The floppy disk gives telekinetic powers. The fridge can (and will) kill you. And the rubber duck just wants to be really, really annoying.
These dramatic objects are just a small part of Remedy’s 2019 game Control, my main subject of obsession since the pandemic in 2020. Of course, it is an entertaining video game, but it wasn’t necessarily the gameplay or the mechanics alone that has made it such a staple in my mind and inspiration to my work.
Instead, it is the papers left behind by likely long-dead employees. The petty office drama we (unfortunately) only get to see in bits and pieces. The way the world feels so alive, even when we barely see any other living characters for most of the game.
Oh, and between the petty drama and the papers, there’s a paranatural apocalypse going on.
The papers left behind drone on about the latest paranatural research, which may be the thing which ends the world. The petty office drama is about having to catalog ever more obnoxious items to determine if they are paranatural. Even though these details should seem so out of the ordinary, they weave naturally into the landscape of the game.
What Control has taught me most is to find the strange and the unusual within the mundane. While the game’s overall worldbuilding is something I wish to one day achieve, what really inspires me are the small details. Not only do these details stay consistent with the rest of the world, they add something. They aren’t just throwaways.
To make things even more exciting for my little writer brain, Control also connects to the world of another Remedy game, Alan Wake, which has its sequel coming out this Friday.
And Alan Wake, the titular character, is a writer.
Both Control and Alan Wake are full of writing and literary references and jokes, whether that be the “rule of three” to activate certain objects in the former or the plot point of literally following the plot of a manuscript in the latter. As a writer myself, it’s always fun to see media which both embraces and pokes fun at writers, given that most media has a team of writers behind it.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to make anything that will inspire someone the way Control has inspired me, but the honor is something I will continue to strive for.
One word, one detail, one rubber duck at a time.
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