There’s no question that Control is one of the most eagerly anticipated games of the year. And many were surely blown away by the game’s first trailer, which was shown at last year’s E3 show in Los Angeles.
This game also marks the return of high profile developer Remedy Entertainment, makers of classics like Max Payne and other top games like Alan Wake and 2016’s Quantum Break. So those eager to get their hands on the game when it releases on August 27 must surely be wondering whether their PC is up to the challenge of running the game or not.
Thankfully, Control’s minimum requirements are pretty lenient, meaning you won’t need a top of the line PC to get the game running. Actually only an Intel i5-4690 or AMD FX 4350 processor paired with 8 GB of memory will be necessary to get the game going. This, plus a Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 or AMD Radeon R9 280X graphics card will fit the bill if you don’t have the need to play the game at maximum quality settings.
Those wanting better performance and prettier visuals will have to meet the game’s recommended system requirements. In this case you’ll need a beefier Intel Core i5-7600K or AMD Ryzen 5 1600X processor and 16 GB of memory, plus a mid-range Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 580 graphics card will be needed to see the game at its best.
But the truth is that Control can look even better if you’re endowed with one of Nvidia’s new ray tracing GPUs, even if these cards are still selling at a premium. However, Nvidia released a trailer (see below) showing how pretty the game can look if you’re one of the lucky few with a RTX card in your system.
Nvidia’s top of the line GeForce RTX 2080 will obviously do if you want to play at maximum quality (together with the other recommended requirements discussed above), while you can also enjoy ray traced graphics if you’re “only” equipped with the more modest GeForce RTX 2060 according to Nvidia. This is also Remedy’s recommended ray tracing card for Control.
Control also supports 21:9 aspect ratio monitors, meaning PC users with an ultrawide screen will be able to make the most of it, and has remappable controls (apparently this a feature these days), and an uncapped frame rate on PC.
Regarding the game itself, this takes place in a New York building which is home to a top secret agency. This being a Remedy game, you can imagine the game’s protagonist (a woman named Jesse Faden) will get to wield supernatural powers at some point. And she does, being able to levitate and manipulate the environment (by throwing objects at her enemies for instance) to get ahead in the game.
In the game, Jesse becomes the agency’s new Director who’s “struggling to regain Control”, and who “works with other Bureau agents and discovers strange experiments and secrets” according to the game’s Epic Store page.
This definitely sounds promising, and likely many players (me included) are looking forward to play this when it’s released this summer. Sadly, though, Control won’t be releasing on Steam on August 27 as it will be an Epic Games Store exclusive for 12 months. Remedy also has big content plans for the game, and the Finnish developer is planning to put out two expansions for the game, the first of which will be released in late 2019 or in early 2020.
System requirements
Minimum System Requirements
OS: Windows 7, 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i5-4690 / AMD FX 4350 or better
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 / AMD Radeon R9 280X or better
RAM: 8 GB
DirectX: DX11
Recommended System Requirements
OS: Windows 10, 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i5-7600K / AMD Ryzen 5 1600X or better
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660/1060 / AMD Radeon RX 580 or better (for ray tracing support: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060)
RAM: 16 GB
DirectX: DX11 / DX12
Note: Control will be released on August 27, 2019. Available on PS4, Xbox One and PC.