Ahead of Remedy Entertainment's new game Control Resonant, the story of the first Control game has been summarized. The journey from Jesse Faden's childhood in the town of Ordinary to becoming FBC Director, the Hiss invasion, and what she experienced with her brother Dylan are recounted in chronological order.
As the release of Remedy Entertainment's new game Control Resonant approaches, a comprehensive recap has been prepared for players who are not familiar with the story of the Control series. A long time has passed since Jesse Faden's first visit to the Oldest House, and since Control's initial release, its universe full of paranormal threats and mysterious entities has continued to expand steadily.
Unusual Beginnings
The first game, set in 2019, begins with Jesse Faden's arrival at the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), a government agency that oversees paranormal events. Jesse comes from the fictional town of Ordinary, which was the site of a supernatural event in 2002; the FBC refers to such events as an "Altered World Event" (AWE).
When Jesse, her brother Dylan, and their friends were children, they found an old slide projector in the town's landfill. This projector, which the FBC classifies as an "Object of Power," functioned as a door to other dimensions when different slides were inserted. One of the slides contained a benevolent entity that communicated with Jesse and Dylan. This entity, which Jesse described as "like a star" and named Polaris, would remain telepathically connected to her for the rest of her life.
After the incident in Ordinary, the FBC came to the town to seize the slide projector. The event had caused the adult population of the town to disappear and some of the children who found the Object of Power to undergo physical changes. The Faden siblings' interaction with Polaris had turned them into "parautilitarians," people with supernatural abilities.
Since being a parautilitarian is a prerequisite for becoming FBC Director, the Bureau took great interest in such people. The Bureau tried to detain the Faden siblings but was only able to capture Dylan; Jesse managed to escape. Before escaping, Jesse had ended the event with Polaris's help, learned how to shut down the projector, and burned most of the slides to prevent further disasters. Only the slide connecting her to Polaris remained in her possession.
Welcome to the Federal Bureau of Control
Jesse spent the rest of her life searching for her brother. However, when Polaris called out to her and showed her the FBC's headquarters in Manhattan, she was able to learn where Dylan was being held. The Bureau headquarters, known as the Oldest House, is also an Object of Power; however, because it is a place, it is called a "Place of Power," and the walls and corridors inside it are constantly changing.
When Jesse arrived, the Oldest House was on lockdown because the structure had been invaded by a paranormal resonance called the Hiss. The Hiss is a mind collective that infected and altered most of the FBC personnel. Only a few people who were able to obtain a technological harness called an HRA (Hedron Resonance Amplifier), which protects its wearer from Hiss infection, were unaffected. Jesse did not have her own HRA; however, her connection to Polaris kept the Hiss resonance away.
In her first moments in the Oldest House, Jesse found Bureau Director Zachariah Trench dead in his office; Trench had shot himself with an unusual-looking weapon called the Service Weapon. When Jesse picked up the weapon, she was transported to the Astral Plane, an interdimensional reality. There, the Board, another supernatural entity that oversees the FBC's management, was present. Because Jesse was a parautilitarian, she could use the Service Weapon and connect with the Board, which deemed her worthy to become the FBC's new Director as Trench's successor.
In the Oldest House, Jesse met several surviving FBC employees, including researcher Emily Pope and the Bureau's Head of Security, Simon Arish. The remaining FBC agents promised to give Jesse information about her brother in exchange for her help in fighting the Hiss. Jesse eventually learned that Dylan, while being trained as a possible next Bureau Director, could not control his powers, killed some FBC agents, and was locked up in the Panopticon, where the most dangerous Objects of Power are kept within the Oldest House.
Finally, a Reunion
When Jesse finally communicated with her brother, she discovered that Dylan had been infected by the Hiss but remained relatively conscious; it was as if he had integrated with the mind collective's resonance rather than being completely taken over by it. This was largely due to his innate power as a parautilitarian; however, it may also have been partly because he had embraced the Hiss, as he harbored great resentment toward the Bureau for abducting and mistreating him. Dylan explained to his sister that the Hiss had entered the Oldest House through the slide projector they had found as children.
While exploring the Oldest House, Jesse also learned a great deal about the FBC's experiments with the slide projector. Trench and the Bureau's Head of Research, Casper Darling, had conducted expeditions to the only slide that survived the Ordinary incident, the one connecting Jesse to Polaris. The FBC discovered the entity and brought it into our world, and Darling named it Hedron because of its shape. However, while exploring Hedron's plane of reality, the Hiss made contact with Trench and slowly infected his mind.
A Hiss Matter
The Hiss originally came from one of the slides Jesse burned; however, a part of it had seeped into Hedron's world and wanted to use Trench to free its own reality from its seal. Apparently, the Hiss is an entity that wants to spread as much as possible across the multiverse, and its ultimate goal may be to access the Astral Plane and infect the Board as well. While Trench succumbed to the Hiss, Darling had begun communicating with Hedron. Through Hedron, Darling learned of Trench's infection and how to make HRAs that could draw on Hedron's protective resonance.
After Trench fully surrendered to the Hiss, he inserted the burned slide connected to the Hiss's home world into the projector and activated it, allowing the Hiss to invade the Oldest House. Before that, Darling had most likely disappeared by entering Hedron's slide, leaving behind as many HRAs as he could before the infectious entity arrived.
In the present day, Jesse is able to find Hedron within the Oldest House; but not before it is invaded and destroyed by FBC agents transformed by the Hiss. Since Hedron can no longer protect Jesse or unaffected Bureau employees through their HRAs, the Hiss begins to corrupt them. However, the piece of Hedron living inside Jesse, Polaris, is still alive, and Jesse can use it not only to purge herself of the Hiss but also to become a new power source that the HRAs can draw on, saving the remaining FBC agents.
Jesse reaches the slide projector and finds Dylan waiting there; the Hiss resonance is trying to use him to cross into the Astral Plane. Jesse manages to shut down the slide projector and purge her brother of the Hiss's influence; however, this leaves Dylan in a coma. Even though the projector has been shut down, the remaining Hiss is deeply entrenched in the Oldest House. Jesse accepts the role of Director and begins leading the FBC's effort to rid itself of the parasitic resonance, unaware that the Oldest House will remain sealed for years.
