This post contains massive spoilers for the game Control, in particular the ending of the game
The number of questions posed in Control is great. It encourages itself to do so by redacting even the smallest of details from it's own lore documents within the game. The ending of the game seems to go out of it's way to answer none of these questions. Not only that, but it almost seems to take joy in ignoring the most pertinent and interesting of these questions. That's fine, but that leaves the broader questions of theme, purpose, motivation. As you finish the game, the one thing that the main character, and all those around her refuse to ask is "why?"
Now, normally in videogames this isn't much of a problem. Motive is established once and that will usually carry you through to the end. The thing that makes Control different is that it sets its entire narrative on dreams, alternate dimensions, and mind controlling entities with unspeakable power. How can anything be trusted to be as it appears?
Yet, that is how Control ends. The evil force, having been presented as evil from the start, is evil. You save your brother from the evil (why he seemingly chose to be corrupted by it while you did not is unknown). You assume the position as director, whatever that means or entails. Why our protagonist feels any responsibility to do so other than being told "you are the director" is unknown.
In this last sequence of events, it is MAYBE hinted at once that any of this is not simply as presented. This, to me, betrays all that came before. It feels like I got the bad ending. It feels like the character I was playing just said "yeah, fuck it, who cares if it makes sense or not, let just act" and the narrative itself made no attempt to correct her course. For all the time I spent killing mold (the origin of which also never got explained or even hinted about) I didn't even get the most subtle of hints as to why or how Control was established, how the oldest house was formed, etc.
The thing is, I'm cool with questions hanging in the air. Not everything needs to be known. It kinda sucks when all the purpose of stuff that feels most interesting isn't even remotely hinted at, when multiple major characters are given literally no closure, but hey, asking questions as a player can a big part of the fun, even if you have next to nothing to go on (see: the janitor). Instead we find out what happened to Alan Wake, so that's something.
The biggest issue I have with this is not simply that I want to know who/what the Board is, or where the Hiss/Polaris came from, but that I have no idea what their motives are. If the game wants the story to be simply "main character wants to save her brother and succeeds" that is fine, but why her brother is in peril to begin with is completely unknown! Then there is Polaris. What are the motives of Polaris?
Here, we have the real antagonist and protagonist of the game, or at least as far as I can tell, yet I do not know why either is doing what they are doing. Yet, at the end of the game I'm meant to simply accept their actions as logical. It's just frustrating. I'm invested in these characters but the forces pulling the strings are just simply there. Why show them at all then? Perhaps hint at them even existing instead of making them concrete facts so I won't be so disappointed when I know as little as I did starting by the end.
Now Remedy (the company that made Control) has a solution of sorts for this, and they did the same with Alan Wake, one of their previous games: have DLC that answers some questions. The thing is, with Alan Wake, I felt at least some sense of closure. It felt personal, with the Dark Presence feeling metaphorical rather than literal (therefor there's no need to question it's "motives." You can't apply the same metaphor to Control (like the Hiss being a manifestation of Jesse's self doubt or fear) because it is so entangled in other otherworldly elements, dimensional travel, and scientific analysis. It's too complicated and convoluted to work). This continues even in the DLC. In Control, however, these things serve no metaphorical purpose for the characters, other than perhaps in very, very, very broad strokes and with the caveat that you ignore certain facts. The forces are studied by scientists within the game, so I expect at least somewhat scientific answers. Perhaps if we had those the metaphor would be more clear, assuming there is one.
((Briefly back to an earlier point, while these forces are studied and accepted en masse by the employees of the organization within which Control takes place, again no one seems to ask why, or any questions at all for that matter. The extra-dimensional beings known as the board as accepted to exist and their purpose and existence are never questioned beyond that by anyone! What they want, why they choose to communicate at all, it's just taken for granted by the characters, including the one I'm supposed to be relating to! I can see accepting extraordinary circumstances, but not motives. Why does the person I'm playing so readily accept one thing as right and another as wrong when it is almost completely undefined? She is essentially told and obeys (the irony of which is painful during the "take control" sequence of the game where you are forced to do menial tasks as demanded of you such as deliver letters as if that is any different from being asking to shoot 10 of these bad guys over and over). I was looking for questions along the lines of those within Bioshock (the original) but nothing like that ever came up.))
The detail oriented questions (such as the motives of the mysterious Janitor character) being answered in the DLC I'm fine with, but the poor narrative/ending of the base game itself is just so disappointing. Again, I don't need the questions answered but I'm left disappointed that, in a way, the game did not ask more. It just left things as is, for you not to question what is right or wrong but to say "yep, the game is over and I didn't die so I must have succeeded, I did the right thing."
The second issue is what I feel to be the abandoning of the earlier themes of the game. The nature of reality, the concept of fate, the idea of having no control particularly as pertains to videogames and linear game narrative (the illusion or lack of choice (an interesting topic not explored nearly enough in the AAA game space)), this all goes out the window in the end. You could say they choose to "answer" the question of control in a way that does feel simply disappointing (the main character chooses to become what she has been told she is, simple as that for no discernible reason).
I think that's all my thoughts on the ending for now. It's fine to put all the interesting answers (or expound upon the interesting questions) in the DLC, but don't just give up on them in the core, sixty dollar game at the end. What is the point of it? Did they just need some way to tie things up? Did they feel they had to have some concrete ending, as opposed to something open ended? Am I really supposed to just accept that Jesse saved her brother and is just going to go on living her life now that she put him in a coma? The character motivations and actions don't make sense within their own logic (or continue to be unexplained to the point of being virutally) non-existent. That's the greatest sin you can commit in a video game story, isn't it? Perhaps they have motivations somewhere, and there is a logic you can prescribe to it, but it certainly didn't make itself evident to me.
Subnote: Now there is ONE hint as to what the powers could be, at least that I noticed. That is a number that is repeated twice (that I saw) in the game, 665. Polaris is a holy force, the Hiss is demonic. There is a board of directors scene that refers to one of their own being kicked out, which could be a match to the story of the fallen angel (satan) etc etc. Then I guess the board made polaris at some point and thats jesus while the hiss is the antichrist? However, even that would feel like a bit of a cop out. One is evil because that is it's nature, and visa versa. It works in, I don't know, Star Wars or Harry Potter but evil for the sake of evil is pretty boring. I would not call that "logical" exactly.
The number of questions posed in Control is great. It encourages itself to do so by redacting even the smallest of details from it's own lore documents within the game. The ending of the game seems to go out of it's way to answer none of these questions. Not only that, but it almost seems to take joy in ignoring the most pertinent and interesting of these questions. That's fine, but that leaves the broader questions of theme, purpose, motivation. As you finish the game, the one thing that the main character, and all those around her refuse to ask is "why?"
Now, normally in videogames this isn't much of a problem. Motive is established once and that will usually carry you through to the end. The thing that makes Control different is that it sets its entire narrative on dreams, alternate dimensions, and mind controlling entities with unspeakable power. How can anything be trusted to be as it appears?
Yet, that is how Control ends. The evil force, having been presented as evil from the start, is evil. You save your brother from the evil (why he seemingly chose to be corrupted by it while you did not is unknown). You assume the position as director, whatever that means or entails. Why our protagonist feels any responsibility to do so other than being told "you are the director" is unknown.
In this last sequence of events, it is MAYBE hinted at once that any of this is not simply as presented. This, to me, betrays all that came before. It feels like I got the bad ending. It feels like the character I was playing just said "yeah, fuck it, who cares if it makes sense or not, let just act" and the narrative itself made no attempt to correct her course. For all the time I spent killing mold (the origin of which also never got explained or even hinted about) I didn't even get the most subtle of hints as to why or how Control was established, how the oldest house was formed, etc.
The thing is, I'm cool with questions hanging in the air. Not everything needs to be known. It kinda sucks when all the purpose of stuff that feels most interesting isn't even remotely hinted at, when multiple major characters are given literally no closure, but hey, asking questions as a player can a big part of the fun, even if you have next to nothing to go on (see: the janitor). Instead we find out what happened to Alan Wake, so that's something.
The biggest issue I have with this is not simply that I want to know who/what the Board is, or where the Hiss/Polaris came from, but that I have no idea what their motives are. If the game wants the story to be simply "main character wants to save her brother and succeeds" that is fine, but why her brother is in peril to begin with is completely unknown! Then there is Polaris. What are the motives of Polaris?
Here, we have the real antagonist and protagonist of the game, or at least as far as I can tell, yet I do not know why either is doing what they are doing. Yet, at the end of the game I'm meant to simply accept their actions as logical. It's just frustrating. I'm invested in these characters but the forces pulling the strings are just simply there. Why show them at all then? Perhaps hint at them even existing instead of making them concrete facts so I won't be so disappointed when I know as little as I did starting by the end.
Now Remedy (the company that made Control) has a solution of sorts for this, and they did the same with Alan Wake, one of their previous games: have DLC that answers some questions. The thing is, with Alan Wake, I felt at least some sense of closure. It felt personal, with the Dark Presence feeling metaphorical rather than literal (therefor there's no need to question it's "motives." You can't apply the same metaphor to Control (like the Hiss being a manifestation of Jesse's self doubt or fear) because it is so entangled in other otherworldly elements, dimensional travel, and scientific analysis. It's too complicated and convoluted to work). This continues even in the DLC. In Control, however, these things serve no metaphorical purpose for the characters, other than perhaps in very, very, very broad strokes and with the caveat that you ignore certain facts. The forces are studied by scientists within the game, so I expect at least somewhat scientific answers. Perhaps if we had those the metaphor would be more clear, assuming there is one.
((Briefly back to an earlier point, while these forces are studied and accepted en masse by the employees of the organization within which Control takes place, again no one seems to ask why, or any questions at all for that matter. The extra-dimensional beings known as the board as accepted to exist and their purpose and existence are never questioned beyond that by anyone! What they want, why they choose to communicate at all, it's just taken for granted by the characters, including the one I'm supposed to be relating to! I can see accepting extraordinary circumstances, but not motives. Why does the person I'm playing so readily accept one thing as right and another as wrong when it is almost completely undefined? She is essentially told and obeys (the irony of which is painful during the "take control" sequence of the game where you are forced to do menial tasks as demanded of you such as deliver letters as if that is any different from being asking to shoot 10 of these bad guys over and over). I was looking for questions along the lines of those within Bioshock (the original) but nothing like that ever came up.))
The detail oriented questions (such as the motives of the mysterious Janitor character) being answered in the DLC I'm fine with, but the poor narrative/ending of the base game itself is just so disappointing. Again, I don't need the questions answered but I'm left disappointed that, in a way, the game did not ask more. It just left things as is, for you not to question what is right or wrong but to say "yep, the game is over and I didn't die so I must have succeeded, I did the right thing."
The second issue is what I feel to be the abandoning of the earlier themes of the game. The nature of reality, the concept of fate, the idea of having no control particularly as pertains to videogames and linear game narrative (the illusion or lack of choice (an interesting topic not explored nearly enough in the AAA game space)), this all goes out the window in the end. You could say they choose to "answer" the question of control in a way that does feel simply disappointing (the main character chooses to become what she has been told she is, simple as that for no discernible reason).
I think that's all my thoughts on the ending for now. It's fine to put all the interesting answers (or expound upon the interesting questions) in the DLC, but don't just give up on them in the core, sixty dollar game at the end. What is the point of it? Did they just need some way to tie things up? Did they feel they had to have some concrete ending, as opposed to something open ended? Am I really supposed to just accept that Jesse saved her brother and is just going to go on living her life now that she put him in a coma? The character motivations and actions don't make sense within their own logic (or continue to be unexplained to the point of being virutally) non-existent. That's the greatest sin you can commit in a video game story, isn't it? Perhaps they have motivations somewhere, and there is a logic you can prescribe to it, but it certainly didn't make itself evident to me.
Subnote: Now there is ONE hint as to what the powers could be, at least that I noticed. That is a number that is repeated twice (that I saw) in the game, 665. Polaris is a holy force, the Hiss is demonic. There is a board of directors scene that refers to one of their own being kicked out, which could be a match to the story of the fallen angel (satan) etc etc. Then I guess the board made polaris at some point and thats jesus while the hiss is the antichrist? However, even that would feel like a bit of a cop out. One is evil because that is it's nature, and visa versa. It works in, I don't know, Star Wars or Harry Potter but evil for the sake of evil is pretty boring. I would not call that "logical" exactly.
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