Control: The Foundation: New content for the best action game of the year

It almost sounded like a small sensation: In the year of Death Stranding, Apex Legends and Resident Evil 2, a game that no one had previously thought of was in first place in quite a few game-of-the-year hit lists. Control also played at the top in the vote of the igamesnews editorial team and narrowly missed the podium with fourth place. The Foundation has just released the first DLC replenishment from the Season Pass for the best action game of the past year.

It took me a while to warm up with the main Control game. At first glance, the action seemed conventional, the look sterile and the story confused. But after a tough initial phase, developer Remedy got off to a mighty start and got into a frenzy that I hadn't seen in this form for a long time.

Control combines elements of completely different games and creates something unique from them: the brutal action of a Max Payne, staged incomparably stylish and with an infernal desire to destroy; the mysterious atmosphere of a FEAR, mysteriously, but at the same time outrageously cool. And furthermore: a Metroidvania level design, which I would like to compare most with Resident Evil 2, in which you gradually open up a building, open shortcuts and still return to previously visited places to uncover well-hidden secrets .

At the heart of Control is something that drives every good action game at heart: its combat system. In Control, the usual firearms from pistols to shotguns are not the primary tool for shooting, but only its emergency nail. Hero Jesse is the badass motherfucker among video game action heroes. With her telekinetic powers she tears down entire walls, hurls them at the enemy and devastates entire rooms. Control lets us become the raging Sith Lord we always wanted to be for a day.

Return to the oldest house

The Foundation is the first half of Control's Season Pass, whose second episode, AWE, is slated for release in the summer. It connects directly to the campaign, so it assumes that you have played through the main game. Jesse receives the news that a new threat is forming deep beneath the building of the oldest house: A gigantic monolith, the so-called "needle", is gradually letting the astral plane seep into our dimension and its outbreaks proliferate through the passages, the spread of which there is in the following six hours.

To do this, you'll explore a huge cave system that stretches deep below the Federal Bureau of Control building and is designed in the game's surreal-looking style: bizarre rock formations of seemingly living crystals, red sand as if it were soaked in blood , stray cracks in reality.

Like the main game, Control: The Foundation takes a long time to start the gameplay engine until the action really gets going. The first one to two hours are mainly spent exploring the caves and smaller puzzles, which gives you the opportunity to recall the controls and pump them back into your blood. Hovering, hurling, smashing … "How did it all go again?" Is the predominant question after a break of a few months, which determines the initial phase of the DLC and is gradually answered by the careful entry.

More control = controller?

The Foundation presents in a condensed form everything that already characterized the main game with flying colors: violent battles against waves from opponents, careful exploration of the surroundings so as not to miss a secret passage with valuable loot, and stylish floating passages from platform to platform.

For this, the game is equipping you with a new skill: You can now grow crystals at predetermined locations, which serve as a platform to reach higher regions, thereby emphasizing the bouncing and exploring aspect of the game. In addition, the crystals can be summoned out of the ground like sharp spears during fights, making them a valuable tactical tool against the tough new opponents.

These are roughly similar to the well-known adversaries of the main game, but appear as their quicker and more dangerous relatives. The standard “zombies”, for example, can now also teleport, dodge your projectiles and throw stones at you, even if you are actually out of reach while floating in the air.

Apart from the cave labyrinth, the DLC takes you back to the well-known office buildings and factories. The astral dimension, in which the finale of the main game already took place, is also undergoing extensive revival. A side mission is particularly original, in which you experience a wild roller coaster ride on a lore and complete a hopping course to synth music, as if Modern Talking had played it personally.

Control – The Foundation DLC Trailer

"The Foundation" is the first major DLC for control in the starting blocks.

Control: The Foundation extends the experience that made the main game a sensation in every respect, adds subtle innovations to it, but also shows in the same step that its game principle had already been sufficiently exhausted and formulated there. The caves are strikingly similar to the original quarry. Parts of the ashtray labyrinth and the astral plane also experience their return and reinforce the constant feeling of "I already know."

Already in the main game, the arena fights, which were always the same, felt increasingly tough and treadmill-like the further the game leaned towards the end. By further emphasizing the sandbox character of the clashes through its additional tactical possibilities, the DLC reinforces this impression in an almost paradoxical way. Above all because the opponents have learned to avoid your powerful slingshot attacks, the fights are more demanding – but at the same time, they undermine the overpowering exhilaration that significantly shaped the experience of the skin game.