Remedy's 'Control' is a disappointing game.

So when it comes to storytelling in games, it's not exactly a secret that telling a good story is not easy. Being able to tell a story (in a pc or console game) that last for 10-15 hours requires a lot of effort and attention to detail from a writer.

Indeed, in order to be able to create a game that works from start to finish, that means that you have to get things right in the story. You have to make sure that you respect the basics and the fundamentals of the craft without taking anything for granted. 

Unfortunately, over the last few years there have been attempts in 'reinventing the wheel' and not taking the craft seriously. Especially when it comes to a 'story-driven' gaming company like Remedy, these guys have been really dropping the ball lately.

By that I mean is that in Remedy's case, the biggest problem with their previous game 'Quantum Break' (a time travel game that bombed) was that they didn't pay attention to their story. They didn't pay attention to their premise, characters or storylines. 

Indeed, as unfortunate as it was, 'Quantum Break' was a game that didn't know what it was about. There was no proper introduction to the characters, the story made little sense and the game even had those 25 minute live action clips between the gaming scenes.

So based on the meltdown of 'Quantum Break', one would have thought that 'Remedy' would have learned from their mistakes. Surely they would try to correct their storytelling ship and try to come up with something that would actually make sense. 

Yet, when me and my friends managed to finish their latest game 'Control' last week, we had to admit that they didn't learn anything from their almost 100 million dollar bomb. The story in 'Control' is even worse than what it was in 'Quantum Break'. 

By that I mean is that even though 'Control' - fortunately - doesn't have those live action clips, this time those other basic elements are even worse. The story doesn't make sense and the writers are completely clueless about what they're supposed to do.

Indeed, once you start playing the game - a female character called Jesse Faden - there's zero exposition in the 'story'. Her visiting (in the beginning) some Federal Bureau office and having super powers is something that is simply supposed to be accepted at face value.

Later on, once our protagonist starts fighting the bad guys, things aren't explained either. There's some evil entity, her brother is missing, there's some scientific experiments going on in the building and she even talks to someone inside her head (!).

Story-wise, what is so unfortunate about these moments in the story (inner dialogue + protagonist talks to someone in her head) is that none of them make even remotely sense. None of the stuff is explained to the gamer in any meaningful way.

Indeed, as you kept playing the game, this 'character knows everything, gamer knows nothing' just keeps getting more and more out of control. There's no story arc, there are no stakes and you just don't know what the point to the whole thing is. 

Not surprisingly, once we finally reached the end credits after playing the game for like 13 hours or so, me and my friends had had enough. We just couldn't believe how incredibly bad every single storytelling aspect in the game had been.

After all, even though our expectations for the ending were low, the so called 'finale' that lead to the end credits was so bad that we felt like throwing things at the screen. It was such an anti-climax that you simply had to see it in order to believe it.

In that sense, when I think about this game and its problems as a whole, it's pretty clear and obvious that the game didn't do well commercially. Despite the usual hype it didn't manage to make the players excited enough to purchase the game.

After all, even though gaming critics did their best to puff up the game's reviews and its reputation (81% on Metacritic), that wasn't enough. 'Control' didn't even make the top-30 lists on any of the platforms that it was released on. 

In that sense, in the end, if you're someone who's thinking about buying the game and thinking that there's something special going on in here, you shouldn't get too excited. You shouldn't get too excited and think that this game has a story that is executed well.

After all, even though in 'Control' there admittedly were some good things about the concept (some super powers and some shooting modes), as a whole these simply were not enough. These weren't enough to offset the bad qualities that the game was full of. 

On the contrary, problems like the game not having any story, the characters & the dialogue being terrible, the pacing issues etc. were simply too much. They were too serious and made it impossible for me and my friends to enjoy the game as a whole.