Manos Vezos: So. I’ll go the ridiculous route. The first time I heard of the game and realized that everything takes place within the same building, my mind immediately jumped, for some reason, to Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Brooke Maggs: Alright!
Manos Vezos: Because I loved that game and how it managed to build tension and atmosphere within the confines of the asylum. I realize that the Oldest House isn't as much confined in reality but it's basically a character.
Brooke Maggs: It's a character, yeah.
Manos Vezos: So I think you should elaborate on that because it's going to be... if I remember correctly, the world building came first and the story came second, right?
Brooke Maggs: Yes.
Manos Vezos: Based on the world you created. So let's hear more about this process.
Brooke Maggs: Yeah. Really great opening question, which I love. So Control, being a brand new IP for Remedy, we did start with world building first, sort of establishing a large world that we could tell many stories inside of and we started with thinking about, you know, what kind of genre do we want to settle in, who is the Federal Bureau of Control, who are the Hiss and what do they want and, you know, how does this government agency work inside the Oldest House, which is a "Place of Power". And that's why the Oldest House is not what it seems, it shifts and changes, it is a little bit like, I guess, almost infinite in its possibilities, it was really interesting to tackle as a world, within Control and also allude to what goes on outside. So as you play through Control you find areas of the Oldest House that perhaps allude to other strange things going on, except outside of the crisis that you're dealing with, so there's a lot in there for players to discover and explore. The Oldest House itself has 4 different sectors, so it has Research, Maintenance, Containment and Executive. You can see the Executive map here and this is perhaps the smallest sector that we have so they can get quite big. But in terms of world building, we also had the opportunity to think about what does a government agency look like when they're trying to research and contain and perhaps control the unexplained and otherwordly forces. And so that is... there's a lot really interesting government bureaucracy tied up with unexplained, strange phenomena happening within the building. So that makes for a really interesting environment. Your other question was about the world building and then the story.
Manos Vezos: Yes. I'm more curious about how you ended up making the choice to go that way, first with the world building and then...
Brooke Maggs: Yeah, that's a good point. You see, now, in previous games we've had... they're fairly linear in terms of how they're delivered and how the player moves through. In Control the main storyline is linear but because the Oldest House itself, over time, (leads to) a Metroidvania style gameplay now, which is new for Remedy so building a world was important to facilitate that kind of gameplay, which means players come back to different areas they've been in before, when they acquire the ability to levitate they can reach new areas of the building, both up high and below, which means that our approach to the world building needed to support that kind of playstyle. So we designed a new dynamic combat system for the game, as well, so it's not a scripted bit per se, so you don't have some story, some scripted combat then some story, some scripted combat. It's more cohesive than that, you know, it all happens on top of each. You can find side missions for example while you're exploring that open up new areas of the building and they also give you new abilities.
Manos Vezos: There must be some kind of basic structure though.
Brooke Maggs: Absolutely. There is a basic main mission structure that you follow through the main story and then the side missions offer stories about characters, about the world and building on that. We also have audio logs and video and documents to pick up along the way. There's actually more to explore. We really encourage players to be curious about the world and about the Oldest House.
Manos Vezos: Kind of going for the first, maybe the original Bioshock's vibe. Where the world is new, we have to hunt for information, kind of try to understand...
Brooke Maggs: We didn't want to pose direct answers to things, like just spell everything out to players and that's definitely a philosophy that goes from the gameplay through to the story. That's not to say that we're purposefully confusing. But the New Weird genre is about answering a question with another question. Like, I have my answer but now I have so much more that I want to know and as opposed to fantasy which can be very, I guess, whimsical or very, very... It's hard to explain. I guess the New Weird is more grounded in reality, but you can't always see the things... answered, they're around in the world. So it was a challenge getting the genre of the story to articulate through the art style the way the story unfolds Jesse's curiosity about the world. So the reason we picked Jesse's story is because she's an outsider from the Bureau. She hasn't been to this place before. She's not unfamiliar with the strange.
Manos Vezos: And yet she's the director?
Brooke Maggs: Yes.
Manos Vezos: How did that work?
Brooke Maggs: Jesse Haden has a mysterious past but she lost her brother and she's trying to find him. She comes to the Oldest House looking for answers from the Federal Bureau of Control, the whole building has been taken over by the Hiss so when she's investigating, she finds the director dead and she picks up his weapon and the weapon choose her to be the director.
Manos Vezos: Oh.
Brooke Maggs: So she doesn't even understand what that means fully until... and that's what the story is about as well, like, understanding this role, trying to find her brother and getting control of the building.
Manos Vezos: OK. Does the weapon generally have a mind of each own? Because I've seen it change shapes and I hope I can control it. One thing about the side missions. Do they feed into the main story somehow, narratively speaking, or are they self-contained substories that just flesh out parts of the back story?
Brooke Maggs: They're relatively self-contained, so you could get the whole story, the whole main story and not do a side mission and still understand what's going on, but I highly recommend the players to look for those side missions as they have really great abilities in them, first of all, and also you meet other NPCs who can tell you more about the world but also might give you some good rewards for helping them out, which will be useful on the main path. So in that way it ties in to building the world, the characters and helping with gameplay.
Manos Vezos: I have a question (about things) from your side. Would you rather, theoretically speaking, have a chance to, let's say, "force" the player to experience all parts of the narrative? Not necessarily for Control but in general.
Brooke Maggs: I guess in general, no, I wouldn't want to force the player to have to do all of the narrative. I guess it really depends on the game. I think some games, in order to get a full appreciation of them, it's important to go through their story if they're a story-focused game, but, I mean, knowing just how I play, I like to get as much story as possible but I also know there are players who just sort of want the main points and then, you know, move through and maybe focus more on the gameplay or exploration and finding things. I think we all have a different purpose. In Control in particular, we put a lot of effort into world building, in the narrative items which you can find around the place, in audio logs and video. So I think, if players are interested, they do want to find those things that will be rewarded. They can also talk to characters, for the first time in a Remedy game, you can have conversations with them and ask them more about the world and about themselves, if you want to.
Manos Vezos: Their main function is to provide more information or do they do something other than that when you talk to them?
Brooke Maggs: They provide information, you know, about who they are, their role, the world and that also can help if you've put down the game and you want to pick it gain and remember where you where or brush up on some of the concepts, the NPCs can help you out with that. So Jesse is very much working with other people in the Bureau to stop the Hiss so... Yeah that's a good question. I don't think I would force players to do anything but I think curiosity about the story will make the experience richer.
Manos Vezos: We'll see about that in a few days.
Brooke Maggs: We will!
Manos Vezos: So. Thanks much for your time.
Brooke Maggs: Oh, thank you very much.
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