Quite simply, Remedy’s Control is the best game I have played this year and it is my early pick for Game of the Year. There, review done! Now buy the game and enjoy it!

What, are you still reading? Okay, fine, I’ll talk about why this game is nearly perfect.



Control throws you into the story immediately, no messing about with prologues, flashbacks and other story contrivances. As Jesse Faden, you walk into the reception of the Federal Bureau for Control, a shady government agency that Jesse has been searching for, for years ever since an incident in her hometown that lead to her brother’s disappearance. The building looks abandoned as no one is in sight and Jesse can just walk straight through. She encounters one person, the janitor Ahti, who sends her to the Director’s office. There she is chosen as the new Director and given the signature weapon of the game, a gun that can be upgraded and that morphs between different forms to give you a shotgun, pistol and sub-machine gun.

With that, she is directed to cleanse the control points and take back the Oldest House from The Hiss, an otherworldly invading energy that has taken control of the Oldest House and the agents within. Jesse reluctantly follows the instructions simply because she has to in order to survive, but also because she wants answers as to who the FBC are, what happened in her town, and more importantly, where her brother is.



That is the game in broad strokes, and I love it because it is brilliantly told and acted. The story reminds me of the now ten-year-old SyFy TV show Warehouse 13 which had a similar premise. That show was more comedic, but where it had artifacts, Control has Objects of Power or OoPs’ that cause havoc and create danger in the world. The FBC is tasked with investigating these OoPs’ and the associated Altered World Events or AWEs. Another similarity is the fact that the Oldest House is constantly shifting and growing, again like the Warehouse does to accommodate new Artifacts. Jesse rescues the enthusiastic and extremely clever Antonia Pope; this games Artie if you will. She is a research scientist that would normally irritate as simply an exposition dumping character. But the acting and script turns her into a character that I instantly took a liking to. Her enthusiasm for her research and exploration of the unknown is infectious, and it drives you to want to explore.

Remedy could’ve easily decided to try and create the illusion of choice by giving the player dialogue choices but thankfully they stuck to their vision and story.

Pope is not the only outstanding actor. Jesse, as played by Courtney Hope, is one of the most rounded and interesting protagonists that I have played in years. Her motivation of trying to find Dylan and understand what happened all those years ago could be cliched and rote, but Hope’s characterisation and the constant inner monologue letting the player know what she is thinking, how she is coming to various decisions and why she is doing this, just makes the character far more sympathetic. Remedy could’ve easily decided to try and create the illusion of choice by giving the player dialogue choices but thankfully they stuck to their vision and story. The only other game that did this that I can recall was The Last of Us which had a creative vision for the story and stuck to it despite some fans criticising that ending.



While Hope is great as Jesse, I want to know more and hopefully get a game featuring Ahti. This mysterious character that helps Jesse could easily have fallen into the creepy janitor mould, but instead comes across as someone you can trust immediately and is likeable instantly. Played by Finnish actor Martti Suosalo in a bravura performance, he moves the plot along, but never feels like that quest giver character only existing to guide the player - you just know that he exists outside of the script’s requirements.

The one small, tiny criticism I have with the story is that you have to explore for collectibles to pick up much of the lore. This is a well-worn, some might say overused, trope in gaming, forcing the player to search every nook and cranny to extend the life of the game. In Control, the story and lore are so compelling that you want to find these collectibles as they will add to you understanding and enjoyment of the game and the surrounding lore. For the first time since probably the Goldbox games, I actively wanted to find every collectible so that I could immerse myself in this world.



Control is the best story and game that Remedy have created since Max Payne. The driven protagonist is a Remedy signature, but in this case, the creepiness of the story as well as the likeability of Jesse and the deep story combined with the gameplay mechanics instantly took me back to the late ‘90s and Max’s quest for vengeance.

The gameplay mechanics themselves are not complex – this is a third person shooter, but not a cover-based shooter. Standing still will lead to death. This makes the game a little more challenging without spiking the difficulty as you have to unlearn behaviours created by modern shooters i.e. hide to stop taking damage. In another nod to Remedy’s history, there is no regenerating health bar - skill, luck and killing enemies for health drops are your only hope of survival. But like Max Payne, Jesse has a few tricks up her sleeve; tricks that you will have to master to complete the game.

Control is the best story and game that Remedy have created since Max Payne.

I’ve already mentioned the gun, itself an OoPs that transforms into different weapons and regenerates ammo. That would seem like the most innovative mechanic, but it is just a tool and even with upgrades you won’t be able to rely on its devastating power alone. To survive you have to master Jesse’s newfound abilities. These range from Telekinesis to Levitation and using these wisely and in combination is the only way to survive. Learning to throw objects at the enemies while shooting at them and running around is vital to success and that is even more so when you encounter the bosses. I hate boss battles, they feel like such archaic mechanics, but that’s usually because they are cheap. In Control, they almost never feel cheap. One particular side quest boss does, as they are there to help you practice and learn to use your abilities to overcome the challenge. These challenges are not From Software challenges, but they are a decent challenge to the average gamer.



Blocking your progress is a nice variety of enemies from possessed FBC agents that will swarm and flank you, to the more monstrous enemies that have similar powers to you, requiring you to practice your combos. The design of the enemies and the encounters are well executed and makes you apprehensive to enter any room for fear of what is waiting for you.

The level design here is something I enjoyed, even though I criticised Quantum Break for using the same philosophy. You run through a corridor to an arena that is locked off, battle through the enemies and then cleanse a Control Point or unlock the next door. But given this game’s singular setting in the Oldest House, it makes sense. Encouraging exploration to find collectibles is an almost Metroidvania system of backtracking as various areas are unreachable or locked till you upgrade your powers. I’m not usually a fan of these designs, but again, the side quests and your own personal quest for more collectibles to learn the lore make the backtracking fun.



My only criticism of the game comes in the technical performance. I played Control on a PS4 Pro and at various stages experienced frame rate drops, especially in battles when the particle effects and the number of enemies increased. The game was still playable, but this does not bode well for the less powerful base consoles and at this late stage in the console cycle, these sorts of issues should not be prevalent. There are even reports that on PC, the platform to play on if you have an RTX graphics card to enable ray tracing (don’t even try the software solution for nVidia’s 10-series cards unless you really like slide shows), there are frame rate dips. It isn’t so bad as to be unplayable, but it is noticeable and irritating, nonetheless.

I concluded up top that Control is my Game of the Year for 2019 and my favourite Remedy game since Max Payne. The wide assortment of abilities at your disposal, coupled with immersive gameplay and truly palpable, often bone-chilling atmosphere, easily make it one of Remedy's most refined and masterfully crafted works to date. If only minor framerate issues hold it back from achieving true perfection, then I must commend the developer for accomplishing something special. Just go and buy it so that we can get more of its kind, please.