Over the past couple of weeks, there's been a wave of new articles focusing on Remedy's latest adventure. In the mix are some interviews with Mikael Kasurinen (Game Director on Control) and Thomas Puha (Communications Director at Remedy), who dived into some of the behind the scenes stories from the teams.
We've also created another list of Game of the Year wins and nominations, "Best of..." categories, and "Top Games of 2019", HERE. Both this list and the other will be updated with more pieces as they're found.
In the meantime, for more Control goodness, check out the links below:
[INTERVIEW] "We created something exceptional": Remedy reflects on Control...
GamesRadar+
Control was awarded the GamesRadar+ GOTY as part of our best games of 2019 rankings and it was also crowned one of the 100 best games of the decade. That should tell you everything you need to know about the impact this supernatural adventure has had on the GR crew. Given all of that, we had a quick chat with Control game director Mikael Kasurinen to talk through development and what new weird ideas may be on the horizon.
Read the interview with Mikael, HERE!
[INTERVIEW] What Making Control Taught Remedy About Itself
GameSpot
Read the full interview with Mikael, HERE!
[INTERVIEW] Control map almost didn’t happen, improvements ongoing
Stevivor
And here you thought it was hard getting around The Oldest House right now... Control‘s in-game map almost didn’t exist, Remedy Entertainment has told Stevivor. “It might blow some minds that for the most part in development, there was not supposed to be a map in Control,” Remedy’s Thomas Puha said. “Players were supposed to navigate only by reading the in-world signs.”
Read the full interview with Thomas, HERE!
[ARTICLE] Why Control Looks Like That
Polygon (written by Simone de Rochefort)The architecture in Control isn’t just for show. That was my takeaway from sitting down with Remedy Entertainment’s art director and world design director for a discussion about The Oldest House, where Control takes place. As everyone knows by now, The Oldest House is a Brutalist heap.
The style emerged after World War 2, and was predominantly used in municipal buildings or apartment blocks. It became shorthand for “creepy totalitarian government,” thanks to appearances in futuristic films and our own evolving design sensibilities. No style provokes as much love or revulsion as Brutalism does.
Read the full report, HERE!
[INTERVIEW] Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Control’s Threshold Kids
FanByte (written by Danielle Riendeau)
Inspired by such works of weird/off puppetry as Don’t Hug Me, I’m Scared and Kristin Lepore’s Hi Stranger, the Threshold Kids were a hard-fought, and utterly delightful part of Narrative Lead Anna Megill’s contributions to the game. I had the pleasure of speaking with her about her bizarro creation, which started as an idea to educate players on the wilder mechanics of the game and its world. She kept pushing the idea, and found a kindred spirit on Remedy’s Cinematic team in Mircea Purdea, who actually had a background in puppetry and building puppets. The rest was bold, bizarre history.
Listen to the full podcast, HERE!
Push Square (Written by Liam Croft)
Read the full article, HERE!
[ARTICLE] GAMINGbible's Guide To The Best Xbox One Games
LADBible
From the team that brought you Alan Wake and Max Payne, Control is a superlative third-person adventure through a shape-shifting environment, possessed by the wicked spirit of supernatural dramas. If you've ever wanted to play an X Files episode - or, more accurately, a whole season of it - this might be the closest you'll come. Control also features one of the most thrilling sequences of action game history with its Ashtray Maze, and its all-round creepiness will stay with you long after the credits have rolled. Not that it's over, yet - at the time of writing, DLC is incoming.
Read the full article, HERE!
[ARTICLE] These three games swung for the fences and changed my 2019
Polygon (Written by Cass Marshall)2019 offered up a fantastic smorgasbord of gaming, from comfort-food RPGs like The Outer Worlds to the polished, capable looter-shooter The Division 2. But as I put up my Christmas tree and start looking at 2020’s releases, I’m realizing that not every game is sticking around in my brain. Some experiences, even ones I sunk dozens of hours into, are fading away even before New Year’s Eve.
Others are more like tiny gremlins on the figurative wing of my brain-plane. They’re sticking around, digging their hands into things, forcing me to think about them constantly. But what differentiates that experiences that flit away with those that stick with me? These three games got weird, and even if I didn’t love the total package, they taught me something about how to tell a story or build a world that will stick with me through 2020 and beyond.
Read the full article, HERE!
[ARTICLE] Why ‘Control’ is at its Best When it Puts the Guns Down
Bloody Disgusting (Written by Aaron Boehm)
Ever since the release of Max Payne, it was clear that Remedy Games was capable of creating a satisfying combat loop. Control (Bloody Disgusting’s Game of 2019) is no exception, giving players a delightful combination of tight gunplay and entertaining powers that keep the combat encounters fresh even when the enemy variety isn’t the strongest. There’s a smart design decision that ties both the gun ammo and powers to separate meters that recharge individually, forcing you to swap between them while waiting for one to refill, creating a symphony of chaos. Throwing up a shield, blasting away with your Service Weapons, then hurling a desk at a crowd of people while levitating away to a higher ground will always be satisfying.
Read the full article, HERE!
