Firstly, if you’re on the fence about getting the latest DLC for Control, let me put that to bed: it’s worth it. But if you’re about to play it, or you’re working your way through, here’s a heads up.
It was all too easy to miss most of the best missions from the original Control. The Oldest House has a ton of nooks and crannies that you naturally can’t explore right away, and of the missions don’t automatically emerge until you’re in the right location.
That was the case for the excellent Self-Reflection side quest in the original game, where you fought a mirror version of yourself after discovering a mirror testing lab. And in Foundation, the first paid DLC released for Remedy’s adventure since it released in August last year, there’s three side quests available.
Two of those, “Pope’s Collection” and “Jesse Faden starring in ‘Swift Platform’”, are absolute bangers. If it wasn’t for the final boss fight – they would be the best missions in the game, hands down.
You can complete both missions before or after finishing the main storyline, but chances are you’ll run into – or across – both of them on the course of Jesse’s journey. “Pope’s Collection” triggers as soon as you find one of five ID cards around the Foundation, and you can find all of the cards around the Warehouse area.
“Pope’s Collection” is the longer of the two missions, since you’ll need to find all cards before returning to the elevator in the Warehouse, where you’ll be given a small puzzle. After entering the room that opens afterwards, you’ll be thrust into a boss fight against Processes Designer Gibbs. It’s a ground level fight, so there’s not much room to move aerially, but there’s the original elevator for cover and various pillars and rooms to run around in.
The other mission that you shouldn’t miss – but is very easy to do so – is “Jesse Faden starring in ‘Swift Platform’”.
When you hit the Collapsed Department, you’ll find a sign leading you towards ‘Transit Access’. After going down the elevator, you’ll discover a cart on a single train track with a film camera. The camera’s an altered item, so as soon as you approach, it takes off, sparking a high-speed rail chase.
The chase narrows your field of view to a letterboxed cinematic view, while some ’80s synth plays in the background. It’s something best seen or experienced, so you can enjoy the full mission for yourself below.
If you wanted to listen to the song separately – because Control doesn’t let you play songs along with gameplay – you can view that below.
The two missions combined are so good it makes me wonder why Remedy didn’t just make them mandatory. But that’s part of the fun of Control too: the game has so much to explore, and so many secrets to find, and those secrets are all the juicier when you wander off the beaten path. I’d hesitate to say that either of these missions are the best Control has to offer: the esseJ fight is a neat puzzle and boss fight in one, and the Ashtray Maze is just light years ahead in level design.
But the Foundation DLC is well worth a play nonetheless. It helps that the final boss fight is tons of fun. It still doesn’t answer what the hell happened to Ahti, but hopefully Remedy will delve into that mystery down the track.
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