Control is a beautiful, engrossing game, easily one of the best I have played in 2019. But it has a problem. Or rather, I have a problem. I've been playing Remedy's new title on an original Xbox One, and that occasionally turns the free-flowing, supernatural-powers-aplenty action into a stuttering soup of slow-down sadness.
But there's hope for all of us who're enjoying Control on older consoles, rather than the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro models on which it shines (and then there's how it plays on properly top-end PCs, which is a symphony of gorgeousness almost unparalleled in its genre). Remedy's promised that a patch to improve the slightly glitchy performance on creaky machines is on the way.
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Disappointingly however, it's not going to be a quick fix. Remedy is talking in terms of weeks rather than days, to get the base-console gameplay on a par, regards buttery smooth slickness, with the 'pro'-level alternatives. You can read about said optimisation plans on their blog.
Now, it's mostly only when exiting menus, and pause, that I've had any (brief) slowdown on my Xbox; but there was one time during a particularly hectic battle with several Hiss-infected enemies that my screen became more like a flip book in the hands of a sloth than a 21st century gaming machine, which wasn't a whole lot of fun. It hasn't put a notably negative spin on my time with this game, though - a game that, for me, is up there with the year's very best.
The performance patch will also address the map's habit of sometimes not loading when you call it up - and for a game that doesn't have destination markers on its HUD, the map's kind of important, so consistency is a must. Also coming soon to Control is a photo mode - nice - and options to toggle motion blur and film grain. What's not in the plans right now is support for HDR.
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The Remedy blog post ends: "we hope this update reassures our players that we're working behind the scenes on improving and bringing new content to Control. Just please be patient as the development team at Remedy is doing its best. Thanks once again for your continued show of support."
Have you been playing Control? How do you feel it stands up against Remedy's past games, like Quantum Break and Alan Wake? Have you found how it connects to that latter game, yet? (No spoilers here - you'll have to keep your own eyes peeled.) Let us know via the links below.
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Topics: Control