Control Will Be Weirder and Less Linear Than Quantum Break

Earlier this month during Sony's E3 2018 media showcase, Remedy Entertainment -- the team behind Max Payne, Alan Wake, and Quantum Break -- unveiled its latest game called Control.

Details on the title aren't exactly overflowing, but Remedy's Creative Director Sam Lake has since provided a little bit more insight into the project (via GameSpot).

According to Lake, Control represents greater creative freedom and a chance to be weird and do things that excite the developer, because unlike its most recent game Quantum Break, there is no pressure to produce mainstream appeal. In other words, Control is the unadulterated product of Remedy Entertainment's mindshare, and a game that isn't chasing blockbuster success.

"Don't get this wrong because I'm really proud of what we achieved with Quantum Break--but intentionally from the beginning, with Quantum Break, we wanted mainstream appeal, a big blockbuster thing," said Lake. "Because, creatively, you want to keep things fresh and interesting and get excited about it. It's kind of a pendulum swing. And for [Control] we just said: 'You know what, let's just go with what excites us. Really, even if it's just really out there and weird, let's embrace it and go with it. We love pop culture, we love many different things, but so do gamers out there. Let's just trust that if we go on this journey that they'll come along.' And that excitement is contagious. So we didn't want to be boxed in in any way; we just wanted to go out there and go crazy, in some ways."

Lake continued, elaborating on the inspirations fueling the vision of the game:

"That was the starting point for this. Obviously inspiration always comes from many different directions, but one purposeful source of inspiration was the literary genre New Weird, which is kind of a subgenre of sci-fi in a way that deals with the unexplainable. Sometimes there are no answers, and sometimes we are dealing with forces that the human mind can't quite comprehend, or our modern science can't explain. We want to explore these kinds of ideas in [Control] and build a multi-layered, complex world. World building, as a starting point, was more important to us in this than in any previous game--create an interesting world that the players want to keep coming back to, want to explore, want to discover and piece together."

Lake continues by noting that another way Control will be different than Quantum Break – as well as its other previous projects – is that it will be less linear, less "holding the player's hand." In fact, the way Lake describes the game, it almost sounds like something straight out of a metroidvania playbook.

"Once again, looking back to Quantum Break, it's a very linear experience," said Lake. "All of our games so far have been. We wanted to create a less linear experience, and you know, for a linear experience you kind of are holding the player's hand, like, 'Come here, and this is the next thing and this is the next thing.' Now it's hands off. We drop you in and you go and find what interests you. There is a story...and for the main character, a journey to find her place in this world. But at the same time there are many directions to go to and many discoveries to be made. You know, less hand-holding, less handing things to you on a platter; find it, search for it--what interests you--and you will be rewarded. Sometimes it's more challenging, but the funny thing that I feel with mystery and hidden things is that they drive you and motivate you. 'There's something here, and I want to find out what it is. That kind of thing."

Being published by 505 Games, Control is in development for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, and is slated to launch sometime next year.