Just finished the base game and it felt...abrupt?

[ncarr99]

Loved this game, had a lot of things going for it. The combat could sometimes get a little repetitive but the powers you gain are never unfun to use so it evened out. I was pretty interested in the story as it was being revealed and thought the overall presentation and "vibe" was top-notch - doesn't hurt I'm a fan of the SCP-esque genre, lovecraftian stuff, etc.

But just as things start getting *really* interesting and I'm thinking we're going to get some revelations, the game kind of abruptly ends. Frankly, prior to the final segment I would have guessed I was only around the halfway point, maybe two-thirds at most, but no, it's over. Now by the nature of the genre I was not expecting that we'd learn *everything*, there were always going to be some mysteries and questions unanswered, that comes with the terrain. But this seems excessive. Especially because some don't feel like "unsolved eldritch mysteries to keep you pondering the story" so much as "uneven pacing and story arcs that didn't go anywhere".

Just some examples - spoilers obviously:

Where did the Ranger chief lady go? She was built up like she was gonna be important and then just kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ off and no one mentioned her again.

What was the point of Dylan? Why did he rebel against the Bureau? He's built up like he's going to be important and he's a major motivator for Jesse but all he does is show up, smile creepily, say the Bureau is bad, smile creepily some more, and then...that's about it.

Speaking of, what would make the Bureau particularly bad? We get some scenes, dialogue and moments that build up like they are eventually going to be revealed as villainous or at least horribly ruthless in some way. They do end up coming across as pretty shady but there are never any big reveals on that front outside of some ominous foreshadowing and clues here and there and that whole thing felt sort of unresolved.

Where is Darling, what got him so spooked that he created the HRA and was having some kind of breakdown (I mean obviously the Hiss but we never learn how he learned of it, what he learned about it, or what his actual plans were)? What was he trying to do?

What the heck is up with our favorite Finnish Janitor Ahti? His scenes were fascinating but was never given even the slightest bit of a hint about what was going on with him. I had thought he'd be revealed to be some kind of G-man style eldritch entity or representative to an eldritch entity but without more from him in the end he just ended up feeling a little random and unconnected to the story.

What exactly was Trench's deal? The game just sort of abruptly tells you (without much fanfare and in a very tell-don't-show way which sucked) he was working for the Hiss but doesn't really say why, how, nor gave any idea why he killed himself or anything.

What exactly is the Hiss, what does it want?

What exactly is the Board? What does it want?

What exactly is Polaris/Hedron? What does it want? (Noticing a theme yet?)

Why are Jesse and Dylan important? Yes they found the slide player but beyond that they also have special significance and are director candidates - why?

What the ♥♥♥♥ even *is* the Director, what are their responsibilities? It seems like there's some sort of supernatural significance beyond just being the head administrator of this organization. Why does everyone just without question accept Jesse as Director?

At what point/why did Jesse decide she wanted to be Director? She went from telling everyone not to call her Director and being sort of skeptical of the Bureau to at the end just saying "this is my fight, I'm the Director now" but there didn't seem to really be much build up or reason for it. It was like a switch was flipped and all of the sudden she decided to be Director but it felt like she didn't really go through the character development to earn that moment. Especially because frankly she hasn't exactly done much to showcase leadership potential at this point, she's a badass supernatural warrior but somehow I doubt that's going to help her run an organization of thousands of people and I'm not sure why these people are all placing faith in her to lead/administrate them.

What exactly happened with Ordinary? It's talked about and hinted at but it ultimately comes across as pretty vague - something something slide player something something most of the town died or disappeared something something the Bureau got involved.

What is the service weapon's significance beyond just "cool magic gun"?

And so on. There are more but I'll stop there. It just kind of felt like a lot was cut. Like the game should have been twice as long as it was to fully develop all of this but then something happened and they had to leave it all out. Even gameplay wise I didn't really get all that far into the progression tree - I didn't do all the sidequests to be fair but it really seemed like there was a lot more to expand into before things ended.

I am aware there are two DLCs and that the game is connected to Alan Wake which I have not played. I fully intend to play both of those DLCs and then move on to play Alan Wake II (after doing some lore dumps of Alan Wake I to catch up) because even despite my complaints I thought the overall package of this game was pretty awesome. I'm sure I will have a lot of fun with both DLCs and with Alan Wake, and perhaps some of my questions will be answered through them, but even then I kind of dislike the way some of this has been executed - I feel like all the stuff pertinent to the main story of this game should have been answered within this game, not outsourced to other stories/games/expansions.

Anyway I'm less expecting answers to any of this and more just ranting and putting my thoughts into writing to sort out how I feel after what I thought was a very abrupt ending - thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[|H|H| Fr3ddi3]

The answer to a lot of these questions is found within the in game lore and the Foundation DLC, Remedy games are quiet often the opposite of 'show don't tell' ... naturally stopping mid fight to read 300 pages of lore is not for everyone but that's just how they do things.

[medion_no]

It continues on the DLC...is one of those games.

[deidian]

Where the Head of Operations(Marshall) is? Play "The Foundation" DLC

Dylan: he was captured as a child and he was never given CONTROL over his life, he was to be the next Director and that's that. It eventually resulted in him accidentally killing Bureau staff in temper tantrums: a very hot tempered and powerful psychokinetic kid put under stress, bad idea. There's a document of the wounds of a Bureau member which sums up into: Dylan telekinetically folded the guy like an accordion. The Bureau after that contained/imprisoned him making his mind state worse. Then the Hiss came and Dylan just accepted it in hopes of being able to be in CONTROL of his life since apparently no one else cared.

Darling: he's somewhere as an entity in the multiverse/Astral Plane. The hotline call from him hints it: he wasn't found dead anywhere, he simply dissappeared after exposing himself to Hedron resonance.

Ahti: that guy is basically the game biggest mystery. Don't ask questions about Ahti, just take anything about that janitor at face value lol. Everyone else in the FBC does the same even before Jesse: if it's Ahti, don't ask and don't get in the way.

Trench: tell-don't-show about him lol. As soon as Jesse grabs the Service Weapon she's pointing the gun at her head while sitting in the Director's chair. The test for Director happens in the Astral Plane during that moment: fail the Weapon test and you're fired. Trench was fired for letting the Hiss overtake(loss of CONTROL) the FBC. I genuinly love this bit of black comedy with the Service Weapon.

Hiss: it's just a resonance that consumes and corrupts everything: it takes CONTROL of its victims. It's only goal is spreading like a virus.

Hedron/Polaris: a bening resonance. She just helps everyone. Darling's hotline call explains her effects: it's a catalyst that enhances abilities and facets of the people exposed to it.

The Board: a group/something/someone that for some unknown reason has in its agenda the well being of the FBC. "The Foundation" DLC gives more information on them/it/him/her.

Director FBC; chosen by The Board and owning the Service Weapon. FBC staff doesn't question Cthulhu: they know the Service Weapon fires everyone touching it that's not worth of being the Director so just in case they don't even dare the Service Weapon themselves. Also more tell-don't-show: after grabbing the Service Weapon Jesse's mug is in dozens of paintings across the FBC with the footnote: "Director. Jesse Faden"

Jesse and Dylan are important because they are AWEsome ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ powerful parautilitarians: on a level never ever seen by the FBC before. Being parautilitarian is the minimum requirement so maybe you don't get fired when grabbing the Service Weapon.

Beyond this I would simply say this: replay the main story again and pay attention if you want to understand the game. There's many things that are not misteries that you somehow didn't catch on: most of my write-up is story on your face, you don't need to go out of your way to get most of it, it's cut scenes and some videos that are unavoidable unless you actively decide to not watch them.

Optionally read documents and try to find all lore bits, many of them are black comedy and give more context to the FBC.

PS: I replayed the game twice because I felt I needed it to catch missing/misinterpreded bits and wanted more of the game play. Not a sin if you need and want more than one go to get it.

PS2: I wrote the theme of the game in caps several time in the message. I never seen a game put it's main theme so much in your face that is literally the title.

[hollowlilies]

just passing by but interesting ted talk, well written

[harken23]

Two things to remember about this game.

1. When the credits roll, the game isn't over.
2. WHEN THE CREDITS ROLL, THE GAME ISN'T OVER.

[Hotel Security]

Felt they completely dropped the narrative with the brother. Seemed really interesting with some wild backstory...and then they just substitute his character as some sort of avatar of the Hiss to give characters a big-bad to go after. Completely overwrote every interesting aspect of the character. And, no, I don't care if it's something to be left to a sequel...too much of this game was about her brother to have his arc just thrown aside.

Then the rest just felt like deus-ex-machina writing...they insist on saying we can't understand the Hiss and how it works so it lets them make up anything about it or how to beat it. Too much in this game is handwoven away as "well, guess we'll just never understand it."

[harken23]

Originally posted by Hotel Security:

Felt they completely dropped the narrative with the brother. Seemed really interesting with some wild backstory...and then they just substitute his character as some sort of avatar of the Hiss to give characters a big-bad to go after. Completely overwrote every interesting aspect of the character. And, no, I don't care if it's something to be left to a sequel...too much of this game was about her brother to have his arc just thrown aside.

Then the rest just felt like deus-ex-machina writing...they insist on saying we can't understand the Hiss and how it works so it lets them make up anything about it or how to beat it. Too much in this game is handwoven away as "well, guess we'll just never understand it."

Or maybe the players don't feel the NEED to understand it all. I don't need every loose end wrapped up and explained.

[Hotel Security]

>Or maybe the players don't feel the NEED to understand it all.

I'm fine with this being an element of various factors. But when that lack of understanding is used as an excuse to have something magical to cure the situation, also without any real understanding, then it becomes a story of them just making s*** up as they go along. And telling me that players "want" this style is a cop-out.

Maybe this is fine for the players but it feels like a David Lynch narrative of just making stuff up because it looks cool and not worrying whether this makes sense. Obviously some like the David Lynch style but it makes for easily-solved resolutions since they don't need to be explained. You make like it but don't be surprised when others are not impressed.

A fine example is Bloodborne where we can never understand the intentions of the mysterious godlike creatures...but we can still figure out how the world works and about what happened. EVERYTHING in Control is about weird s*** happening and we don't know why.

[Du-Vu]

Irrationally symbolic doesn't mean random, as far as David Lynch goes.

But the rules here seemed pretty internally consistent as far as they went. Magical, sure, but even a lot of harder sci-fi has some cheat, some phlebotinum. OOPs gain power through human attention, and part of that power seems to be a degree of sentience. Part of that sentience seems like a wilful rebellion against the imposed control of the FBC and the conformism of society as a whole. And as bad as the Hiss are, Jesse and Dylan might actually have been in a position to help prevent them from gaining the foothold they did if Trench hadn't been hellbent on keeping them walled off and out of the loop. Polaris was clearly trying to give them the power and knowledge needed to fight the Hiss all along, but Dylan became too resentful and turned to the Hiss in part because Trench had basically kept him a prisoner his whole life. Jesse basically had the same power all along but never knew it because she was kept in the dark out of the same paranoid motives.

Nothing about it seemed particularly abrupt to me, though I can sort of understand why it might come across that way. The whole point of it kind of is that the problem was easily solved all along, yes, when you have what amounts to a superhero like Jesse Faden -- but also that it can be incredibly difficult to convince people of that. And then you're then left cleaning up the problems we create for ourselves, by trying to keep control and account for things before they happen.

Some things are left unexplained and weird just for the sake of being weird, but those are the trappings of the (sub)genre at this point. The main story here is about Jesse and Polaris, the FBC and the people in it. The main threat here is the Hiss, but as the presence of the Mold sort of demonstrates --or the Third Thing, or Northmoor or FORMER or the Board themselves, or the situation in Perfect or the Clog or all the loose OOPs from the Panopticon-- it isn't the Hiss that started this. Something was always going to give, because the FBC itself was the problem, the way it was structured, the idea of control in itself. The infighting and lack of trust. Stealing kids and keeping them in cages.

You do need some control, and as if to agree, the game doesn't end with the FBC dismantled. But you also need flexibility.

Not saying you have to like it, or David Lynch or similar works. It is convoluted -- but also somewhat superficially so, by design. A lot of the things that seem random or unexplained are kind of tangential to the fairly simple plot of a superhero coming into her powers and being in a position to finally start putting things right. Even if the latter job has barely gotten started by the end.

[ncarr99]

Originally posted by Hotel Security:

>Or maybe the players don't feel the NEED to understand it all.

A fine example is Bloodborne where we can never understand the intentions of the mysterious godlike creatures...but we can still figure out how the world works and about what happened. EVERYTHING in Control is about weird s*** happening and we don't know why.

Comparing this to soulsborne makes sense. Those also don't spell out everything and a lot is left unsaid, but the pieces are there. This just sort of feels like they tease things, then forget about them and they never get brought up again and you're left just sort of scratching your head. The setting as a whole, the bureau as a whole, don't really get the development that they need.

And to doubly reiterate before someone says it again. I know there are DLCs, I know a lot of this will be answered there. That's not my point. It's that the base game, without the dlcs but as a complete experience, didn't feel like a very complete story.

A soulsborne style wouldn't come right out and told you exactly what's going on with different characters and groups, but there would have been enough hints that you could have at least had *theories* about them and some idea that there were motivations and goals moving them to do what they do even if it's not spelled out exactly what those goals are. This really didn't. Instead we're left with Polaris is good and helpful because...I dunno, it just is. The Hiss is bad and trying to take over the Bureau because...I dunno, it just is. The Board is weird, cryptic, and associated with the Bureau because....I dunno, it just is. Ahti is a weird (but awesome) guy who seems to know what's going around here and speaks in Finnish idioms who places great importance in helping you because...I dunno, he just does. Trench is apparently helping this Hiss because...I dunno, he just is. Darling somehow knew there was a crisis coming and has vanished to parts unknown because...I dunno, he just does.

I admit I didn't exhaustively find *every* lore page out there so perhaps there's more info on some of this that I didn't see, but I found quite a few and read them all and never found these questions really developed at all.

Beyond that, regardless of the whole "cryptic lore that may or may not be intentionally left vague" thing, some actual main story beats just don't feel well developed. I cannot stress enough how bad I think Dylan was handled. He was Jesse's primary motivation for a significant chunk of the story, but he ends up doing jack other than smile creepily and say something about the Bureau being the real enemy - a subplot which in and of itself *also* goes nowhere which ultimately renders him even more pointless. Even Jesse herself seems like she sort of stops worrying about him at some point.

Similarly I don't think Jesse's character development earned her ascent to the director role at the end. 95% of the game she's like "I don't like when they call me director, I'm not here for them, I'm not their director" and then at the very end she just sort of abruptly is like "nevermind I guess I'm the director now lol". But there was no sense of development or change that caused her to make that decision, no sense that she was coming around over time or starting to understand what the bureau was or why it was important that she lead it, she just sort of arbitrarily flipped a switch in her personality and did a 180 out of nowhere. The story demanded she become director so she did, but it didn't feel earned.

And director Trench is for 95% of the game a mysterious but seemingly good figure who's helping you out. Then in a cut scene at the end, literally out of nowhere, Jesse somehow comes to the epiphany that Trench actually is responsible for helping the Hiss. What? Why? How exactly did you learn this? Was there any foreshadowing or evidence? It just completely comes out of the blue and is the definition of abrupt and "tell don't show". Kind of like "hey btw just popping in to to tell you without any buildup that that Trench guy who's motivations and actions have been very mysterious but who's been advising you is actually bad and responsible for everything that's happened k thx byeee", roll credits.

Despite my complaints I do want to stress that I think overall Control is still extremely good and I do not regret my time with it. I'm sure the DLCs and Alan Wake II will give more answers when I get around to them, and I'm sure the overall full picture of the story is pretty good. I'm not actually questioning whether or not a lot of these questions or issued are addressed overall, so much as why they weren't addressed specifically in the base game. But I sort of hate the idea that rather than have a complete story here they did half a story here and then sliced off the rest into dlcs and the possible sequel that I've heard was being made.

[Du-Vu]

Er... It's pretty heavily hinted Trench was corrupted by the Hiss early on, definitely way before the ending. There's a lot of things that aren't explicitly stated, it's that kind of game, but things like Trench being taken by the Hiss (which is a twist, but that comes around the point where you start getting more videos with Darling) and Jesse gradually warming up to the idea of becoming director definitely *are* in the game.

Likewise, Dylan is still very much part of Jesse's motivation. The game ends with her rescuing him as best she can, and he's the one person who really does survive the Hiss. Not unscathed, but most of the people the Hiss got to were effectively dead, so if he has any chance of coming back to himself, that's a pretty big win.

[ncarr99]

Originally posted by Du-Vu:

Er... It's pretty heavily hinted Trench was corrupted by the Hiss early on, definitely way before the ending. There's a lot of things that aren't explicitly stated, it's that kind of game, but things like Trench and Jesse gradually warming up to the idea of becoming director definitely *are* in the game.

Likewise, Dylan is still very much part of Jesse's motivation. The game ends with her rescuing him as best she can, and he's the one person who really does survive the Hiss. Not unscathed, but most of the people the Hiss got to were effectively dead, so if he has any chance of coming back to himself, that's a pretty big win.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree for now. One day in a few years, after I've played the dlcs, Alan Wake, and maybe even Control II and know the whole picture, I'll probably play this game again. When I do, armed with foreknowledge of what's coming maybe I'll notice a lot more of the foreshadowing that went over my head this first time through and I'll rescind a lot of my thoughts. But that day is not today.