HOLY S#!+: Control 2 is really happening.

The first Control was a brilliant piece of gaming legend. It was beautiful, had incredible gameplay mechanics, and the story and delivery was absolutely top-notch. Control is - by far - one of my top 3 games of all time.

So, when we heard that they were in the early “we’re thinking about thinking about how we’ll make Control 2”, I was understandably about to wet myself with excitement.

Now we have some good news in the form of them having solidified the concept enough to be ready to start development in earnest.

Of course, that’s not the only bit of good news related to Control 2: As it turns out, they worked out the planning for Control 2’s development by building a proof-of-concept that was playable enough for an internal playtest to see what folks thought about it. This is according to the latest Investor’s Report.

The fact that they invested time in building what is essentially an MVP (Minimum Viable Product in developer parlance) as part of the planning phase is a good sign of the commitment to creating Control 2.

Unfortunately, we’ll mostly likely have years still to wait before we get any sort of hint of a release date. Games like Control didn’t happen overnight, and I would be exceptionally leary if they took the Call of Duty strategy of releasing sequels every year or two, cranking out half-polished turds with little to no innovation just to act as a continuous cash-grab (made even worse with microtransactions, the Taco-Bell-Fueled-Excessive-Diarrhea of the gaming industry).

Remedy, thankfully, has a bit more class than that.

One of the reasons I loved Control so much was because in a later update it provided great accessibility options in the form of granular difficulty controls; On days where I had severely limited mobility, I could turn down things like the damage I received to be able to keep playing or get through a boss fight that was just outside my available reflexes.

Also in the investors report was word on the multiplayer Control game, and the remakes of Max Payne 1 & 2.

I never played Max Payne 2, but 1 was another spectacular game with wonderful noir storytelling and immersive gameplay (it was the first - as far as I can recall - game that had bullet time mechanics a la The Matrix).

Too bad the movie was a steaming pile of shit; I still regret wasting my $7 seeing that one in theaters, and walked out 15 minutes before it ended.