Much like with the base game, my favorite moment in The Foundation, the first expansion to Remedy’s Control, didn’t occur in the main story. While chasing down another Altered Item, mysterious objects with supernatural abilities, protagonist Jesse Faden finds herself barreling down a subway on parallel railcars. As signs and crossbeams come near, Jesse must jump between railcars to avoid the obstacles. Enemies are even thrown into the mix a few times to keep Jesse on her toes.
The player must know when to levitate over a crossbeam, when to drop under an overpassing sign, and when to dash over to the next railcar. Combat sequences for this mission meager, but Jesse’s shield and launch abilities play an unequivocal role nonetheless. Unfortunately, it’s one of the few times in The Foundation where multiple mechanics are operating in any meaningful and synchronous way.
Developer: Remedy Entertainment
Price: $15
Platform: Windows (Reviewed), PS4
MonsterVine was supplied with an Epic code for review
The Foundation throws FBC Director Jesse Faden into the lowest sector of the Oldest House, aptly called “the foundation.” The Oldest House’s bureaucratic veneer is stripped for red sand and rock walls more befitting of the subterranean location, and several new elements are added to top off the Control universe. For the most part, everything is coherent with the story and gameplay of the base game – but it doesn’t all land perfectly.
The Foundation certainly isn’t an afterthought. It delves deeper into the history of the Oldest House and gives players much needed answers while still maintaining the mystery that renders Control so enthralling. The Foundation only adds one new cast member, former FBC head researcher Theodore Ash, who – despite only being presented through documents and tape recordings – feels as much a part of Control as anyone else.
Like the additional story content, Jesse’s new abilities feel like logical extensions of her toolset. Shape and Fracture manipulate the crystalline formations found throughout the foundation and compliment the game’s quasi-Metroidvania design. With Shape, Jesse draws crystals from the bedrock to create platforms. Fracture, on the other hand, lets Jesse destroy crystal roadblocks with the service weapon.
Remedy’s worst offense with The Foundation is its combat. Rather than provide a meaningful combat experience that profoundly explores the game’s mechanics, Remedy prefers to inundate the player with waves of baddies. Players are more likely to survive skirmishes through endurance than strategy; when death came, it was often due to an overabundance of enemies and not a lack of skill. This is especially true of the final boss fight, which utilized the new abilities, but not effectively.
The new abilities do have combat utility, but they’re never used in any meaningful way. Shape can impale enemies with crystal spikes. Meanwhile, Fracture can be used to break crystal floors beneath an enemy’s feet, sending them into the astral abyss below. Performing either of these actions requires players to lure enemies to a particular area to perform a contextual action. Fighting this way often felt gimmicky, forced and inorganic.
And this was only the case for the expansion’s main quest. Like I mentioned earlier, that side quest that had me cruising down a subway after a nefarious movie camera is, so far, my favorite moment in the entire game. It aligns with the creativity and purpose that Remedy applied to boss fights in the base game. So why is it so hard to build a meaningful battle in the main story?
But it isn’t the combat that kept me playing Control in the first place. Throwing forklifts at people can only remain fun for so long. Ultimately, it’s the worldbuilding that keeps me playing, and that’s also why I’ll continue to play the expansions. I just wish there were more gameplay moments comparable to what I experienced in that subway.
The Final Word
More of Remedy’s fantastic worldbuilding with some combat hiccups.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair
