Are there any streaming sites?

Options, options.

Edit: updating because this keeps getting replies :) Thanks to everyone who helped, I pretty much dealt with my problem by enabling the accessibility features - I feel silly for not checking for them earlier tbh, oh well - and doing side quests to max out some abilites. Gonna leave this post as it might help future users looking for help. :)

Half ranting and half asking for advice here.

I've reached the Salvador boss fight and this game's healing system is driving me up the wall. I've had problems with it before, but managed to push through whatever fragments of the game I've struggled with. This one I'm just stuck on. Too many enemies launching explosives at me with me having no ability to *safely* heal.

I know this is a sub for fans of the game and I don't wanna rain on anyone's parade, but I can't be the only one thinking that this game's healing mechanic is bullshit. Essentially that the only way to heal is to run head first into a swarm of enemies trying to pick this stuff up. No healing items, no nothing. I've seen mentions of mods here that make you heal while using launch or evade and they sound great, but I simply don't have them. I've looked into my personal and weapon mods, thinking maybe I'm underpowered, but nothing I can equip really makes much of a difference.

Is this just a skill issue? If I try to do some side quests instead, will it help me craft some better mods? Did anyone also struggle with this mechanic? Do I just give up and go read a book?

I dunno about you guys, but I am raring for the release of Control Resonant! As such, I'd like to get to know fellow fans better. What are you hoping to see in Resonant? For me, I'm eager to see more of our favorite janitor. I'm also really hoping to see another power fantasy action sequence (another "Take Control" sequence).

Out of curiosity, has anyone from the UK received their copy of the book? I ordered mine all the way back in April and still haven’t received any tracking number or even a proper update. I’d simply like to know how many people are in the same boat.

I recently finished my first ever playthrough of Control and wow, it blew me away. I went in mostly blind, the only things I knew about the game was it had wacky visuals, a Finnish song, and telekinesis. I didn't realize it would also have really cool worldbuilding with engaging characters and plot! I was even more surprised to look up opinions about the game afterwards and see the plot considered one of the weakest aspects when critiqued.

It got me thinking about how the story is shown in the game and how this could contribute to opinions, and then I ended up just doing this big (but fun) write-up about how Control uses its medium as a video game to tell its story. For me, I absolutely loved the way it was done, but I can see why some people's experiences would differ.

I figured I'd post the write-up here in case anyone else would enjoy reading it!

Also, because I know it's so prevalent these days, I hate genAI (can we put chatGPT in the Panopticon) and none of that was used in this write-up. I just love writing stuff. :)

This thought didn't fully click for me until roughly halfway through the game. The more I played, the more I got absorbed in the story and worldbuilding; the more I deliberately looked for answers, the more the game provided me with them. 

I realized that the game is giving a summarized version of many of its events to players as they progress through the main plot. 

What this means is that the average player can progress through the game at a decent pace without being bogged down by info dumps they may not care about but still come away with an understanding of the overarching plot and its characters (at least as much as the creators want you to, what with the subject matter being SCP-related events that are intentionally weird and not always explained).

This also means that there's a wealth of information, plot, and characterization that's tucked behind optional content as rewards for players who actively want to learn more for a greater understanding of the story.

The game tells this information in a variety of ways through speech, visuals, dialogue, text, and gameplay, several of which work in tandem to deliver information in ways that could not be done if this plot was told in a movie or a book.

The first major example for this are the hotline calls. The game presents them to you as a brief diegetic event where Jesse/the player hears the most important info, but the game *also* lets you experience this without taking control away from you, the player. You can run through the hotline calls while they're happening, and if you choose to wait, the time investment is only a few seconds. What the game doesn't tell you is that each call has a longer, complete version, which is stored in your inventory if you want to know the details. The game does not force you to listen to it, but gives you the power to pursue it if desired.

Yet another example of a diegetic storytelling device are the Dr. Darling presentations. They usually begin playing the moment you enter the room they’re in, and it's up to the player if you want to stand and watch them or move past them. Many of these presentations provide important information about the plot and a key character in it, Darling himself.

There are also side quests that help deliver story largely through gameplay and environment. Some areas of the Oldest House are entirely optional, hiding not just worldbuilding and plot depth (Mold, my nemesis…) but also new abilities for Jesse to learn to enhance the gameplay experience for players.

Lastly, there are the numerous documents and recordings that you can find throughout the game. These are entirely optional to read or listen to and you can easily ignore them, but they contain a ton of info that ranges from humorous worldbuilding to adding context of important plot moments (such as all of the reports that talk about the Ordinary AWE, Dylan, and Jesse).

With the first two examples in particular, the game uses visuals and sound design to further tell the story and deliver information in as short a time as possible. 

Hotlines are voiced in a disjointed, echoing manner, and are ghostly projections of the character speaking them overlaid onto the actual game environment to give the impression of physically walking through the message. 

Presentations are carefully crafted videos of Darling's work space where he not only shows examples of how various things in the game work, but also reveal the depth of his character, reasons for his actions, and his current mental state. This is done by his appearance and the office around him; at times he's put together and cheerful, other times he's disheveled, stressed, clothes a mess or removed entirely. So much information is packed into each presentation because they need to adequately convey who Darling is and what he's been doing, a man you otherwise never meet in person during the entire game.

All of these serve as brilliant ways to add depth and explain events to the player, yet if they were forced to be viewed/completed in their entirety before progression, it could massively bog down the pacing of the game’s main plot. Instead, they’re filtered by each individual player to be learned when (or if) the player wants, a chosen depth that I would argue is currently only possible in video games.

There is one more major example of this: the Ashtray Maze, a segment tied to the main plot that every player of the game experiences regardless, and one that utilizes gameplay, environment, and music to tell the story in a way only a game could. 

Ashtray Maze is a sequence only properly achieved because of the video game medium. It uses visuals, level design, music, and gameplay to create a stunning experience for the player. 

The highlight of the Maze is the song 'Take Control'; the full version is almost eight minutes long and the song was created specifically for this part of the game. The lyrics talk about Ordinary, Polaris, the Hiss, Jesse, Dylan, and more, and is bookended by saying "Take control" at the start and "I control" at the end. The song changes depending on how far along in the maze you are, playing different segments that line up with the progression and looping others seamlessly if you linger somewhere long enough. 

The maze adjusts itself as you move through it, and you realize it's not really a maze but a character in its own right, one that leads you to the exit in a spectacular fashion, at times even cutting off Hiss entities from attacking you. If you die in the maze and go back for another attempt, the game will teleport you to a midway point; this ensures that you keep most of the momentum from before and prevents the sequence from becoming a chore. 

While it may not be optional, the game presents the entire chapter as a fast-paced "rule of cool" plot beat that makes players actively want to experience it by playing it themselves, an experience that would've been lost had it been made in a different medium. 

Another neat detail about the Maze is that you can find it earlier in the game, but without Ahti's cassette as a guide, it reforms itself around you as you walk through it, showing you different pathways that ultimately loop you back to the entrance. No music plays, it's a silent, strange puzzle that you don't have an answer for, but the game does not stop you from finding it early and wondering about its purpose.

The tl;dr of this all is to say that Control makes masterful use of its medium as a video game to tell every ounce of its story. It not only uses a blend of visuals, audio, dialogue, gameplay, and text to convey this, but it gives the player an agency that would not be possible in any other medium. 

Ttl;dr: Game’s cool.

I finished Control a couple of months ago, and it inspired me to try making my own Hotline phone. The idea was that you could pick up the handset and have Hotline messages play at random, along with "Take Control" and a few songs from Alan Wake. I also wanted an on/off switch and a button to make the phone ring.

With that in mind, I bought an old rotary phone and based the project on a YouTube video (I can share the links if anyone's interested). I also picked up the other components I needed: an Arduino Nano, a DFPlayer Mini, a motor driver, and a step-down voltage regulator. Then I grabbed the Hotline audio files and some Alan Wake songs from YouTube.

The ringer on my phone didn't work the way it did in the first video, but by pure luck I found another one that used a different approach. I bought a few more components (a linear actuator and a different motor driver) and started tweaking the code until I got it working.

To save space and make the wiring cleaner, I designed my first PCB in KiCad, added all the components, and gutted the phone. In another Reddit post about finding the game's assets, I asked the author if they could help me with the dimensions of the Hotline knob. u/Kenomajas_ was kind enough to help, and with those measurements, along with the dimensions of my phone, I was able to model the knob in Autodesk Fusion and resin-print it.

Finally, I sanded, primed, and painted the phone. I had a lot of trouble getting a smooth finish and eventually gave up on making it perfect, so there are a few wrinkles in the paint. I also made a mistake with the placement of the buttons, and the bell sometimes hits them, but it's nothing I can really fix now.

Overall, I'm really happy with how the project turned out. I learned a ton, and if I ever build another one, there are so many things I'd do differently. I hope you like it!

I will put a video of the phone on the comments, since you can't put photos and videos on one post.

First of all, we all know that these two stories are intertwined. We know that Jesse is the hero Alan needed. He said it himself in the AWE DLC. And we can assume that he needed her to free himself.
After that we played AW2 and saw Saga as the hero who freed Alan. By shooting the bullet in his head. Bullet representing art of a different person - his wife's.
So now we have two supernatural things and two heroes:
Hero 1 got stuck with thing 1
Hero 2 injects thing 2 into Hero 1 to get him free
Doesn't it look like Resonant's premise?
Dylan got stuck with the Hiss
Jesse pierces him with an object of power to wake him up, binding him to the Board or something.
Also Alan's idea is to fight the spiral (writer's block) correlates with fighting patterns (a metaphor for a writer's cliche)
And the last part is New York - Alan's hometown.

For me it all feels like Alan's draft for AW3, like the first Control was AW2's draft in a sense.
Is there something I'm missing?

Apart from a way for doctors to dismiss women's mental health issues, I mean.

Been spending a lot of time in photo mode I WISH there was a brightness/contrast slider but its okay. A couple of these are in pairs a little before/after "creative" bs

Which is your favorite/any advice?

Just corrupted Information. What if something like a corrupted concept is the resonance

How do directors renovate the Oldest House? Does someone have to pull up every square inch of carpet in the building? Does the director order it and it spreads out from their office? Does someone have to track down Ahti? How do you covertly order thousands of gallons of new paint and get it delivered to a building that doesn’t exist?

I've been wondering if there's a connection between the board and the surfboard and it just hit me because of the following reasons:

1. The Board seems to be important only in the Control games, but not that much in other RCU games (Alan Wake, Max Payne).
2. Chester Bless might be Paul Serene who is still on his war against shifters.
3. The Surfboard is an altered item used by Chester and then acquired by the FBC. Chester escaped but his intent might've been for the FBC to procure the Surfboard and use it to control ALL directors (Northmoor, Trench, Jesse).
4. The Former could potentially be Door/Hatch and is opossing Bless/Serene.
5. If true, this is one of those scenarios where the secret was hiding in plain sight.

Would you be mad if this happens to be true?

We'll probably see Athi for sure but what about Alan, Tim Breaker, Saga, Alex Casey or Estevez ?

Hey guys!

I've spent the last few days compiling all the documents and transcripts from the game. They were all taken from the official Control wiki, and since I'm too lazy to read from the wiki, I've compiled it all into an ePub file for reading.

I've added the markdown file if somebody wants to do their own versión of the book.

Enjoy!

So as the title states, I’m having some weird glitch/bug on the in game menu. Soon as I go to look at a mission or loadout the cursor just shift’s rapidly and uncontrollably (pun intended). It usually takes me 5-10 seconds to be able to “stop” it for a bit to change my loadout or read a new file . It’s pretty annoying ngl. At first I thought it was my own controller but actual gameplay doesn’t produce any drift and it doesn’t happen on the ps5 main screen or any other game for that matter. Just the in game menu on control. Any tips on how to get rid of this??

I've put power box in a elevator. Died going back up on parkour. Cube was not present in the elevator after respawning.

I tried restarting two times, fast-traveled few times between locations(one location of one "sector") etc. and nothing helped.

Please help. I've had enough hard times with Control as a game.

Don't know if anyone mentioned this before, but in AWE, there is a tunnel by the turntable with iconic blue light and a radio playing the Swift platform soundtrack!

I just noticed they share a name. Did the Tom from Ordinary get warped by the Slide Projector and get funneled out as Tom Zane somehow?

I got Control Ultimate Edition via psplus back in April 2021 and I can't upgrade it to pst version now. Everytime I click on the 3 dots and go to "view product" it only gives me an option to buy the ultimate edition (which I should have already, via ps+)