Remedy’s Control demake for April Fools’ is rad

It would’ve been the sickest demo on the disc

Today is April 1, also known as April Fools’ Day. Some companies make fake game announcements, others make real ones, and every piece of information is treated with incredible scrutiny.

The fake game announcement has been a classic in the games industry, and today, Remedy Entertainment joined in the fun by posting a trailer for a theoretical PlayStation demake of its 2019 game Control. These are fairly common, but Control is a really interesting game to choose—with lots of unique physics concepts to get around, and a style that’s still fairly recognizable, even at the low poly-count.

I’d definitely play this version of Control for at least a little while; PlayStation aesthetic nostalgia aside, it’s really neat to see the spaces of Control reimagined in this old look. Even without the ray tracing, the brutalist architecture of the Oldest House is imposing, and the idea of Jesse’s supernatural powers like telekinetic tossing and flight in an older engine is pretty novel.

That’s actually maybe the most bizarre part of this, is noticing some of the modern gameplay conventions that have evolved after the PlayStation’s lifespan, demade into this era’s visual space. The camera zooming in when the player aims down the sights, for example, or even just how the twin-stick aiming feels so different from other third-person shooters at the time. Watching this side-by-side with Syphon Filter or WinBack is wild.

Anyways, it’s a nice, fun, not-mean April Fools’ Day video. Remedy, if you’re not too busy working on some other projects, I’d definitely play this version of Control.