| Control | |
|---|---|
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| Developer(s) | Remedy Entertainment |
| Publisher(s) | 505 Games |
| Director(s) | Mikael Kasurinen |
| Producer(s) | Juha Vainio |
| Designer(s) | Paul Ehreth |
| Programmer(s) | Sean Donnelly |
| Artist(s) | Janne Pulkkinen |
| Writer(s) | Sam Lake |
| Composer(s) |
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| Engine | Northlight Engine |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | PS4, Windows, Xbox One 27 August 2019 Amazon Luna 20 October 2020 Nintendo Switch 30 October 2020 PS5, Xbox Series X/S 2 February 2021 Stadia 27 July 2021 |
| Genre(s) | Action-adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Control is a 2019 action-adventure game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by 505 Games. The game was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in August 2019, and for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in February 2021. Cloud-based versions for the Nintendo Switch and Amazon Luna were released in October 2020, followed by a version for Stadia in July 2021. Two paid downloadable expansions have been released.
Control revolves around the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), a secret U.S. government agency tasked with containing and studying phenomena that violate the laws of reality. As Jesse Faden (Courtney Hope), the Bureau's new Director, the player explores the Oldest House – the FBC's paranormal headquarters – and utilizes powerful abilities to defeat a deadly enemy known as the Hiss, which has invaded and corrupted reality. The player gains abilities by finding Objects of Power, mundane objects like a rotary phone or a floppy disk imbued with energies from another dimension, that have been at the center of major paranormal events and since recovered by the FBC. In addition to Hope, voice work and live-action footage was provided by James McCaffrey, Matthew Porretta, and Martti Suosalo, while the band Poets of the Fall provided additional music.
Control is inspired by paranormal stories about the fictional SCP Foundation created by an online collaborative wiki fiction project, based on the genre of the new weird. The environments of the Oldest House are designed in the brutalist style common for many government buildings created during the Cold War era, serving as a setting to show off the game's destructive environmental systems. The core game includes many allusions to Alan Wake, Remedy's prior game with similar paranormal themes, and Control's AWE expansion is a crossover between the two series, which Remedy has said forms part of the Remedy Connected Universe. Control was among the first games released to utilize real-time ray tracing built into the hardware of newer video cards.
Upon release, Control received positive reviews from critics, with several gaming publications naming it among their top games of 2019. The game was nominated for numerous awards, winning several related to the game's art and design. It sold over 4 million units by February 2024. A sequel, Control 2, was announced in June 2021. A separate three-player co-operative first-person shooter spin-off, FBC: Firebreak, is set for release in 2025.