Control Is Free On Epic Games Store

Monday, Devolver announced they’ll be doing a drug-fueled nightmare on Saturday, and Oddworld Soulstorm might be coming to the Xbox Series X/S. By Tuesday, Devolver had announced a game I want to play, and Alexx got a colorful farm sim he wants to play. From Wednesday, you might still have a couple of hours to pick up the Itch.io Palestine Aid bundle. Thursday, No More Heroes 1 & 2 released on PC if you’ve been waiting for that, and Civilization VI finally got all the DLC and Expansions put into one Anthology bundle.

So this is why we’ve been getting absolute crap for the last few weeks on the Epic Games Store, is it? We’ve slogged through 2K casino in NBA 2K21, we’ve endured the smarmy little teenagers still playing Among Us, and last week, we got Frostpunk. As much as I do enjoy Frostpunk, it might not be as wide-reaching as, say, Control. Remedy’s “honestly, forget that embarrassing mistake of Alan Wake, we’ve made a proper game now” apology for knocking off Stephen King. Ok, it’s not an apology, but it should be at this point after the dull humdrum of everything Alan did between 2001 and 2010.

In Control, you are (pun fully intended and signposted) in control of Jesse Faden, a woman that becomes the director of the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC). The FBC is an international, totally secret Bureau of things that go bump in the night. It is paranormal, or as the game calls it “paranatural” to pretend it is being special by making it all up. You have to stumble about firing guns and flinging tables about the place like it was the office Christmas party and you are high on Pixy Stix.

Joking aside, as much as I want to force Sam Lake to write something on a blank piece of paper, Control is possibly his best work since Max Payne. Mostly because he’s stopped licking Stephen King’s anus and moved on to a bit of online fan fiction and conspiracy theories. I’ll be honest, I’m less annoyed when he’s not trying to rip off that one Stephen King novel that Stephen King has been writing over and over again. Sure, Control is much like every other game. You have a gun and shoot things, there are some powers that Jesse suddenly gets and seems as unfazed by those as finding the sun saw fit to rise again, and there are random documents and audio logs (which you find under dogs).

Though I think that’s a problem I have with Remedy in general. They just keep making the typical game with an emphasis on story. There is never a point where someone bursts into the office asking how they could use gameplay to inform the story, at least not since they took that restraining order out on me. That said, Control is still a solid game once you get into it and start throwing Jamison’s desk about the place because he was late that morning.

However, it’s not the only thing listed as the free game this week… No. As also available this week is the already free-to-play gambling hellscape, Genshin Impact. The game that looked a bit like Breath of the Wild had a child with anime, then turned out to be typical free-to-play “gacha” nonsense that can, as I’ve said a few times before, get in the bin. Nevertheless, Epic is currently doing some promotional guff with the code “GenshinEpic,” if you want bonus guff when you download it. Enjoy an awful experience and gambling addiction.

All this week you can pick up Control on the Epic Games Store, until the 17th of June. From then on you’ll be able to pick up two games, and once again I can talk about what is coming next without moaning about “leaks.” The first of which is an action-platformer roguelite shooter with pixel art and a rather monochromatic style called Hell is other Demons. However, if you’re someone with a soul and maybe a friend you don’t want to stab, Overcooked 2 will also be available from the 17th of June.