The Oldest House awaits: Control Ultimate Edition comes to PlayStation Plus tomorrow

Hi all, I am excited to talk to you all about Control Ultimate Edition on PlayStation 5. The power of the PS5 opened up a lot of opportunities for us at Remedy, and we did our best to enhance the Control experience in ways which were not possible before.

Let’s start from literally the beginning. The initial loading of the game, where you see the logos and legal text, now takes approximately 4-seconds and from that it’s a short hop to get into the main menu. In addition to that, the load times in-game are a significant improvement compared to the PS4, so fast-traveling around the Oldest House is a lot more enjoyable.

You also have the choice between Performance and Graphics mode. In Performance mode, the game targets 60FPS performance, while in Graphics mode the action runs at 30FPS, but with ray tracing effects. In both modes the rendering resolution is set at 1440p, which is then upscaled to 4K. All this is running on Remedy’s own Northlight engine, which has undergone important upgrades since we first released Control back in 2019.

Ray tracing in Control Ultimate Edition brings improved image quality and realistic reflections to the environments in the Oldest House. These changes are most visible on non-transparent reflective surfaces across the game, as well as on transparent materials such as glass. This enables Control’s award-winning art direction to look and feel even more striking. We hope PS5 players will find new inspiration for taking shots with Control’s Photo Mode with all those gorgeous looking, ray-traced reflections.

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It’s worth mentioning that the impressive visual features of ray tracing are achieved without sacrificing one of Control’s key features – advanced physics which enable a high level of environmental destruction. We encourage you to use the Launch ability to hurl around objects and hey, why not pile them up, too? It’s a great way to get to hard-to-reach areas and find secrets and loot.

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Feeling it

After getting our hands on it and exploring its features, we’re especially excited about being able to take advantage of the DualSense.

You’ll definitely “feel” when the Pierce Service Weapon form is fully charged up through the vibrations of the right trigger. When using the SMG-like Spin, you can feel every bullet you spray through a very slight vibration. We especially like how subtle you can make some of these effects on the DualSense, which feels cooler than just aggressive rumble. The forms of the transforming Service Weapon feel even more distinct to use than before and give you a much more “hands-on” feel of what it’s like to be the Director of the Federal Bureau of Control.

Even the Director needs help sometimes

Control is set in the Federal Bureau of Control’s mysterious HQ, the Oldest House, which is, as we say, a shifting place. Despite the Bureau’s best attempts to map out the labyrinthine space, it can sometimes be a challenge to navigate, even with a transforming Service Weapon and a slew of supernatural abilities on Jesse’s side. This is partly by design, but the good news is that there’s help if you need it.

Control Ultimate Edition supports the PS5’s Game Help feature, so if you feel like you’re stuck on any part of Jesse’s journey to find her brother and control the Hiss threat, there are videos and textual hints available for all main missions. Some of the Help text and videos explicitly tell you what to do, and in some instances it’s more about giving hints as to what you should consider.

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You access Help through Activity cards, which we think are awesome. We had a great time choosing the artwork for these. Activities are a great way to check your progress in a mission and give you an idea of how long they take. You can also see exactly how many steps away you are from unlocking a Trophy.