Presentation
Control takes place almost entirely inside the Oldest House, but this choice never truly limits its universe. The FBC headquarters initially resembles an immense American administration filled with offices, corridors, archives and technical rooms. Yet its dimensions are not stable. Passages appear, rooms change shape and certain areas seem to obey rules that have very little to do with ordinary geometry.
This architecture is one of the game's greatest strengths. Massive walls and brutalist concrete give the Bureau an austere, almost institutional presence that paranormal manifestations constantly disrupt. An administrative room may open into an impossible space, an apparently ordinary object may require elaborate containment procedures, and a simple internal document may reveal an event far stranger than its bureaucratic language suggests.
Exploration relies heavily on this sense of curiosity. The Oldest House is organized into interconnected sectors that Jesse can gradually access through new clearance levels and abilities. Side missions, documents, recordings and objects found throughout the offices do more than simply fill the environment: they build the image of an organization methodically attempting to classify the unclassifiable.
Combat directly exploits the idea of an environment that has become unstable. Jesse uses the Service Weapon, a paranormal firearm capable of taking several forms, but her powers quickly become just as important. Telekinesis allows her to rip objects from the environment and hurl them at enemies, while other abilities provide greater mobility or control over the battlefield.
Encounters therefore become particularly physical. Pieces of concrete, furniture and debris fly across rooms while certain structures break under impact. As the adventure progresses, Jesse also gains greater freedom of movement, especially through levitation, which gradually transforms the way both spaces and combat are approached.
This growing power contrasts with Jesse's initial position. She enters the Bureau as an outsider looking for answers, then suddenly finds herself leading an organization whose workings she barely understands. Control constantly exploits this gap. Its universe treats dizzying phenomena with the cold language of administration, blending cosmic horror, science fiction, bureaucratic absurdity and strange humor without trying to explain everything immediately.
What to remember
- A supernatural adventure centered on Jesse Faden and her search for her brother Dylan.
- The Oldest House, the immense headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control, whose architecture can shift and defy physical laws.
- A combat system combining the Service Weapon, telekinesis, levitation and direct use of the environment.
- Exploration that rewards curiosity through files, events and optional areas that expand the mysteries of the Bureau.
- A visual identity shaped by brutalist architecture, striking lighting contrasts and spectacular transformations of space.
- A singular blend of the paranormal, science fiction, horror and administrative bureaucracy.
Conclusion
Control builds much of its personality around a simple contrast: treating the impossible as an administrative problem. The FBC has procedures, departments and reports designed to study phenomena that should make any rational organization impossible in the first place. This meeting between bureaucracy and the paranormal gives the Oldest House an immediately recognizable atmosphere.
Remedy especially avoids reducing this strangeness to mere decoration. Jesse's powers, the building's transformations and paranormal objects directly affect exploration and combat. Throwing a desk at an enemy or crossing a room while levitating gives tangible form to the phenomena that FBC documents laboriously attempt to classify.
This approach nevertheless requires the player to accept that not everything will be understood immediately. A significant part of the universe is discovered through documents, conversations and detours, and some mysteries deliberately remain unresolved. Players looking for a completely explicit story may find this narrative approach opaque at times.
But it is precisely this resistance to total explanation that gives the game its strength. Jesse searches for answers inside an institution built entirely to produce them, only to discover that some realities simply refuse to fit into the categories created for them. Control turns this idea into a place, a story and a gameplay system: the more control Jesse gains, the more she discovers how much the world around her still escapes her.
Good to know
- Control was developed by Finnish studio Remedy Entertainment and originally published by 505 Games.
- The game was released in 2019.
- Jesse Faden is portrayed by Courtney Hope, who provides the character's likeness, voice and performance.
- The Federal Bureau of Control is a fictional agency dedicated to studying and containing paranormal phenomena.
- The Service Weapon can take different forms corresponding to several ways of fighting.
- The Oldest House forms the main setting of the adventure and functions as a supernatural space whose structure extends beyond its apparent dimensions.
