Control Is Getting Some Cool New Abilities

Grow my little rock friends, grow!

Control is full of fun paranormal powers you can use to manipulate its world. The Foundation downloadable expansion coming to PS4 and PC on March 26 adds a few more. One of them is called Shape and it lets you sprout giant barnacles to create platforms you can hop on to reach new areas.

It’s both a key to exploring the DLC’s new underground location and makes for a deadly tool that can be used to spring traps on unsuspecting Hiss. I only wish it wasn’t bound to the same key as the Launch ability so I could dual-wield both telekinetic abilities at the same time.

The new power is one possible new upgrade. Another lets you demolish certain rock formations blocking your path. The game makes you choose between them and in my opinion you hit’s gotta be the barnacle miracle growth.

Control is also getting a free update on Thursday on all platforms that adds a new shield dash ability even for people who don’t buy the DLC (including those on Xbox One who won’t get it until June 25).Instead of just summoning a wall of rocks for protection, you can also use that wall to ram into your foes. If you’re really quick you can even combine it with levitation to smash into airborne enemies as well.

The free update also finally brings some much needed quality-of-life improvements to the game. Chief among them is a clearer map that does a better job of distinguishing floors and highlighting the one you’re on. It significantly cuts down on the amount of time you spend getting lost while backtracking. The update also adds an option for spending the Essence resource on re-specing parts of your upgrade tree to make it easier to customise a build around the powers you actually use a lot.

Perhaps most important of all, though, the update adds a zoom option for reading through all the secret documents you’ve collected, because no modern gaming patch is complete without buffs to text size. If you’ve been putting off diving down Control’s lore rabbit hole, it’s about to get a lot easier. I’d still prefer an in-game magnifying glass, but I’ll take what I can get.