Control has been on my backlog longer than any other game.

So when I bought Alan Wake II on sale last Christmas, I knew it was finally time to play Control. So I scheduled to play in October 2025…

Control is a 2019 video game made by Remedy Entertainment, the studio known for Alan Wake and Max Payne. Alan Wake was the first “horror” game I ever played. I remember being amazed by the writing. Looking back, it doesn’t hold up very well, but I have a soft spot for it!

That’s why when I got Control from PS+, I knew I had to play it.

And I tried.

Like three times.

Control has a STRONG sense of style, and besides being interested in the Alan Wake connection, the style alone could be enough to get people interested. The dark shadows, bright red lighting, brutalist architecture, and distorted office create an atmosphere that feels like it demands to be explored.

The game uses full motion video (FMV) very effectively. There are many scenes where videos will play over the environment, or videos will play on projectors or TVs. These moments showcase the creativity of the studio and just how confident they are in their art direction.

The game opens with Jesse Faden (who you play as) entering the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC). There’s no one there, and the only explanation you get for your arrival is that someone (or thing), whom Jesse can talk to in her mind, guided her here.

The only thing you can interact with for the first couple of minutes is reading documents. They give vague lore explanations about the bureau and what they do.

After a quick run-in with a janitor, you find the FBC’s director’s office, and you hear a gunshot.

You find the director dead with his gun next to him, and when you pick it up, some otherworldly stuff happens. And Jesse Faden is now the director.

This pistol is central to the gameplay of Control. Unknown to me at the time, Control is an action-adventure game.

You’ll spend most of your time shooting glowing red guys, and at first, that’s it. Explore a location, go to the marker on the map, kill anything that tries to kill you.

For the first couple of hours, the gameplay was not clicking with me. I thought it was boring, mundane, and It was lacking... something.

I can’t stress enough that for the first few hours, I was worried that the game was plain bad. I kept trying to duck under cover and play strategically, but the game was not working. It felt like trying to build something with a half-empty toolbox.

And then I got the dash.

A good mystery reveals itself slowly. Clues and hints are provided over time, and right before the truth is revealed, everything clicks into place for the audience.

Control is all about mystery. The FBC, the thing guiding Jesse, the janitor, the director, the board, there is so much happening that isn’t explained, but it is shown, and the player gets to put the pieces together for themselves.

The mystery that I found the most interesting in Control was the game itself. How the game was played.

After getting the dash ability, the game began to open up. I started to understand how I was supposed to be playing it, and why people enjoy it so much.

I wasn’t supposed to be running from cover to cover; I was supposed to be sprinting to get a new angle and dashing to avoid getting hit.

It started to feel like a dancer instead of a shooter.

As you get more and more movement abilities, the game continues to open as more and more strategies and ability combos are given to the player.

Toward the end of the game, you can:

And it rocks.

Control is a strangely difficult game, and I don’t always feel for good reason.

There are different flavors of difficulty. There’s the kind that requires dexterity and quick reaction time. There’s the kind that requires foresight and deep thinking skills.

Control is often difficult due to crowd control. Dealing with a handful of enemies and various types is fun, but when there are 10s of enemies on screen, it quickly becomes overwhelming.

The game turns from a dance to a frantic panic. I don’t like these moments of the game, and they often feel unfair.

As the new director of the FBC, you’re tasked with dealing with a new threat, The Hiss. A strange paranatural resonance that kills people or turns them into monsters. There’s a whole wiki page worth of information about what the Hiss is, but even that doesn’t fully understand what it is and what it’s motivations are.

But I don’t think that actually matters.

Control is a game that explores the differences between chaos and control as well as the difference between power and control.

Rather than trying to overcome The Hiss through controlling external forces, Jesse learns how to control her strength and her title of director to achieve her goals.

At the beginning of the game, she’s just looking for her brother, but at the end, she’s fully accepted her role as director and has a sense of control over her situation.

After the credits roll, the game opens back up with Jesse dressed in formal clothes standing in the director’s office, and a message appears:

While it makes sense for the story that Jesse would need to clean up the remaining mess the hiss left behind (and it gives a good excuse for players to be able to go back and complete side missions), it really took the wind out of my sails.

I don’t think the ending of Control is bad. In fact, I think it’s effective. I didn’t understand what happened, but I felt what happened. However, my issue with the end is that… it doesn’t.