History VideoGame / Control

** Spin: Machinegun-like rapid fire form with low damage on individual projectiles and the spread easily gets out of control.

** The Eternal Fire mod is the only unique mod in the base game, a Grip mod which serves as the reward for [[GuideDangIt unmarked quest]] in Maintenance. Grip shots that hit their target [[BottomlessMagazines no longer deplete ammo]].

* NoPeriodsPeriod: Played totally straight; despite the Bureau having a workforce that's roughly 40-50% women, there aren't any feminine hygiene machines in the women's bathrooms.

* AllForNothing: Underplayed in the Old Boys' Club mission, where Jesse and Marshall try to restart the HRA production. As soon as they fight their way to the production plant and figure out how to activate the machine, a crucial component breaks, necessitating that Jesse return to Maintenance to get more of it.

** Underplayed; while Jesse was in New York deliberately to search for the FBC, it's a coincidence that she just so happened to walk into the Oldest House while the Hiss invasion was ongoing. [[spoiler:It's implied that Polaris led her there because of the Hiss incursion, after years of refusing to do so.]]

''Control'' is a 2019 NewWeird ActionAdventure video game with {{Metroidvania}} elements created by Creator/RemedyEntertainment for [[UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer PC]], UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, and UsefulNotes/XboxOne. It was released on August 27, 2019.

* WorkplaceHorror: The setting is a massive, Brutalist skyscraper called the Oldest House. It was discovered by the Federal Bureau of Control by complete accident (having a PerceptionFilter over it that makes it invisible to the rest of New York City) and they had repurposed it into their headquarters ever since. Befitting its place as a NewWeird game, lot of the game's horror comes from the banality of its workplace environment. This ranges from rooms shifting out of nowhere, rooms spontaneously filled with clocks and killer sharks, Eldritch Abominations invading through portals, a cursed novel killing its readers in a staff book club and the staff making a Subverted Kids' Show as part of a team building exercise. Special mention goes to a security guard who is ''not allowed to blink or look away'' from a refrigerator without at least some other person keeping focus on it, lest he gets horribly eaten.

** The Benicoff TV is one of several [[ArtifactOfPower Objects of Power]] Jesse encounters in the main story, finding it possessed by the Hiss in the Panopticon. While normally the object is only known to float around, when Jesse tries to cleanse it, it warps the cell that its in to where it becomes much bigger, levitating larges chunks of concrete and creating an entirely different room that remains there for the rest of the game. When Jesse cleanses it of the Hiss's influence, she is able to bind it and gains the power to [[PowerFloats levitate]].

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Downplayed: In ''Foundation'', Jesse restores the previously-destroyed Nail (a kind of pillar of existence and locus point of the Oldest House's psychic energy). Except it was [[spoiler: Helen Marshall]] who destroyed it in order to keep the Hiss from seizing it, and by putting the Nail back together again Jesse has put the entire Bureau in danger. But ''without'' the Nail, the Astral Plane intrudes into the Foundation of the Oldest House (and thus, by proxy, Prime Reality) which will have equally (if not more) disastrous consequences if left unchecked.]]

** A script of an episode of [[Franchise/TheTwilightZone Night Springs]] written by ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' echoes what happened with the Director and the Hiss, down to the director [[spoiler:shooting himself to beat the monster he unleashed]]. The ''AWE'' expansion more strongly implies that [[spoiler:''VideoGame/AlanWake'' [[RealityWarper might have written the events of Control]], or that through synchronicity, wrote about the same things, and at the very least appeared to have manipulated parts of the Hiss Incantation into a Dadist poem he wrote.]]

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Arish still mentions the lockdown in his "leaving conversation" dialogue if talked to after its been lifted but before leaving Maintenance.

** The Oldest House is...not a normal building. You can't see it unless you're specifically looking for it (despite being one of the tallest buildings in the city), it shifts constantly, rituals are required to enter certain areas, it connects to other dimensions, and it's implied to be infinite in size. Its bizarre nature even extends beyond the physical building, as one document mentions that as long as the FBC is headquartered in the House, their budget will always be approved because they just appear as another unremarkable line item reviewed and signed off by a lowly accountant. No surprise that one of the game's inspirations was ''[[MindScrew House]]'' ''[[Literature/HouseOfLeaves of Leaves]]''.

*** The "What a Mess: Take a Break" Mission, where as Jesse lampshades the lack of description and the obviousness of the quest, and how it takes place in the room where she receives it. It doesn't even note on the map where its supposed to take place, assuming that players will immediately complete it because it's so easy, as otherwise they would have no hints beyond the name on how to complete it.

** Late-game documents you can find detail of [[spoiler:the Bureau investigating the "Bright Falls Incident" in which writer Alan Wake's stories ended up having an [[RealityWarper AWE effect]] on the town, changing the local area into whatever Wake wrote. [[BolivianArmyEnding Alan's body was never found]], though it's likely due to his attempts to escape the Dark Place. One of Alan's pages, pushed beneath a door in the Oceanview, is an [=OoP=]; finding it triggers a monologue of his.]]

** Late-game documents you can find detail [[spoiler:the Bureau investigating the "Bright Falls Incident" in which writer Alan Wake's stories ended up having an [[RealityWarper AWE effect]] on the town, changing the local area into whatever Wake wrote. [[BolivianArmyEnding Alan's body was never found]], though it's likely due to his attempts to escape the Dark Place. One of Alan's pages, pushed beneath a door in the Oceanview, is an [=OoP=]; finding it triggers a monologue of his.]]

*** If an enemy throws/shoots an explosive near you, using Launch will grab it without having to aim at it, even if it's out of view. Timed explosives have their timer signifigantly extended while you're holding them.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:The Hiss are no longer able to pass through into our reality when Jesse destroys the Slide Projector, and humanity is saved. Unfortunately, not only did far too many good people die in the process thanks to Trench's SanitySlippage, but the Hiss is still infesting the Oldest House and must be slowly exorcised by Jesse and Polaris one Control Point at a time until the lockdown can be lifted and everything can go back to some kind of normal. Oh, and while Jesse was able to free her brother Dylan from the Hiss' influence, it also put him into a coma, and it's unknown if he'll ever wake up.]]

** The Anchor can only be damaged when it's about to launch an attack. Miss your chance and you will lose a good chunk of your health.

* BadassInANiceSuit: Completing the roulette Easter egg in the Luck and Probability department earns Jesse the Gold Suit, a sparkling gold variant of [[spoiler:the Director's Suit, itself obtainable by completing the game.]]

* AsskickingLeadsToLeadership: Throughout the game Jesse bemoans being the Director of the FBC since the Service Weapon, a CoolGun that can switch between five different firing modes, "picked" her at the beginning of the game without her consent, and with it she immediately shows a knack for wiping away the Hiss. Despite being a complete newcomer, she's treated with respect by almost everyone in the Oldest House. It turns out that the Service Weapon picks ''all'' Directors, but part of why she got the job was because [[spoiler:she already had immense psychic potential due to her interaction with an [=OoP=] as a child]].

* CoolGuns: FBC Rangers exclusively wield [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_gun Lewis guns]], a bulky machine gun from the UsefulNotes/WorldWarI era, and they use them like assault rifles despite the Lewis weighing in at 28 pounds / 13 kilograms. The Lewis offers two very important things for the Bureau: High volume firepower, and the fact that the cooling jacket and plate magazine makes it not look like an iconic "gun", which in turn stops it from being Altered.
** A closer look at the grip and receiver shows that they're based on the M240/FN MAG, which while more modern is still a 10-12.5 kg (22-28 pound) machine gun, before adding the Lewis gun's distinctive, bulky cooling sleeve.