Entering the Oldest House in Control

 I have a soft spot for kind of mid-century aesthetics and government conspiracies around paranormal events. When I was a kid, the X-Files was a really popular show (one that I didn't watch until I was in my 20s) and I think, to a large extent, thanks in part to that show (which itself owed a lot to the far more surreal Twin Peaks) but also to the end of the Cold War and questions about what that massive intelligence apparatus was up to now that the Soviet threat was gone (in 2023, the notion that we wouldn't have to worry about a sinister, autocratic regime in Russia seems very naive in retrospect,) there was a lot of interest in cryptids and UFOs and that sort of thing during my childhood.

As an aesthetic, it's something I dig.

On a friend's recommendation, I've started playing Control. The game is an enigma from the get-go. You play as Jesse (or do you? She seems to address the player as a kind of unseen partner,) who finds the Federal Bureau of Control - a secret government agency that investigates and contains paranormal stuff. We've got fragments of a backstory - Jesse mentions her brother was taken by the FBC 17 years ago, and so we assume she's trying to find him, though she's also evidently drawn by the mysteries the FBC investigates.

However, as soon as she shows up, things are already in a bad state - the place appears to be empty. She meets a janitor who somehow opens an elevator that wasn't there at first, and you go into the building. Jesse finds the director of the bureau, evidently dead of a self-inflicted (or probably not) wound. Upon taking up the gun, though, Jesse is contacted by an eldritch intelligence that takes the form of a pyramid known as The Board, and is anointed the new Director.

The building is under threat by a presence that Jesse identifies as "The Hiss," and, being director, that terminology is quickly adopted by the other employees who have not be infected by its essence.

I'm in the early stages - I've got some crafting materials that I don't yet know how to use. It's early goings, but I really dig the vibe, even if I sort of wish there had been a little slower of a build-up to the truly otherworldly stuff going on.

The game does seem built to have a lot of rug-pulling twists. I'm definitely skeptical of the friendly NPC I've just met. I'm also curious about who "I" am, as Jesse does a lot of narration speaking to the player - I think.