The story of Remedy’s Control is one of the aspects that fans and critics alike are enjoying the most. For good reason, The Oldest House AKA the Federal Bureau of Control building is an interesting setting and Jesse’s story is certainly bizarre. If you’re here you’re probably looking for a story summary of Control to help make sense of what’s going on.
Super Spoiler Warning: In this story summary we’re going to run through the plot of Control. This guide is designed for people who are playing through the game and are looking for something to help fill in the blanks. We highly recommend turning away if you plan on playing Control at some point so you can experience it yourself.
The Story of Control & Jesse Faden
Welcome to the Oldest House
Jesse Faden is a woman from a small town called Ordinary. Long ago when she and her brother Dylan were children, Dylan was abducted by a fictional U.S. agency known as the Federal Bureau of Control which is responsible for finding, containing, and researching mysterious and otherworldly objects around the country.
Long story short (which we’ll pad out as a go through this story summary), some crazy unexplained phenomena went down at Ordinary which led to the government swooping in, abducting Dylan, and basically shutting down the entire town.
Ever since then, Jesse has had this guiding force, which she calls Polaris, in her head that has kept her connected in a way with Dylan whom she has been trying to find ever since his disappearance.
After years of searching, Jesse finally believes that Polaris has led her to Dylan and she locates the Federal Bureau of Control’s headquarters in New York.
The FBC building is not a normal building, though. In fact, it itself is one of these strange otherworldly things. It’s known as the Oldest House, and it is where the FBC sets up shop since it conveniently is concealed to anyone that doesn’t know how to find it.
Anyway, under the guidance of Polaris Jesse arrives at the FBC and realizes that the place is on lockdown as some kind of emergency is going.
An extremely strange janitor by the name of Ahti, helps Jesse get around the building and leads her to the director’s office to get the answers she’s looking for.
Zachariah Trench (Trench) was the director of the FBC… but when Jesse arrives she finds him shot dead by what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot.
After touching his strange-looking pistol, she is transported to a different plane of existence, known as the Astral Plane, where a strange interdimensional presence known as “The Board” reside.
They bind the pistol to Jesse, which is actually an Object of Power: a special item that while they appear mundane, are actually otherworldly objects that the FBC is obsessed with studying.
As a result Jesse, somewhat against her desires, is selected as the new director of the FBC. The title means nothing to her and she’s solely focused on getting answers about Dylan and what happened at Ordinary.
The new job does, however, give her an inherent level of respect and authority over the remaining employees at the FBC who are willing to help Jesse, provided she can help stop the chaos that is going on within the FBC building.
Jesse finds a woman by the name of Emily Pope, an FBC researcher, who explains to Jesse that the building is under attack from an evil unexplainable force that from that point on is known as the Hiss.
The Hiss burrow into the mind of unprotected people and turn them into thralls, some of which are aggressive.
Some people around the building received a device called a Hedron Resonance Amplifier (HRA) just in time from the head researcher known as Dr. Darling. Darling appears to have had a heads up that something was going down and was able to produce a limited quantity of HRAs to save some critical members of the FBC staff just in time.
Jesse agrees to help figure out how to stop the Hiss as it could lead to answers about Dylan.
