Control 2

[DisturbedSwan]

[Nag]

Should've been Quantum Break 2...😢

[DANGERMAN]

Control was such a good game I'm glad they're doing another, I'll definitely get it (although 505...). But I'm happy to wait a few years for it, I rinsed the first one and have a Steam Deck playthrough on the go

[DisturbedSwan]

QB was shit lol.

 

Really pleased this has got a sequel!

[Maryokutai]

Some good news for a change, Remedy has acquired the rights to the Control IP: https://investors.remedygames.com/announcements/remedy-entertainment-plc-inside-information-remedy-acquires-full-rights-to-the-control-franchise-from-505-games/

 

In a vacuum this is already a good thing, but considering they're building their own shared universe now this probably also removes some possible license headaches/roadblocks going forward.

[Maryokutai]

More good news: Remedy is working together with Annapurna for both Control 2 financing and potential TV/movie adaptations of Control and Alan Wake: https://www.remedygames.com/article/remedy-and-annapurna-announce-a-strategic-cooperation-agreement

 

They do point out that Control remains their IP and that they're also the publisher of Control 2, so Annapurna really just seems to be there to drop some money in the bucket (and help with the movie thing). I think this might finally be a good pairing, after some of their less-than-optimal experiences with Microsoft, 505 and Epic.

[Maf]

Really excited about Control 2. It’s one of the few games I’ve played which is truly elevated by M&KB and after playing it on PC like that my estimation has gone way up. + Alan Wake 2 is not a great playing game, but they have so many cool ideas with story, genre and wild, twisting fun-horror if they can bring some of that to a game that plays like Control? Boom

 

Hopefully the TV deal doesn’t mean it has to be part of the game like Quantum Break, though 😓

[one-armed dwarf]

Apparently this is an action RPG. That's an interesting designation. I guess the original was sort of an action RPG but I wouldn't have described it like that necessarily.

 

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4nci4ly3xu3nau7hzr373bte/post/3lbch2m27ot2a?ref_src=embed

 

One thing I really love in both Control and Alan Wake 2 is the exploring. Their worlds are so detailed and a really well considered art direction, I'm really looking forward to seeing what this looks like. Just hope that action RPG is describing that we will have to put a lot of thought into character builds and interactions with the world and NPCs, and not that we'll be getting purple loot. Remedy have more sense than that hopefully

[DANGERMAN]

I'd happily just take more of the same tbh 

[Maryokutai]

Same here, just maybe without the 80% damage rockets from a mile away.

 

But I also think Remedy won't turn this into a Borderlands-like or an over-the-shoulder Diablo. They're not really the kind of studio that's mindlessly chasing trends.

[DANGERMAN]

Not sure where to put this, but Remedy are going to report a loss because F.B.C Firebreak has done so badly 

 

Quote

The Control spinoff shooter FBC: Firebreak stumbled badly at launch, putting up a peak concurrent player count on Steam of just under 2,000 on release day and quickly slumping to under 100 less than a month later. Remedy fired out some quick patches and committed to more significant changes, the first of which went live near the end of September. That sparked a small bump in the concurrent player count, but it quickly slumped back down to double-digit numbers.

 

Remedy's next quarterly financial report is set for October 29, but it's not waiting until then to deliver the bad news. "In its 2025 half-year financial report, Remedy reported that FBC: Firebreak’s launch-phase consumer sales underperformed," the studio said in today's update. "After the launch, the company rapidly developed the game based on player feedback and released multiple updates.

 

"On September 29, Remedy released the first Major Update titled Breakpoint for FBC: Firebreak, which brought significant changes to the game’s core experience. Despite improved player and sales metrics after the update, sales have not reached Remedy’s internal targets."

 

As a result of FBC: Firebreak's "weak sales," Remedy will eat a non-cash impairment of €14.9 million—essentially, most of what it cost to develop and distribute the game. And while the studio had previously forecast that its revenues and operating profit (EBIT—earnings before interest and taxes) would increase from the previous year, and more importantly that its operating profit would be positive, it now expects revenues to be up but operating profit "to be negative and below the previous year."

 

I'm a bit surprised by those launch numbers. I saw a few streamers I watch playing it. One group didn't seem to love it, the other one did, but they played it a few times. 

 

Personally, it's just not the sort of thing I'd buy despite loving Control 

[Maryokutai]

I'm not particularly tuned into the multiplayer fps scene but I barely registered this came out. Maybe self-publishing it wasn't such a good idea, this might have needed a bit more marketing budget (and also, maybe, the financial safety net of a publisher's involvement).

Though obviously stuff like Concord shows that marketing budget doesn't solve all your issues when the audience just isn't there.

[Nag]

Yep... it's one of those games that I literally tune out to. Although saying that I'm starting to think that might be the case with Remedy's games full stop... Control was OK and Alan Wake 2 was a dismal failure as far as I'm concerned. 

 

I probably need to reign in expectations with Control 2.

[radiofloyd]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/the-new-control-game-isnt-a-shooter-its-not-set-in-the-oldest-house-and-it-doesnt-star-jesse-faden-but-yknow-otherwise-it-seems-like-a-faithful-follow-up/

[Maryokutai]

Was not expecting this to end up being a character action game. Kind of wish it wasn't because damn do we get a lot of those these days, but on the other hand I applaud Remedy for not simply iterating on the first one.

[one-armed dwarf]

I'm not sure what people are looking at if we're getting lots of character action games, though maybe Mr Scratch is rewriting reality again in which case I hope he keeps at it. 

 

In any case I welcome the swing at a new genre, not just cause it's a genre I'm into but I felt like Control got a bit stale in the late part of the game, or at least when I tried the DLC, and some of the Old House concept felt like it had being thoroughly explored by that point (and the thing about weird/surreal stuff is you don't want to explore it too much imo, cause it can lose its mystique).

 

So it's cool they are doing something extremely different while keeping adjacent to that stuff. Different setting, sort of, different way to engage with things

 

They're calling it a melee action RPG anyway, so I think any character action mechanics will be only a very light touch here. 

 

(also I'm not entirely convinced at this point that it isn't also doing a dual protagonist thing in the full game, but it might be too difficult and unrealistic to develop both those gameplay styles at once, compared with Alan and Saga playing the same in AW2 more or less)

[Maf]

The most interesting aspect to me is what happened to Jessie? Went rogue? Corrupted by whatever this is, I guess. 
 

The new gameplay style is a bold swing for Remedy, so good on them for not being predictable. We’ll see if they can make it work, though. Gameplay is typically not their strong suit. And ironically I thought Control 1 was their best playing game by far 

[one-armed dwarf]

I'll say immediately one thing I really like aesthetically are transforming weapons, like in Bloodborne. 

 

One hyper specific nitpick though I hope is that the for the aerial combat that Dylan doesn't just magnetise to enemies and stick up there, it's something in these types of action games I don't really like. I prefer it when gravity takes hold a bit and you have to exert a bit more control (see what I did there). Way too early to say how it will work at this point anyway

[one-armed dwarf]

https://www.engadget.com/gaming/control-resonant-steps-into-a-larger-world-thats-inspired-by-neon-genesis-evangelion-021310781.html

 

Apparently inspired by NGE, hard to know in exactly what ways. Other than things being weird

[mfnick]

I wasn’t a big fan of the first. But this does look damn good, hopefully it does more for me.