Remedy Entertainment has always been a studio obsessed with atmosphere and narrative experimentation, and Control represents their most fully realized vision to date. Set in the brutalist labyrinth of the Federal Bureau of Control, this is a game that asks you to accept the strange without explanation and rewards that trust with one of the most compelling settings in modern gaming.
The community response to Control is broadly enthusiastic, with particular praise for the Oldest House itself and the telekinetic combat. The criticisms tend to cluster around performance issues, a map system that actively fights the player, and some repetitive encounter design that dulls the impact of otherwise excellent combat mechanics.
The Oldest House and Its Impossible Architecture
The setting is the star of Control, and it’s not close. The Oldest House is a brutalist office building that shifts and changes, containing pocket dimensions, impossible spaces, and a bureaucracy that treats the supernatural as just another item on the agenda. The environmental storytelling is extraordinary. Memos, reports, and multimedia collectibles flesh out the world of the Federal Bureau of Control with a tone that blends horror, humor, and mundane office culture in ways that feel completely original.
The telekinetic combat system gives Jesse Faden a toolkit that makes encounters dynamic and destructive. Launching chunks of concrete at enemies, shielding with debris, levitating above firefights, and combining these abilities with the transforming Service Weapon creates a power fantasy that grows more satisfying as the skill tree expands. The destruction physics make every fight feel impactful, with environments crumbling and objects flying across rooms in response to the chaos.
Remedy’s approach to storytelling here is their most restrained and most effective. Rather than front-loading exposition, Control drips information through environmental details, optional documents, and the mysterious Board’s cryptic communications. The Alan Wake connections add another layer for fans of Remedy’s broader universe, but the game never requires that knowledge to work on its own terms.
The art direction and visual design maintain a consistent, striking aesthetic throughout. The contrast between sterile government offices and the reality-warping Hiss corruption creates images that stick with you. The Ashtray Maze sequence, in particular, is one of the most celebrated set pieces in recent action gaming.
Lost in the Bureau’s Own Bureaucracy
The map system is the single most complained-about element of the game. In a building that shifts between dimensions and layers, the 2D map provides almost no useful navigational information. Getting lost isn’t an occasional inconvenience. It’s a constant companion throughout the game. Some players argue this adds to the atmosphere of a shifting, unknowable building. Most just find it frustrating.
Performance on PC at launch was rough, particularly with ray tracing enabled. The game pushes hardware hard, and even on capable systems, the frame rate can dip noticeably during heavy combat with lots of physics objects and particle effects. Patches improved things over time, but it remains a demanding title that requires modern hardware to run well.
The enemy variety doesn’t keep pace with the ability upgrades. The Hiss come in a handful of variations, and by the midgame, encounters start to feel samey despite the combat system’s depth. The game throws more enemies at you or places them in different configurations, but the fundamental challenge doesn’t evolve much after the early hours.
Some of the side missions and objectives can feel padded, sending Jesse back through previously explored areas for tasks that don’t add much to the experience. The pacing sags in the middle section before picking up again for a strong final act.
The New Weird Done Right
Control’s greatest achievement is making the strange feel mundane and the mundane feel strange. The Federal Bureau of Control treats paranatural events the way any government agency treats paperwork, and that tonal choice elevates the entire experience. This isn’t a game about explaining the weird. It’s a game about working within it. That confidence in its own strangeness is what separates Control from the many games that use supernatural elements as window dressing.
Should You Play Control?
Players who love atmospheric world-building, environmental storytelling, and games that trust them to piece together a larger mystery will find Control deeply rewarding. The combat is satisfying enough to carry the experience even when encounters repeat, and the Oldest House is one of gaming’s great settings. If you need clear objectives, a functional map, and consistent frame rates above all else, the experience will be more mixed. A capable PC is strongly recommended.
The Verdict on Control
Control is Remedy at their most ambitious and most cohesive. The Oldest House is a setting that demands exploration, the telekinetic combat delivers a genuine power fantasy, and the storytelling approach respects the player’s intelligence. A frustrating map and some repetitive encounters prevent it from reaching the heights its world-building promises, but this remains one of the most distinctive action games of its generation. The Bureau has a place for you.