Control seemingly came out of nowhere, but became one of the biggest hits of the year. It had incredible visuals, great gameplay, stirring music, and overwhelming atmosphere. However, the major appeal of Control is its story.
Control’s story is a mind-bending journey through psychological horror and supernatural mystery, keeping players equally confused and intrigued for the entire narrative. Most of the player’s questions about that narrative are not answered. Rather, the game poses ever more questions until the audience is left with a uniquely satisfying heap of wonder and mystery in the end.
Control’s story is so good because it has two main characters: Jesse Faden, the protagonist, and the setting of the Oldest House, which is just as rich and compelling as a human being. Players navigate the Oldest House to further Jesse’s story, learning about her past as well as the past of the institution she works to rescue.
Jesse Faden, the player character and primary protagonist, first arrives at the Oldest House in search of her younger brother, Dylan Faden. The Oldest House is the home of the Federal Bureau of Control, a government institution dedicated to the discovery, containment, and research of paranormal phenomena. Seventeen years ago, they kidnapped Dylan after a series of paranormal events. Jesse has been searching for him ever since.
The Oldest House is a bleak, nondescript concrete building in the center of New York City. The building’s ominous Brutalist architecture and mysterious tendency to stay hidden to those not specifically looking for it only give some small indication of the strange realities housed within. In fact, Jesse only found the Oldest House with the help of her extra-dimensional companion, Polaris, which takes the form of spiraling fractals of resonant energy and communicates with Jesse on a subconscious level. Polaris will play a major role in the events to come as well as the secrets of Jesse’s past.
Jesse soon learns why the entire Bureau is under lockdown. She stumbles across the body of the former Director of the FBC, the late Zachariah Trench. Trench apparently committed suicide in his office, as Jesse experiences visions of his demise when she picks up his gun at Polaris’ request. The gun turns out to be the Service Weapon of the FBC’s Director, which is an archetypal form of a gun that carries incredible paranormal power.
Upon picking it up, Jesse is transported to the Astral Plane, where she is confronted by The Board, an extradimensional being depicted as a massive inverted black pyramid. The Board remains mysterious, but seems to be inherently tied to the FBC and the Oldest House.
The Board appoints Jesse the new Director of the FBC, allowing her to use the Service Weapon with her immense psychic powers. The Board requests that Jesse protect the Bureau. Spurred on by this request, her companion Polaris, and her desire to find her brother, Jesse continues on her mission to explore the Oldest House and combat the threats within. Those threats are all the result of an attack by the Hiss. The Hiss is some sort of extradimensional being based on resonance, much like Polaris.
Unlike Polaris, the Hiss does not express any form of consciousness or will, only exuding a sickening aura of menace and animosity. It has spread throughout the FBC like a virus, corrupting the very structure of the building and seemingly every person inside but Ahti, the janitor. These corrupted people float in the air, reciting an ominous incantation, or become thralls that attack Jesse on sight.
Jesse’s mind is assaulted by the Hiss in a nightmarish wave, but it seems that Jesse is able to repel the Hiss with her considerable willpower and the help of Polaris. This ability allows Jesse to cleanse various "control points" in the Oldest House, restoring a sense of safety and normalcy to each area as she passes through.
After clearing the first of these points, Jesse meets Emily Pope. She is a researcher in the FBC and becomes a fast companion that Jesse is able to confide in throughout the game. Pope was one of the few people protected from the Hiss by an HRE, a wearable device created by the missing head of research, Dr. Casper Darling.
Jesse and Emily discover that people infected by the Hiss are essentially already dead, as cleansing them causes them to die. However, Jesse and Emily remain determined to defeat the Hiss and clear the Oldest House of its corruption.
Jesse goes on to explore the Oldest House with Emily’s help, finding more Objects of Power and Places of Power similar to the Service Weapon. The Hotline is a phone that allows Jesse to communicate with The Board directly, while the Oceanview Motel is a "Threshold" that allows Jesse to move through the ever-shifting areas of the Oldest House. Other Objects of Power simply give Jesse abilities for combat or traversal.
Ahti soon calls on Jesse, his “assistant,” to get to work. He instructs her to restore power by clearing the NSC Power Plant. From there, Jesse must use her skills to clear more of the Oldest House, encountering other survivors along the way. Jesse learns that she should seek out Dr. Darling, the missing head of research, in his laboratory, and that her younger brother is held in a containment facility called the Panopticon.
Upon finding Dylan’s cell, Jesse discovers that he has escaped. However, he has voluntarily turned himself over to FBC agents. He is simply waiting for her back at the Executive Wing, Emily and Jesse’s central base of operations.
Dylan was corrupted by the Hiss, but has maintained some of his former self. It is unclear how sane he was before the Hiss got to him. He finds the Hiss a friendly presence, even taking pleasure from its corruption. He seems to trust Jesse, but has a deep hatred for Polaris, telling Jesse not to trust “her.”
Dylan welcomed the Hiss as an escape from the oppressive Bureau as well as Dr. Darling and Director Trench, whom he resents and despises. Throughout the rest of the game, Dylan at times represents the Hiss, acting as a symbolic opposite to Jesse and Polaris. After speaking to Dylan for the first time in seventeen years, Jesse goes to the Prime Candidate Program to find out what happened to him while they were apart.
Dylan was kidnapped and raised in captivity as a Prime Candidate to become Director of the FBC, Prime Candidate 6. Jesse was left in the outside world to be observed by the FBC as a sort of “control group” for their experiment, and was designated as Prime Candidate 7.
This revelation leads Jesse to explore deeper into the Oldest House, in an attempt to learn more hidden secrets about the events of her childhood that led to Dylan's capture. In the area dedicated to researching the “Ordinary AWE,” Jesse find’s the Bureau’s records of her past.
The Ordinary Altered World Event was a paranormal event that took place in Jesse and Dylan’s hometown: Ordinary, Wisconsin. The two children found an Object of Power in the town’s dump, a slide projector capable of opening doors to other dimensions.
While exploring these other dimensions, the two children found mostly strange and terrifying things, but in Slide 36 they found the benevolent entity now known as Polaris. However, a hostile entity from one of the other slides called Not-Mother corrupted several children and caused all of the adults in Ordinary to suddenly disappear.
Unable to turn off the projector, Jesse put in Slide 36 and burned all of the other slides. Polaris then enabled Jesse and Dylan to turn off the projector, but the damage was done. Only seventeen people survived the Ordinary AWE. When Dr. Darling and the FBC investigated, they took Dylan away.
The Projector and Slide 36 were taken, while then-Director Trench kept a burned slide for himself. Dylan was raised to be the next Director, and used to investigate further into Slide 36. Unfortunately, as he was groomed for directorship, Dylan became more unstable as his powers grew, leading to his ultimate containment in the Panopticon.
Dr. Darling also encountered Hedron in Slide 36, a benevolent extradimensional entity related to Polaris. Darling brought Hedron into the Oldest House, allowing Polaris to enter our dimension using Hedron as a resonance point. At this time, Hedron and Polaris were believed to be the same being.
Darling’s relationship with Hedron seemed to alter his behavior, worrying Director Trench. Hedron apparently warned Darling just before the Hiss invaded, however, allowing him to create the HREs (Hedron Resonance Amplifiers) just in time to save a few people.
After learning all of this, Jesse goes on to try and find the Slide Projector Object of Power in Dimensional Research. In order to reach that area, Jesse first goes the Foundation, seemingly the origin point of the Oldest House.
There, Ahti gives her his cassette player, which allows Jesse to traverse the “ashtray maze” and reach Dimensional Research. In this sequence, it is implied that Ahti may be far more powerful than previously thought, possibly even being another extradimensional entity.
In Dimensional Research, Jesse discovers the Hedron Resonance Lab, where Dr. Darling disappeared. Jesse inadvertently allows the Hiss to enter the Hedron's chamber, however, and Hedron is finally destroyed by the Hiss. This casts Polaris out of our dimension, but Jesse believes that Polaris has been destroyed. This finally allows the Hiss to reach The Board and corrupt Jesse’s mind.
The credits roll. However, they end credits slowly become distorted, melting away into the true ending sequence of the game. Jesse finds herself an FBC bureaucrat. Caught in a time loop, Jesse sees ominous visions of a Hiss-possessed Dylan, herself, and Trench symbolically vying for the seat of the Director.
With the help of Ahti and a message from Dr. Darling, who has seemingly entered the Astral Plane with The Board, Jesse manages to resist the Hiss illusion and become the true Director of the FBC. She locates Polaris in the Oceanview Motel, and becomes the new resonance point for Polaris to enter our dimension. It is revealed that Director Trench and his burnt Projector slide were the original source of the Hiss invasion.
Influenced by the Hiss, Trench became fearful that Dr. Darling and Hedron would take over the Bureau. When Darling gave out the HREs, Trench took it as a sign of an attempted takeover. He placed his burned slide into the Slide Projector, which allowed the Hiss to invade the Bureau. Newly empowered by Polaris, Jesse manages to shut off the Slide Projector and close the entry to the Hiss realm. Jesse then makes her way to her brother Dylan.
Jesse at last manages to cleanse Dylan of the Hiss. Fortunately, because he still had a residual connection to Polaris from his childhood, her brother does not die. Instead, he enters a deep coma. With the Hiss now cut off from its source of power, Jesse determines to clear its remnants from the Oldest House before ending the FBC lockdown. With Jesse as the true Director and Dylan still in a coma at the end of the game, the future DLCs have plenty of room to expand the story.
Control is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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