When I was much too young, I had seen the likes of the O.G. Doom games, and now I consider the franchise to be one of my absolute favorites (I own the Anthology release with the BFG Replica). That exposure to Doom came from both my uncle and my cousins. These were the same cousins that introduced me to Crash Bandicoot, that weird Bruce Willis game, Apocalypse, and, of course, South Park. One other piece was in the form of, at least, the first Max Payne game. I only really ever knew it for bullet time and the silly face I'd come to admire, Sam Lake.

At some point in the deep times of the mid-2000s, I at least heard of the game Alan Wake. It was supposed to be this ultra-important title for Microsoft and its new Xbox 360. I wouldn't get around to getting the 360 until I was in 8th grade, and it would be even longer before I even checked out anything related to the series. At an as-yet-undetermined time, I watched a playthrough of Alan Wake's American Nightmare. I was completely lost and had no idea about the lore. Some 14 years later or so, that is no longer the case, but it wasn't Alan Wake that finally got me there.

In my undergrad years, I explored concepts and philosophies that challenged my earlier view of the world and simultaneously broadened my horizons. I looked Eastward to things like Buddhism and Taoism, and left behind a firmly Freudian framework for the realm of the Jungian. Much of this was facilitated through exploration online and in interactive media. I read The Tao of Pooh; I played, mostly, through several of the Persona games, and I read widely on subjects like quantum physics and the many-worlds interpretation. In the lead-up to all that exploration, I'd also been exposed to numerous other properties, like Eureka and Warehouse 13 (two of my top 10 favorite shows). I sat down, and I watched ALL of Twin Peaks, learning to love David Lynch and his wild but poignant ideas. And I watched a Slenderman-adjacent series, Everyman Hybrid, that introduced me to Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. Each of these aspects tied together in my experiences with the Remedy-verse.

Fast forward to 2019, and in the midst of some of my darkest hours, I saw a trailer for a game: a mind-bending, brutalist, retro-inspired action game. The aesthetics were awesome, and the whole concept seemed bonkers… I HAD to play it. So, on a whim, I bought it on PSN and played it on my, at the time, brand-new PS4. From the very start, I was hooked: the mysterious organization headquartered in the building from Mr. Robot Seasons 2-3, an organization that collected, studied, and contained objects imbued with strange power. It was like all of my preferences were being checked off one by one. It felt like a game made just for me; it was actually kind of scary. The same thing happened with Mr. Robot, my favorite TV show, as it progressed, getting to the point that it seemed Sam Esmail had been taking notes on my personality.

So, Control, for the uninitiated, actually draws from several sources, some of which I named here, and other notable ones like The X-Files (a show I intend to finish watching in full shortly) and SCP (a collaborative fiction that honestly surprises me the more I dig into it). The Oldest House, the organization's headquarters, is bigger on the inside than the outside, and its halls rearrange themselves, much like the Navidson house in House of Leaves. The game blends metaphysics, actual physics, comedy, drama, and sci-fi wrapped in a mystery all at once. I couldn't put it down. It didn't take long until I realized that this game was simply the latest entry into a world that comprises several different franchises that all work together, yet blend highly different gameplay styles. The Northlight Engine that Remedy uses feels experimental and medium-expanding. I'm very much a Kojima devotee; his creativity has been an inspiration many times over, and Sam Lake's Remedy and Yoko Taro seem to be in good company. Live-action blending with real-time gameplay will astound me regularly and actively change my conception of how video games are not only art, but frankly one of the most incredible art forms in existence. Don't just watch a film, play it. Don't just read a book, live it. Don't just write a story, change it.

Control was a Threshold which I passed through into a spiral that has led me to expand my creativity in ways my younger self would have only dreamed. The way the pieces fit together just works and creates a pathway toward my own interconnected universe of the weird and wonderful. It is those same connections that would lead me to the extended Remedy-verse, to things like Quantum Break, a return to Max Payne, and most notably, Alan Wake.

Bright Falls is a small Washington town with a diner, a sheriff, and something wrong in the lake. It is Remedy's Twin Peaks. As a writer, I immediately saw Wake as someone I could, at least in part, connect with. Fiction becoming reality, and vice versa, making a game into the equivalent of a television show, in which the protagonist writes himself into the story. Each "Level" is an Episode, complete with end credits and needle-drops. As you explore, you see more episodes of "Night Springs," the show that Wake had written, which is an overt reference to The Twilight Zone. My head was spinning at the style and panache on display.

I played through the game, even streaming it on my Twitch channel, and hosting the VODs on my YouTube channel as well. Having finished the game, I was left with one choice: to move onward, as Alan Wake did end up receiving a sequel just a couple of years ago. I finally got around to playing it right as the Lake House DLC was released. I started playing it over Thanksgiving break, and I could not put it down. The lore went deeper than I anticipated, the music went harder than it had any right to, and my lord, it was a hit on all accounts! The main story hits SO much harder than I ever expected, and playing through in a "new game +" fashion has a narrative relevance that other games struggle to achieve with their own plots. It pushed the boundaries of reality and fiction to the brink, and it certainly scared the crap outta me. Mr. Scratch, Alan's dark double, is a Jungian shadow, the same concept I first met in the Persona games.

Beneath the shift to more direct horror, the comedic moments land to break up the overwhelmingly dark atmosphere, though the game still maintains the appropriate seriousness its story deserves. Where things got more wild were the DLC additions. One set was a series of attempts Alan made to escape the Dark Place (not to be confused with Garth Marenghi's Darkplace), each taking the form of a Night Springs episode. Cleverly, these episodes were retroactively interspersed throughout the main story and can be accessed via televisions. They break up the gameplay and make connections to the events that are occurring in the moment of the primary storyline. One is an over-the-top story of a heroic waitress coming to save him; another is a barely veiled retelling of Control, complete with a playable Jesse Faden lookalike played by the same actress. But she's not the only lookalike.

The Microsoft partnership gave Alan Wake life in the first place, but it was not their only project. Quantum Break attempted to blend the mediums of television and gaming. Microsoft was attempting to replace all other cable boxes itself, and Quantum Break was supposed to be a part of that initiative. A series of TV episodes with differing storylines based on in-game choices was made as a part of the experience. Today, you have to experience it on PC or, if you're lucky enough, an Xbox One or Series X|S. Considering the current upheaval at Xbox, I think it would be a fantastic idea to give the IP rights to Remedy so they don't have to do what they did for the third chapter of the Night Springs DLC.

Same actor, similar concepts, but legally distinct enough; the third entry in the Night Springs DLC follows Shawn Ashmore as he travels between universes and across time, trying to find a very particular person. Part Quantum Leap, and part Stargate, you travel through worlds of all sorts: Comic Book Panels, a Noir Maze, a 2D Sidescrolling Beat Em Up, and even a text adventure. The sky was the limit, and the limit does not exist.

The last DLC, and the most pertinent to the discussion, is the Lake House DLC. Where Control had a designated DLC, The Foundation, that dealt with its own internal locations and plots, there was another piece of DLC in the first Control game. AWE is an expansion that finally pays off the many easter eggs left in prior outings. Alan Wake and Control were made a part of the same universe, explaining the events of Alan Wake as an Altered World Event (A.W.E.). The fabric of reality is more malleable than most would recognize, and Alan is proof of that flexibility. Thanks to a combination of factors, his writing changed the course of things, even creating things whole cloth. The consequence was his imprisonment within the Dark Place. In Control's AWE DLC, we get a look at the investigation that the FBC conducted in relation to the events of his first game. Now, in his second, the game pays it forward, giving us another look at the FBC and its workings at Cauldron Lake. The lake is full of power, and several FBC agents begin trying to use its power to rewrite reality for their own gain. Obviously, it all goes awry, and FBC Agent Estevez is sent in to investigate. The most important moment comes from a sudden bridging of locations, where our Agent finds themselves somehow in the Panopticon at the Oldest House. The Panopticon is essentially a high-security vault filled with many Altered Items and Objects of Power. These things are much like the various artifacts from the Warehouse 13 series, objects that are filled with powerful forces which can cause numerous anomalous effects in the world. Whether it's a floppy disk that pushes things away, granting you telekinesis, or a refrigerator you must, under no circumstances, look away from. But in addition to these items, one man is also similarly under lock and key.

Dylan Faden is the brother of Control's protagonist Jesse Faden. The pair were subjected to an AWE as children, which saw their entire town orphaned, and the pair of them forever changed, becoming parautilitarians (basically superpowered individuals). Dylan was kidnapped and trained to become the new Director of the Bureau, undergoing rigorous experiments meant to prepare him to run the whole operation. Unethical experiments can often leave the subjects broken, and he was deemed too dangerous. To make matters worse, the Director at the time was influenced to release an entity from the same object that gave the Fadens their abilities. This entity, the Hiss, slaughtered countless Agents, and on the very day Jesse Faden had finally tracked down the FBC Headquarters, she stumbled her way into becoming the new Director herself. She pushes back the Hiss and frees Dylan, who'd been possessed by it. But he spends the next seven years in a coma, and those within the Oldest House remain trapped in the building-wide lockdown.

Agent Estevez finds Dylan, and he has a dire premonition that directly foreshadows the events of the true point of discussion… Control Resonant. I just started playing it this week, and while I may be 7 hours in, I'm just barely scratching the surface of what there is. It isn't a Lake; it's an Ocean, and we'll be going deep into its dark waters. Many have already done their analysis and Lore content, but I will be discussing my experiences in this particular game.

I felt it pertinent to give the background I have with the franchise and the most important aspects to know what the heck is going on. I kept many, many things vague, though some reveals have clearly been spoiled at the macro level. Trust me, even what you know now pales in comparison to the iceberg beneath; while the shock of the cold water may hit you at first, once you get acclimated, you'll see how refreshing it is to still see a company push the envelope and dare to experiment with gameplay, story, and overall presentation.