The Federal Bureau of Control in Remedy’s Control is a government agency dedicated to the study and containment of ‘Objects of Power’ and ‘Altered World Events’ — paranormal phenomena that do not conform to consensus reality. Its headquarters, the Oldest House, is a Brutalist skyscraper in New York that is larger on the inside than the outside and contains dimensions that should not fit inside any building.
The Bureau’s founding charter is available through environmental documents scattered throughout the building. It was established in the early 20th century after the first documented Altered World Event — the Ordinary AWE in Ordinary, Wisconsin. The charter’s stated purpose is understanding. The actual institutional behaviour by the game’s present is pure containment — understanding was lost generations ago, replaced by management.
Jesse Faden’s background — she witnessed the Ordinary AWE as a child and the Bureau abducted her brother Dylan to study him — is the game’s central critique of the institution: the Bureau processes human beings as Objects of Power without ever asking whether they want to be processed. Dylan Faden was studied in a cell for years. Jesse is made Director of the organisation that abducted her sibling and must decide what to do with that authority.
The Ashtray Maze — a Panopticon section navigated to a Poets of the Fall song — is the game’s most discussed set piece. It is also entirely optional if you do not retrieve the Ashtray. The best level in Control requires the player to choose to enter it.
The attention to detail the developers put into this is insane. Most players will never see it but it makes the world feel so much richer.
This is the kind of discovery that keeps communities alive for years. Well documented.