Control
Remedy Entertainment · Horror, Shooter, Action
Overview
Winner of over 80 awards, CONTROL is a visually stunning third-person action-adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
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CONTROL Ultimate Edition
CONTROL Ultimate Edition contains the main game and all previously released Expansions ("The Foundation" and "AWE") in one great value package.
A corruptive presence has invaded the Federal Bureau of Control…Only you have the power to stop it. The world is now your weapon in an epic fight to annihilate an ominous enemy through deep and unpredictable environments. Containment has failed, humanity is at stake. Will you regain control?
Winner of over 80 awards, CONTROL is a visually stunning third-person action-adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Blending open-ended environments with the signature world-building and storytelling of renowned developer, Remedy Entertainment, CONTROL presents an expansive and intensely gratifying gameplay experience.
Uncover the mysteries
Can you handle the bureau’s dark secrets? Unfold an epic supernatural
Struggle, filled with unexpected characters and bizarre events, as you
Search for your missing brother, and discover the truth that has brought
You here.
Everything is your weapon
Unleash destruction through transforming weaponry and telekinetic
Powers. Discover new ways to annihilate your enemies as you harness
Powerful abilities to turn everything around you into a lethal weapon.
Explore a hidden world
Delve deep into the ominous expanses of a secretive government
Agency. Explore the Bureau’s shifting environments only to discover
That there is always more than meets the eye…
Fight for control
Battle a relentless enemy through exciting missions and challenging
Boss fights to earn powerful upgrades that maximize abilities and
Customize your weaponry.
From the game's Steam store page.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,974 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Seven years after release, most of the players reviewing Control recommend it. Their praise centers on the Oldest House, a shifting brutalist government building; on the lore buried in redacted files, tapes, Dr. Darling's videos and the Threshold Kids, which reviewers often compare to the SCP Foundation, The X-Files and Twin Peaks; and on combat that starts slow and turns into a telekinetic power fantasy of hurling desks, forklifts and chunks of concrete while levitating. The Ashtray Maze is the moment reviewers bring up most, and some bought the game to get ready for Control Resonant and the wider Remedy universe.
The map annoys fans as well as detractors: a flat 2D map of a stacked, vertical building, no waypoints, and players turning to YouTube to find their objective. Repetitive combat, respawning enemies, distant checkpoints and a few spiky bosses wear down a sizeable minority, and the story divides people who love the unexplained mystery from people who find it vague, pretentious and capped by an abrupt ending. On PC, players who quit early most often name technical problems: the long-standing texture streaming bug (blurry, low-resolution surfaces that can hide puzzle clues), stutters, black screens and full-system freezes on newer Nvidia cards.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
The Oldest House, its art direction and atmosphereHigh
The setting draws praise from both sides. Players describe the brutalist concrete, the retro-futurist office equipment, the stark red-and-black Hiss spaces and the rooms that rearrange themselves as unlike anything else in games, and some say it kept them stopping to take screenshots. The lighting and ray-traced reflections still impress, with several calling it the best showcase of ray tracing years after release, and the sound design and music (the constant Hiss chant, the weight of Launch) get praise of their own.
Among the longer negative reviews, 18% praise the world, the setting or the look before explaining why the game itself didn't hold them. The minority view is that the same grey offices and corridors become monotonous over 15 to 20 hours, and a few find the heavy red lighting in late areas hard on the eyes.
Lore, documents and the SCP / X-Files feelHigh
Players say this is the rare game where they actually read every file: Altered Item reports, Dr. Darling's live-action lectures, Trench's hotline messages, the Threshold Kids puppet show and the Alan Wake references tucked into case files. 16% of positive reviews mention the lore, documents, collectibles or world-building, and 9% compare the game to the SCP Foundation, The X-Files, Twin Peaks or David Lynch. For fans of "new weird" fiction, this is the main reason to play.
The dissent is about delivery. Some complain that the story only makes sense if you stop and read hundreds of pages, often half-redacted, and that audio logs can't be played while you move. A few feel the anomalies stay too tame for an SCP-inspired game.
Telekinetic combat and the power fantasyHigh
Throwing objects with Launch, levitating over fights, shielding with debris and switching Service Weapon forms is the gameplay hook, and powers and abilities come up in 18% of positive reviews. Players like the destruction physics and the escalation: early fights feel weak, but by the end Jesse is "a levitating overpowered being" who can pick up forklifts and hurl them at the Hiss. Comparisons to Jedi powers and Half-Life 2's gravity gun come up often, inFamous and Psi-Ops less so.
The limits come up as well: Launch is strong enough to make the guns feel like peashooters, enemy variety is thin, and the mod system adds little. These points lead straight into the repetition complaints below.
The Ashtray Maze and standout set piecesMedium
Reviewers call the Ashtray Maze, the late-game sequence set to Old Gods of Asgard's "Take Control," one of the best levels they have played. Some say it alone justifies the price, and a few negative reviewers single it out as the one part they enjoyed. Dr. Darling's "Dynamite" video, Ahti the janitor and his tango, the Oceanview Motel and the fridge that must never leave someone's sight are the other moments people quote.
A great prelude to Control Resonant and the Remedy universeMedium
6% of positive reviews mention the sequel, some of them written by people playing or replaying Control right before Control Resonant launched on September 24, 2026. The AWE expansion's link to Alan Wake is a draw, and several reviewers went on to Alan Wake 1 and 2 because of it. A few advise playing Alan Wake first to get the most out of AWE.
Exceptional value on saleMedium
The game is often discounted (players report paying $3 to $6 for the Ultimate Edition), and "worth it on sale" comes up on both sides: fans call it a steal, and lukewarm players say the low price is why they don't regret it. A smaller group says it would not be worth full price.
The expansions, with caveatsLow
The Foundation and AWE are generally recommended as worthwhile extensions, with AWE the favorite for its Alan Wake ties. The Foundation is criticized for confusing cave layouts and a crystal-ledge mechanic that some found buggy, and AWE's final boss fight is where a number of players got stuck.
Where players are split
Story, mystery and the endingHigh
11% of negative reviews call the story confusing, cryptic or hard to follow, and 6% criticize the ending, but confusion comes up in positive reviews too, sometimes with a shrug ("Finished it. Liked it. Understood nothing."). Fans like that the game doesn't over-explain, rewards attention and leaves questions for the sequel. Detractors say mystery for its own sake gets boring, that Jesse seems to know more than the player, that answers only raise more questions, and that the main campaign ends abruptly ("the game just ends"). The fake credits and the post-game DLC handoff confused some players. Some who recommend the game say they needed a YouTube video to understand the plot.
Jesse, the dialogue and the performancesMedium
Courtney Hope's Jesse, Matthew Porretta's Dr. Darling and Ahti all have fans, and Ahti and Darling are the side characters reviewers mention most. Writing complaints appear in 9% of negative reviews: Jesse's constant inner monologue, quippy lines that clash with the tone, flat side characters, and stiff facial animation and lip-sync. A handful of reviews attack the protagonist's appearance or "wokeness"; those are about politics rather than the game and were not counted as a theme.
Difficulty, bosses and assist modeMedium
Bosses and difficulty spikes come up in 8% of negative reviews. Players name specific roadblocks (Tommasi early on, the Former, Salvador, Hartman in AWE and the Jukebox challenge) and complain about one-shot damage, invisible exploding enemies and visual clutter that hides attacks, while others find the base game too easy once Launch is upgraded. The built-in Assist Mode (damage reduction, one-hit kills, invincibility) splits players: some thank it for letting them finish, while others see it as proof the balance was never solved, or say turning it on drained the fun.
Slow start, RPG systems and side contentLow
Some players needed more than one attempt to get into the game ("I tried to get into it many times but when it finally clicked"), and say it only grabbed them after a few hours or once levitation unlocked. Opinions on the light RPG layer are mixed: randomized mods, percentage-based upgrades, limited mod inventory and the 10% currency loss on death strike some as pointless grind, while others enjoy building around Pierce, Shatter or Launch. Side missions range from favorites (talking to plants, the projector chase) to "fetch quests" and timed Bureau alerts that feel like padding.
What frustrates players
The map and navigationHigh
The map comes up in 14% of negative reviews and in 6% of positive ones. Players describe a 2D map that cannot show the building's stacked floors, no quest markers or compass, objectives that don't say where they are, and sector signs that are easy to miss. One warns that "you'll spend more time lost than in combat"; turning to YouTube or a guide to find the way is a common thread ("YouTube became my best friend"). Players who quit in the first two hours rarely mention the map, while it comes up steadily in negative reviews after that. A minority defends the design as old-school and rewarding once you learn to follow the signs.
Repetitive combat, respawning enemies and paddingHigh
Repetition is the complaint raised most often in negative reviews: 20% describe the play as repetitive, tedious or grindy. They point to the same handful of Hiss enemy types for the whole game, enemies that respawn in cleared areas during backtracking, bullet-sponge late-game foes and fights that boil down to "throw, shoot, throw, dodge." It comes from players who stayed: it appears in 25% of negative reviews from players with 10 to 25 hours, against 6% from those who quit before two hours.
PC technical problems: textures, stutter, crashes and black screensHigh
The texture streaming bug is the best-known issue: walls, posters and whiteboards stay blurry (one player says the game "would drop to PS2 level graphics"), which matters because some puzzle clues are written in the environment. Crashes, freezes, stutter and poor performance come up in 16% of negative reviews, with texture problems in another 7%. Players also report random black screens with the HUD still visible, DX12 stutter (the usual workaround is forcing DX11, which loses ray tracing and HDR), VRAM errors and hard system freezes, especially with ray tracing on RTX 50-series cards through much of 2025. Players who quit early raise it most: 38% of negative reviews from players under two hours cite technical issues. Several point out that the bugs have gone unfixed for years and that community mods are needed. A minority reports it runs flawlessly, including on Steam Deck, Linux and Mac.
Checkpoints, saves and run-backsMedium
Dying sends players back to a distant Control Point, often with a long run-back to a boss fight and unskippable cutscenes, and there is only one save slot, no manual save and no New Game Plus. 6% of negative reviews complain about the checkpoint system. Together with the 10% currency penalty on death, it is what turns a hard fight into a reason to quit for some players.
Progression-breaking bugsMedium
Some reviews report soft-locks and broken quests: doors that fail to spawn in the Siphons mission, enemies that do not register as killed at a Control Point, "A Matter of Time," "Put A Record On," "My Brother's Keeper," the Panopticon and Old Boys' Club, and the Foundation's crystal ledges. Several lost hours of progress or had to restart a mission or the whole game, and a few report corrupted saves after crashes. Achievement hunters name the bugged Vending Spree and Subterranean Research achievements.
"Ultimate Edition" copies without the DLCLow
A small group, mostly Humble Bundle and other key buyers, found that Steam labels their copy "Ultimate Edition" even though it is the base game, with no way to buy the expansions separately short of removing the game and rebuying it. These reviews are rare, and at least one was changed from positive to negative over it.
Online checks, menu ads and update side effectsLow
A handful of players say the game will not start or hangs on a black screen without an internet connection, which they find unacceptable for a single-player game. Others object to the Alan Wake 2 advert on the main menu that links to the Epic Games Store, and to a legal agreement prompt at launch. The March 2025 update drew both praise (native HDR, ultrawide, FOV options, newer DLSS, unlocked pre-order outfits) and anger (reports of the game no longer launching, worse textures, DX12 regressions and Steam Deck crashes).
Comfort and accessibility issuesLow
Smaller groups report motion sickness or headaches from the camera and FOV, strong flashing effects they flag for photosensitive players, the overwhelming red lighting late in the game, and the whispering background voices. A few controller players mention a forward-sprint toggle bug, missing PlayStation button prompts and no mixed gyro input.
3. The player conversation
Most of the conversation is warm, with plenty of short "Remedy never misses" or "Ashtray Maze. 10/10" reviews and an in-joke culture of its own (Board-style "<good/interesting>" phrasing, "You are a worm through time" recitations, Ahti and the fridge). Some positive reviewers are replaying it, or bought it again on Steam after getting it free on Epic or playing it on console. A few negative reviewers say they wish Steam had a neutral option. The split by playtime is also a split by complaint: people who leave in the first couple of hours most often cite crashes, blurry textures and a confusing opening, while those who play 10 to 50 hours complain more about repetition, the map, bosses, checkpoints and the ending.
Monthly sentiment stayed mostly in the mid-to-high 80s across the two years the reviews cover. The softest stretch was 2025: 82% in the month of the March update, with update or patch complaints in 42% of that month's negative reviews, and 79% from August to October, when the negative reviews raised the same mix of complaints as the rest of the slice. Reviews then grew warmer and much busier ahead of Control Resonant: September 2026 was the largest month in the slice, and reviews written from Resonant's September 24 launch onward were 91% positive, some of them from players treating Control as homework for the sequel.
4. What the developers could do
- Fix the texture streaming bug and DX12 stability on PC. Technical problems are what players who quit in the first two hours mention most, and players note the blur can make on-wall puzzle clues unreadable years after release.
- Resolve the remaining freezes and crashes on newer GPUs and handhelds. Full-system lockups with ray tracing on RTX 50-series cards and crashes on Steam Deck "Verified" hardware account for a run of negative reviews through 2025.
- Give the map real vertical layers and optional objective markers. Navigation complaints show up in negative and positive reviews alike.
- Add checkpoints near bosses, manual save slots and New Game Plus. Players cite long run-backs, single-slot saves and the lack of NG+ as what turns hard fights and replays into chores.
- Patch the known progression and achievement bugs. Soft-locked missions, non-spawning doors, broken Control Points and the Vending Spree and Subterranean Research achievements keep costing players hours of progress.
- Give mislabeled "Ultimate Edition" owners a path to the expansions. Key and Humble Bundle buyers can't get the DLC without rebuying the game, and the ones who write about it are angry.
- Remove the online check at launch and the Epic-linked menu advert. The players who raise them see both as hostile in a single-player game they paid for.
- Add FSR and better accessibility options for motion and flashing effects. AMD and handheld users ask for native FSR support, and a smaller group asks for options to tone down camera motion, flashing and red-saturated scenes.
