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Remedy’s Brooke Maggs breaks down the brilliant storytelling of Control
Known as one of the best storytellers in gaming, we speak to Remedy Entertainment’s Brooke Maggs, narrative designer on their latest hit, Control.
'Fair warning: this is gonna be weirder than usual'. This is the opening line from Remedy Entertainment’s newest title, Control. Having made waves in 2001 with third-person shooter Max Payne, before moving onto the thriller genre for 2010’s Xbox exclusive titles Alan Wake and 2016’s Quantum Break, Remedy are now multi-platform and Control has been released to critical acclaim, with theories rising as to what's going on in this weird and wonderful game.
Brooke Maggs, narrative designer on Control, has had an interesting career already. An Australian, who moved to Finland, her career includes work on the likes of the award winning titles Florence and The Gardens Between. In her own words, she was “lucky to get a Women in Games grant from Victoria and that gave me some money to advance my career in any way I deemed possible”. She proposed to go overseas to see how narrative is done in larger studios, spending time at Remedy and Double Fine and then being offered a job by the former. Logistics be damned, she had to fly home to finish the grant money, take some time off, then pack up and move to Finland to work on Control.
Remedy are known for delivering exciting games that include deep, often very strange, stories and that opening line rings very true for Control. This is a game that bends walls in front of your very eyes, with narrative hooks relating to paranatural powers and beings from beyond our realm. You're put in charge of the Federal Bureau of Control, despite it being your first day on the job. Control also has a cold opening, giving you gameplay first and the lightest of stories to set the premise.
“I know that the start of the game is so important”, Maggs explains. “And I think for a long time we were struggling with how to set the tone. How do you do a new weird game, first of all?” It seems the team were very clear about the strategic nature of that opening, though: “First of all we had to set up the bureau-ness; the government-nature of what this organisation does and who are they? The first thing you see is the seal on the floor, then you see that big odd thing on the wall, then you see security and things about not bringing smart objects into the building.”
Maggs continues: “And there's some interesting things in those offices as you go towards former Director Trench's office”, Maggs says, and she’s not wrong. Control is littered with collectibles that flesh out the story and while not the first game to do this, Remedy often do it best. Is the placement of these documents intentional? “A lot of that is very carefully thought out”, explains Maggs, “and then the game starts to open up after the first few missions.”
Control’s Jesse Faden is a complex character
© Remedy Entertainment
Mixing story and gameplay
So much is going on at any given moment in a game these days. Story is important and it’s got to impact the player, but there’s also gameplay to consider. Maggs explains, “I remember having discussions with the gameplay team about the Astral Plane sequences and how to make them feel a part of the story, but also be acting as clear tutorials for the player, so they don't feel as though they've just been given a power and they don't know how to use it.”
The game’s focal point is Jesse Faden, played by Courtney Hope (who was also in Quantum Break), and it’s very much her story. “She's had a lot of stuff happen to her in her past that we can't say up front”, Maggs explains, “but she's shown as a closed-down person in a way, or comes off as cold. That literary technique of her talking to herself is a way into her head and a way to bring the player a bit closer to her initially.” Jesse, too, is in the dark, uncovering the mysteries at the same time as the player. Maggs adds, “Although perhaps you realise she's a little bit more in the know, but not to the extent anyone else in the bureau is and that's written in the script.”
Egging the player on
Remedy have a history of Easter Eggs. In Quantum Break you’ll find multiple reference to Alan Wake and sometimes it’s seen as a bit of a tease. The fate of the Alan Wake franchise may be back within Remedy’s hands after successfully gaining back the publishing rights, but where previous games have suggested links, Control removes some of the speculation. Is this all set in the same universe? Is Control the source for Remedy’s universe? “Well…” Maggs starts, “I can’t say too much. One of the things that we love to do is provide a bit of fan service, I suppose and include the easter eggs for the extra curious people who have played many Remedy games throughout the years”.
“I think Control very much stands in its own world and I think that really shows”, Maggs says. Indeed, this is a game that many have lauded as Remedy’s best game to date, but it’s unlikely to stop fans asking for more Alan Wake, as every new game has been something different. “It's challenging to do a new genre each time, but I think that was a discussion we had, too”, Maggs explains. “How do we make Control feel like its own thing? Especially because there's so much love for Max Paine, for Alan Wake: it's wonderful that people love these games. but we want to move forward as a studio as well.
Control blends FMV into the game engine with ease
© Remedy Entertainment
Collect yourself
Remedy’s last game (Quantum Break) had a full on TV series made for it and FMV is always present in their games. Videos from characters in the game will be playing as you walk into an office and that means you’re playing a game in-engine, but real actors are on screen as well. Narratively this must be a nightmare? “We wanted to do FMV again this time”, Maggs reveals, “but we didn’t want it to necessarily be a part of the storytelling. Quantum Break was a part of the story that was going on elsewhere, so you sat and watched the TV show, whereas the live action in Control is actually a large way to introduce a character, but it's also in-world video. Doctor Darling has created these videos for the benefit of educating them on all these different phenomena, so they've got an oddly propaganda, science video feel to them.”
If you’ve played and enjoyed Control, you’ve probably also picked up on the fact that unlike other titles, you actually read the collectible notes instead of skipping them over. This might be a risk, because you could miss them, so it puts a lot of faith in the player. “I think it’s a bit risky, but it was also a clear guideline for Control: giving the player more control”, Maggs says. “So we didn’t want to do heaps of exposition in the main story, so you have the opportunity to talk to characters and ask them more about things that happen in the world, or about themselves.”
She continues, “Likewise with the optional content – the narrative items. We actually sat as a team with a massive spreadsheet of all the possible topics we could cover and make decisions about what we wanted to say that wasn't said in the main or side-missions about what goes on in the bureau.”
Redacted
A lot of the files you find in the inner workings of the Federal Bureau of Control contain redacted text, and we wondered if un-redacted versions of those exist. “I think so”, Maggs teases, “but I think they were written with the redacted technique in mind, to play on the humour, I guess.”
Speaking of redacted things, there’s a section of the game that's one of the most bonkers we’ve seen in a game for a long time – one that matches music to gameplay and almost shouldn’t work. We won’t spoil it, but if you’ve played it, you know what we’re talking about. There must be moments at the studio where people look at these and ask each other if they’re sure about it. “It goes back to ‘this is going to be weirder than usual’, doesn’t it?”, Maggs asks. “But that goes down to our amazing visual FX team we have who do a lot of work on the building shifts, for example”.
Control’s world bends and shifts as you explore
© Remedy Entertainment
Favourites and futures
There are so many moments that stand out, but we wondered what Maggs’s favourite was. It turns out she likes the hotel scenes: “The hotel was a good place to put some dream logic into it. Thinking a little laterally to solve the puzzles. We had to make sure that players understood that they'd solved a puzzle. I think innovation can happen in games when you have a problem that you need to solve, so for example, those motel sequences are a handy way to get a player from one place to another, but why be boring about doing it? Why not do it in a new, completely weird fashion?”
There’s a device in Control whereby you’re spoken to by a disembodied voice. It sounds as though the developers themselves are talking directly to you. This voice often feels as though it’s telling you what’s coming next and there are plans for more Control, says Maggs, with the team focusing on the next two expansions.
But what about beyond Control? “The director’s work is never done, so there are more opportunities to explore in the next two expansions,'' teases Maggs.
Control is available now on PC, Xbox One, and PS4.
