Games To Play If You Like Control's Paranormal Mystery
Control is a third X-Files, a third Max Payne, and a third David Lynch - that makes it hard to replicate, but there are some similar games out there.
Remedy's Control was a seminal hit, managing to blend the studio's signature third-person action with paranormal touch points like SCP, The X-Files, and Twin Peaks. Trying to find high-quality games of the same ilk can be a little difficult, but there are some good options out there for fans of paranormal mystery.
For the sake of this feature, story and atmosphere are more important than genre. It's also taken for granted that people should check out Remedy's Alan Wake, which is so similar in tone (and sometimes theme) that Remedy added deliberate connections in Control's AWE DLC.
The games chosen below are also more recent, making them easier to find and play on modern hardware. The list also doesn't include some excellent free options players might find interesting, such as SCP - Containment Breach and other SCP titles.
Nearly 10 years in the making, Kentucky Route Zero probably owes the most to Twin Peaks and the rest of David Lynch's filmography. Players assume the role of a truck driver, Conway, who travels Route Zero in an attempt to make an antiques delivery. While nominally an adventure game, it's really all about story and mood - dark and mysterious with a touch of Americana. Dialogue choices mostly affect the flavor of the story, not its outcome. In one standout moment, players can even choose the lyrics of a torch song as a character sings it on stage - a deliberate echo of Lynch efforts like Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive.
As if that weren't enough, it throws in a unique art style, a fantastic soundtrack, and ample amounts of cultural criticism. It's best experienced on PC with a mouse, but it's still well worth playing in its "TV Edition" for Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch, which compiles all five acts as well as their interludes.
Playdead's Inside is best played blind, as much of the fun comes from its surprises. Players aren't explicitly told what's going on, and its sometimes shocking revelations can make players rethink what they've come to believe. As with Playdead's first release, Limbo, the game is rendered in 3D but controlled as a side-scroller with physics-based puzzles.
What little players do know at the start is that they're a boy being chased by an unknown group of people for unknown reasons, and if they catch him, he's dead. Mind control powers come into play, and a vast industrial complex. While avoiding spoilers, it can be said that the game feels like an SCP report, or (thematically) one of Control's more elaborate side missions.
Phobia's action game nearly didn't make this list, but Carrion's parallels with Control are hard to avoid - a mysterious entity, a secret containment facility, and scientists doing their best to keep things locked down. Yet players are the entity here, a creature similar to John Carpenter's version of The Thing. It's an especially violent monster, shooting out tendrils that grab scientists and soldiers to fling them to their death.
While Carrion is mostly a Metroidvania game with a twist, what makes it worthwhile for Control fans is its wish fulfillment. Gamers rarely get to control the monster, much less one with touches of cosmic horror that makes no attempts at moral redemption. The creature's only goals are to feed, grow, and escape.
Lighter in tone, Oxenfree follows a teenage girl named Alex as she joins friends on an island trip. The group accidentally sets a paranormal force loose on the island, and it's up to Alex to figure out what's going on and help everyone escape intact. While the game isn't about winning or losing, there are most definitely plot-altering choices to be made, including via dialogue. Puzzles are solved mostly through conversation and Alex's handheld radio.
Control lovers should generally enjoy Oxenfree's story, which dabbles in both ghosts and parallel dimensions while evoking coming-of-age stories like Stand By Me and Freaks and Geeks. It's also unusually colorful for its subject matter, and has a soundtrack by electronic musician Andrew Rohrmann, better known as "scntfc". It may be one of the best games on this list to start with, not least because it's inexpensive and available on every major game platform, including smartphones and tablets.