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21st June 2019
Post-E3 2019 Control Previews Wrap-Up #1

It's been just over a week until E3 closed its doors for another year, and while we had a lot of impressions being posted throughout the event, there's been a new series published in its wake. Below are a number of new articles posted within the past week, including previews, interviews, and new event wrap-ups.

In case you missed any of the Control news from the show, you can catch up on our E3 2019 hub, HERE.


[PREVIEW] Remedy’s Control Is Shaping up to Be a Sleeper Hit of 2019 (Hands-On Preview)
     Twinfinite

From what I played at 505 Games’ booth during E3 2019, it seems Control ditches linear narrative for a more open-ended experience that feels like a modern Metroidvania in all of the best ways. Here’s what I learned in 45 minutes or so exploring the ever-changing Oldest House, a facility in New York that acts as HQ of the Federal Bureau of Control.
Read their full write-up, here!



[PREVIEW & INTERVIEW] Control Lets You Bend Reality In The Weirdest Ways
GameInformer (Interview with Mikael Kasurinen, Game Director)
Control's premise is enticingly weird. You play as Jesse Faden, a young woman who hopes to find answers about her mysterious supernatural powers by visiting the Oldest House, the home of a paranormal investigative branch called the Federal Bureau of Control. The demo sees Jesse investigating the maintenance sector of the Bureau, fighting off new types of the Hiss (the dangerous and ghostly entity that has possessed much of the staff), meeting new personalities, and binding to abilities such as Evade and Shield.



[PREVIEW] Control Will Be The Best Showcase Yet For Nvidia's RTX Tech - If You Have The GPU To Handle It
      Gamecrate
I had a chance to go hands-on with a Control demo running in Nvidia's E3 2019 meeting room. The RTX features at work in Control are the most comprehensive and impressive applications of the technology seen in a game so far. They add depth and realism to every visual aspect of the world, from shadows to reflections to lighting to color. After playing with the features all turned on for a few minutes, toggling them off made for a shocking experience. The game looked flat and artificial with RTX off, and it really did feel like it would be a less immersive, less satisfying experience to play the game that way. Nothing about Control without RTX features looked bad, in game terms, but once you experienced the game with those extra touches it was hard to go back to "normal."



[INTERVIEW] Calle intervjuar Remedy om Control och dess narrativ
     FZ (Interview with Brooke Maggs, Narrative Designer)




[WRAP-UP] The Best Games & Tech Of E3 2019: Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Cyberpunk 2077, And More
     Gamespot
The latest game from Remedy, the studio behind games like Max Payne, Alan Wake, and Quantum Break, continues to impress us. If there's one thing the studio is good at, it's creating interesting third-person shooting scenarios, and Control appears to double-down on this tradition. The game puts you in the shoes of Jesse Faden, the director of the Federal Bureau of Control, an agency concerned with the study of defying the law of physics. You'll follow her as she explores the agency's New York headquarters, but even after seeing a number of demos over the past couple of years, there's a strong air of mystery about the narrative.
Read their wrap-up, here!



[PREVIEW] Control E3 2019 Hands-On Preview
     CGM
In the third-person action genre, few studios can stand the test of time like Remedy. From Max Payne to Alan Wake, the Finnish studio has made a name for itself and paved their own way for over 20 years. Now, they are on the cusp of releasing their latest title, Control, and if the slice I had the pleasure to play during pre-E3 is anything to go on, I could not be more excited.
Read their full preview, here!



[PREVIEW] Control E3 2019 Preview: Just another day at the Bureau
     Stevivor
With around 50 minutes to play, Control offered one of the longest hands-on demos of E3, and yet I wasn’t ready to surrender the controller when the allotted time elapsed. Even pushing towards the objective, I didn’t quite manage to reach the end of the mission (although Remedy did show me its conclusion). Despite the tight deadline and my burning desire to push towards the objectives, the inherent nature of determining your own path to a waypoint had me venture off to explore rooms of little consequence, without even realising I had diverted from my primary task. I wanted to search deeper within the complex, and had to remind myself the clock was ticking.
Read their full report, here!



[PREVIEW] Control Proves Remedy Still Knows How To Make One Hell Of An Action Game
     Destructoid
Remedy has carved a well-earned reputation as deft interactive storytellers. Surprisingly, that's not necessarily the aim with Control. More so than any of its previous games, Remedy's Control prioritizes action over narrative. It's too early to tell if it completely works -- and, to be fair, you wouldn't expect Remedy to completely shy away from spinning a good yarn -- but early indications are that it excels in this context.
Read their E3 report, here.



[INTERVIEW] How Control learned from Dark Souls to trust its players
     GameRevolution (Interview with Brooke Maggs & Mikael Kasurinen)
Remedy is used to making linear, story-driven games but Control, the studio’s upcoming title, is going in a slightly different direction. It’s still heavy on the narrative but it’s also got bigger environments with no objective markers and more obtuse storytelling. This isn’t just a change for change’s sake; it’s all part of Remedy’s newfound mentality of trusting the player. To explain this change, Narrative Designer Brooke Maggs and Game Director Mikael Kasurinen sat down with us to discuss this philosophy, how Dark Souls inspired it, and its relation to the “new weird” genre.



[PREVIEW] Control Preview - E3 2019
New Game Network
This year, we got to go hands-on and I'm even more excited to tell you that Control feels excellent. Not only does the gameplay appears to be finely balanced, but using protagonist Jesse's powers to throw items at enemies or dash out of the way of projectiles has a nice weight and impact while remaining appropriately fluid. Exploring the world, using the map, navigating the menus, all of it is easy to use and adds to the legacy of Remedy's solid gameplay.
Read the New Game Network's report, here!



[PREVIEW] Control Gameplay: SUPERNATURAL POWERS vs HISS CREATURES (Let's Play Control at E3 2019)
     Outside XBOX





[PREVIEW] Control auf E3 angespielt: Mysteriöses Abenteuer mit massig Potenzial und viel Atmosphäre
     PCGames.de
Als wir in er Demo auf der E3 die Kontrolle über Jesse übernehmen, hat sie sich offenbar schon ein wenig an die Situation gewöhnt. So sehr man sich zumindest an eine Welt gewöhnen kann, in der allenthalben rot flackernde Lichter nichts gutes verheißen, sich ständig die Architektur verändert und herumschlurfende Ex-Menschen einem ans Leder wollen. Schon früh machen wir das vielleicht größte Highlight des Spiels aus: die Kämpfe. Kompliziert sind diese keineswegs, aber ungemein unterhaltsam. Jesse kann zwischen zwei Modi ihrer Waffe wählen, schnellen Schüssen und einer Art von Schrotsalven. Da es sich um eine magische Waffe handelt, wird Munition nicht benötigt. 
Read the full report, here.




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