I'm of two minds.
One of the problems of modern gaming is the idea that everything's got to be an ongoing service. Games vie to be the one you log in to (and yes, logging in usually online) and hopefully pay some kind of subscription to generate constant income. I remember being hesitant to try World of Warcraft given the subscription fee, and while I've gotten now over sixteen years out of that game, I've also poured in I think over two thousand dollars (actually, doing the math it's just over 3k) in subscription fees and bi-annual expansion purchases. And I think between DLC and other patch updates, a lot of games want you to keep playing them and build up a culture and streaming ecosystem around them. And I think we should have games that just end and exist as finite works of art.
On the other hand, when I really love a game, I can feel kind of sad when it's over, often feeling like I want to replay it or squeeze some more enjoyment out of it.
Control is a game that probably should just come to some final conclusion, credits roll, game over in the best sense. But the way that it's built leaves it open ended.
The game is something like a Metroidvania or a far more forgiving souls-like (the loss of Source on death, and the capturing of Control Points as both fast travel locations and health-recharge stations are not too different conceptually from dropping your Souls and finding Bonfires) but while Metroid games have you leaving the maze-like world (often as it explodes around you) when the game ends, and Souls games similarly opening the door, at least, if not pushing you through it, to New Game Plus, Control hits the ending more like an open-world game.
In a game like Skyrim, it makes perfect sense to dump you out into the world after you beat Alduin, because Elder Scrolls Games have always (ok, at least in the two I've played, which are that and Oblivion) treated the main story quest line as just one of many. I've had plenty of characters who have, instead of even worrying about that, only existed to, for example, do the Dark Brotherhood quests (which are often excellent if profoundly dark).
But the more open-world design that is so prevalent in video games these days has spread into games that don't necessarily need to be that way. Before Control, I played through God of War Ragnarok, GOW5 has an excellent, dramatic story, and I was really there mostly for the character drama that I got to play out in-game. But the game's open-world, quest-based design leaves things open - there's even a quest that you can't even complete until you've gotten past the game's ending.
Control is not an open-world game. But it also sort of is. Its primary gameplay structure is a series of missions that send you out into the Oldest House, trying to both find out what happened to player-character Jesse's brother, Dylan, and also solve the problem that is the mind-controlling and body-warping resonance known as The Hiss.
But while those missions don't feel like they're just one of many storylines to follow the way that the main quests in an Elder Scrolls game do, the world is nonetheless populated with a lot of side quests that fight or prominence in your "mission log" with the main story.
The things I love most about this game are the atmosphere and the breadcrumb worldbuilding. The opening moments, in which Jesse enters the curiously empty lobby of the massive brutalist office building of this never-before-heard-of federal agency, where the only person you meet at all is an odd janitor who speaks in literally-translated Finnish idioms who also happens to be the subject of a painting that mysteriously turns into an elevator... it had me gleefully unnerved.
And I'd love to continue living in that bizarre world. What's unfortunate is that the side-missions vary greatly in quality - as much as I adore Ahti the Janitor as an NPC, the side-missions he gives are like the most rote, basic MMO-style quests. There are some great ones, and also some awesome "futz around until you find out you can do this" things like the Luck & Probability laboratory. I remember feeling like a damned fool when I realized only after having beaten the second DLC that the framed photos of broken walls were an indication that you could smash through the wall behind and find a hidden area.
While I don't have every single last secret, I have, by most definitions, truly beaten and completed the game, and while I'll start it up again to wander the Oldest House some more, I feel a certain tension - it's fun to screw around there, but it's not as fun as when I was delving into all the weirdness of its story.
Any mystery story has the same problem: the potential of the mystery is what's fun. It's not even that I think Control's story doesn't conclude in a satisfying way (there are flaws to the story, but that's true in any story,) but I guess the sad thing is that the absolute thrill I had in the game's opening minutes is something I don't know I'll be able to experience again. That (fun) sense of sarcastically saying "oh yes, this is fine, everything's fine. The memo at the security station says we can't take smart phones or smart watches, or anything "smart" into the building, and no No. 2 Pencils either, and also nothing that is archetypal... yeah, that's fine. That elevator wasn't there before, and also, wasn't this lobby back there previously?"
The one way I have been able to get a little of that is in my roommate's playthrough, where I've had to fight my urge to give helpful advice and instead just let him just figure out the game for himself.
But getting back to the ending of the game - the open-ended "Endgame" segment, after the main story is completed, does allow you to then go back and finish the side quests, and it's a reasonable launching pad to send you off to the DLCs.
But A: I don't think either DLC works quite as well as the main game (though I definitely liked AWE better than Foundation) and B: Once those are concluded, they have their own not-as-compelling side quests to go through.
The answer here, of course, is simply to move on to another game. But I wonder what it is about Control that has be continually wanting to start it up again and play more. It might be that it's just so in tune with the kind of genre I enjoy, and it's nice to both get a game that hits that genre feel so well and also to actually have a name to describe it.
I think a New Game Plus system might have been good for Control. The strange choice to have only one save file is odd - in a game like Alan Wake, where you don't really carry any accumulated power or progress between levels, it's easy enough to just hop to a previously-completed chapter. I believe that Control lets you regain the progress you've made after jumping forward again, but it's ambiguous enough that I'm hesitant to try.
Anyway, I know a sequel is in the works, but I suspect it's a long ways off.
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