time. Taking inspiration from Dark Souls and Metroid/Castlevania, they created a game that rewarded the player for exploration and revisiting previous areas. Also, the game is challenging and if you are not paying attention, it will bully you! Mechanics aside, the story follows Jesse Fayden who has finally tracked down where her brother could be located. It leads her to an unassuming building in New York that is owned by the F.B.C. or Federal Bureau of Control. The FBC is like the boogeymen who go out to stop paranormal events and find “objects of power” which are everyday objects that distort reality. Jesse and her brother Dylan experienced an event as children and he was taken away. Now she can confront those who kidnapped Dylan. Of course, when she gets there, it turns out there has been a breach in the building and “the hiss” has taken over by possessing staff and messing with the fabric of reality. This framework ties directly into Alan Wake and sets up events that we will get to in Alan Wake 2. It’s truly a rewarding experience. I’ll can it on story STUFF because the game is still rather recent and where the game ends up was just a joy that I can’t ruin for others. The miraculous thing about the development of Control is that it was done in 2 years and on a budget for 20 millions euros which is rather modest for a AAA title. Looking at the game you would think it cost more than that but partly that’s due to the enhancements made over the years with updates and ray tracing - I can’t remember the look of the game at launch. It also helps that Remedy has an in-house game engine with Northlight which allows them to have intimate knowledge on how to get the best out of their code. One of the cool things I found is the inspiration for The Oldest House which is a building in NYC on 33 Thomas St. Look how spooky and cool! Big Brutalist arch vibes in the game and there is even a post over on Polygon about this with a video. Here is a quote I pulled below and you can also read the article HERE. A core part of Remedy’s design philosophy is that it should feel like the player has an effect on the world. The Oldest House does that by being made of beautiful, reactive concrete. Concrete is inextricable from Brutalist architecture. You can learn more about that in this great episode of 99% Invisible, which was created with input from the guy who literally wrote the book on concrete. Anyway, concrete dictates how Control responds to player input. When Jesse Faden hovers and then slams into the ground, you get an impact crater. Bullets leave scars and fill the air with dust. I can rip out a gnarly chunk of wall and throw it, or use it as a shield. If I throw furniture it can explode on impact because concrete is really hard. We get returning actors to the Remedy world - the late and great James McCaffrey returns as The Director and Dylan is played by Sean Durrie who played Nick in Quantum Break. The show stealer is Courtney Hope who was also in Quantum Break at Beth and she plays a believably cool and collected Jesse Fayden. She got her inspiration from horror icons such as Vera Famiga from The Conjuring - here is a snippet from an interview she did over at Bloody Disgusting. I love Vera Farmiga (in The Conjuring). She was very strong. She was calm. There’s something about her that I really enjoy. I did think about her quite often because when she is put up to a task or she’s’ put in front of a demon, there’s a calmness about her. It’s almost like you can feel her heart racing through the screen. But, if you were to listen to her speak, she sounds calm. She did a good job of having her heart race and being nervous, because you’re confronted with something that’s fearful or the circumstances are so high that if you fail it could be a catastrophe. That’s something that I really focused on… Women are portrayed in a multitude of ways in horror films, and there’s so many and it was like which one do I want to be? What is this story? Is this a broken woman that’s coming through and finding something through this? Well, yes. But, I also had to remember that Jesse’s from the streets and she’s not necessarily brittle, but overcomes that. I sort of pulled from a lot of different horror movie females and then found my own as Jesse. The biggest thing for me was reliving her own horror. Losing her brother at such a young age. And losing her parents and that reality of that horror before she even hit the Oldest House. It was kind of compounded. Playing through Control and reading the interview with Remedy in regards to their Control spin-off Firebreak, I am now looking forward to the multiplayer shooter. I was worried it would be more of what we are seeing in the market but 1.) Remedy is publishing and developing the game and 2.) they are not making this a live-service game where you need to check in every day for fear of missing out. They are making this game for busy people! Remedy bought back the rights to the Control IP from 505 Games for 17 million euros so they are clearly moving forward with independence post Alan Wake 2 and that makes me happy! Enjoy the podcast and let me know your Control thoughts! Here is a great video of Remedy discussing the game and its influences. Get full access to Damage Per Second at jessebartel.substack.com/subscribe
