Control’s AWE expansion and Ultimate Edition hit this month

The Ultimate Edition of Remedy’s Control is on the way, and it’s bringing the Alan Wake-connected AWE expansion with it. Oh, and Steam availability too.

Taking Control

One of the most celebrated games of 2019, Control is a supernatural action affair. Putting players in the shoes of Jesse Faden, the head of the mysterious Bureau of Control, the game sends players on a mind-bending trip through a convergence of realities called The Oldest House.

Coincidentally, one of those realities that are converging appears to house one Alan Wake. You remember him of course, from the cult classic game of the same name. And that’s more or less the focus of AWE, the second expansion for Control.

Remedy showed off the first 15 minutes of the pack recently in a Twitch stream, which you can check out here. The stream stars the face of Max Payne himself, Creative Director Sam Lake, as well as Game Director Mikael Kasurinen. In it, you’ll get a look at some of the new areas, weapons, enemies, and hints about the “Remedy Connected Universe”. Yes, that’s a thing now.

Here’s the recap of the above:

• The stream showed roughly the first 15 minutes of the expansion that takes place in the new Investigations sector that includes many AWE cases that bureau has investigated. We didn’t actually get to the Investigations area in the stream…
• Part of the expansion deals with what happened to Alan Wake in the town of Bright Falls. Control is part of the “Remedy Connected Universe”
• The gameplay in this expansion revolves around chasing an creature that’s been stalking the Investigations sector for years. Using light to fight the creature and unlocking different areas of the sector is big part of the gameplay of the expansion
• The new Surge weapon form was shown which is basically a sticky grenade launcher. Its shoots up to three explosives.
• The new enemy type is called The Hiss Airborne Rangers which can levitate, dodge your attacks, and they use a powerful shotgun blast to fight Jesse.
• At the end of the stream Remedy showed off the ability to replay key boss fights and the Ashtray Maze mission through an arcade machineThe Arcade Plane can be accessed through two arcade machines, Altered Items found in the AWE expansion. You’ll need to complete a side mission to access the Arcade Plane, and after that, you’ll be able to interact with the arcade machines any time. One of the machines includes a time trial mode (Deadline) and a horde mode (Crowd Control). The other machine lets you repeat boss fights you’ve already beaten in the main game, which you can fight individually or in a boss rush sequence. You can also replay the Ashtray Maze on this machine, as long as you have already completed the Maze in the main campaign.
• You can unlock the new outfit for Jesse by playing through the Arcade Plane modes, by completing either the time trial (Deadline) or horde mode (Crowd Control) on high difficulty. High difficulty unlocks after you’ve completed a mode once.
• When AWE and Ultimate Edition launch on the 27^th of August, this will accompanied by a free August update for all owners of ControlAlong with various bug fixes and improvements, some of the highlights of the August update are the Assist Mode, the Multi-Launch upgrade for the Launch ability, and additional checkpoints for some of the trickier combat encounters towards the end of the main story campaign. We have also added Control Points closer to the boss fights with Mold-1, the Anchor and esseJ.
• Remedy also revealed that its working on an Control art book with Futurepress. The book is nearly done and should be out before the holidays and should land around 400 pages. You can find out more at www.futurepress.com

Launching this month

The pack hits Steam on August 27th, which is also the same day the Control Ultimate Edition arrives. Coming to Xbox One, PS4, and the Epic Games Store on September 10th, the UE also marks the game’s debut on Valve’s Steam. Previously, it was an Epic Games Store exclusive.

Aside from everything that’s available for Control, all bundled in one box, The Ultimate Edition also includes an upgrade. Like a few other games coming out over the next few months, Control Ultimate Edition will feature a free upgrade for the Xbox Series X and PS5.