2019-05-01+Official+PlayStation+Magazine+-+UK+Edition

053

withease.It’sjustaswellJesseis so

well-equippedbecause,likewesaid

before,hersituationcanandwillget

worse...butwe’llcomebacktothat.

déjÀvu

Whenwefirstcomeinfromthesnow,

wewarmupwitha cupofcoffeeand

a lookbackatthegame’soriginal

pitch.A lothaschangedsincethen,

butcreativedirectorMikaelKasurinen

walksusthroughthekeyideasthat

werecoretotheinitialdevelopment

ofthegame’sworld.Thefirstofthese

wasphysicality.

Kasurinenexplains,“It’simportant

tomeandtousthatoncewekindof

starttodemonstratethese

supernaturalabilitiesbeingusedin

control

explosivescomingyour
way?return them to
sender – along with
anything else you fancy.

it keeps track of how many rooms you

enter and how long it’s been since you

faced a new load of enemies.

Mohov explains, “This accounts for

two situations in the game: the timer

is mostly for a player that stays in the

same combat arena or same room in

general, and [just reads], you know,

like [...] emails [...] and another one is

when they’re just running through and

in both of those [situations] players

will get a similar overall experience of

combat intensity in the game.”

house of horror

Larger encounters, once defeated,

grant a longer ‘cooldown’ period before

spawning a new wave. While you

can also run away from encounters,

this only incurs a reduced cooldown

period. The Encounter system does

not present adaptive difficulty so

much as properly pace proceedings.

For a sandbox experience, this is key.

That said, backtracking won’t be an

uphill struggle as there are various

fast travel points. Cleansing these at

the so-called ‘control points’ offers

you more paths throughout the Oldest

House and a sense of progression even

when you can’t entirely wipe the Hiss’

presence from the building.

Mohov elaborates, “We want this

game to feel like you’re constantly in

danger and anything can happen at

any point, but at the same time we

don’t want you to feel overwhelmed

• we don’t want you to feel like
  you’re doing work. Combat should be
  fun and [Control] should be this
  sandbox that you can play around and

you can do whatever you want with

your abilities.”

In light of this enemy encounter

system, the new preternatural power

on show that piques our interest the

most is the Seize ability. As you

whittle down the Hiss’ health, you can

compel them to fight in your favour

by holding r. A new enemy type, a

red orb called a Hiss Cluster, heals

anything attacking you and can drag

out fights if not dealt with quickly. It’s

really annoying. However with Seize

you can exploit its healing properties

for your own benefit.

While the build we play boasts

abilities you won’t have from the start,

we get to grips with switching

between gunplay and the mind games

“we want this to feel like

you’re constantly in danger

and anything can happen.”

locKeD AnD loADeD

creativedirectormikael Kasurinen reveals

howJesse’sunusualfirearmtookshape

O

pm:howdidyou

developtheideaof

theshapeshifting

gun,thedirector’s

serviceWeapon?

mikaelKasurinen:there’s

anaspecttoit whichis

kindofa mundane

reasoning.I initiallydidn’t

liketheideathatthe

directorofthisBureau

wouldbea personwho

wouldgo

throughthis

worldand

collectthis

arsenalof

weapons[...]

thatjustdidn’t

workforme.

I wantedto

findsomething

thatis more

likea powerful

weaponbut

alsoatthe

sametime,willbea partof

thatcharacter’sidentity,

notjustpersonally,but

alsolike,whatthey

represent.Beingthe

directoroftheBureau,

theyshouldbea symbol

forit,butatthesame

time,it shouldreflectcore

elementsofwhothat

personis aswell.And

that’showtheideaforthis

weaponwasborn.

that it is this kind of,

let’s say, a prototype idea

of a weapon and of course,

there are similar ideas in

pop culture, like the

lightsaber [...] or you know,

magic wands [...] like it is a

familiar idea. But I wanted

to kind of bring it a bit

further with the idea of a

shape-shifting nature and

a kindofeternalideafor

thisweapon.

[...]the shape shifting

nature to me is

interesting,

because it kind

of makes you

thinklike,‘What

didit looklike?

let’s say this

thing existed

500 years ago

• was it a
  sword?’ and so
  on. And the
  names that
  they use for
  these different forms also
  indicate the idea that they
  are kind of eternal ideas
  like Pierce [the shotgun
  formoftheService
  Weapon],or[...]every
  weaponhasagrip
  [another more standard
  firing mode for the Service
  Weapon] and so on. So all
  of these things are
  connected. It’s an
  expression of, you know,
  Jesse’s power and her
  being the director.