So I can't believe I haven't talked about this yet, but dammit I love Control a lot. Honestly, I love Remedy Entertainment a lot. Never has a company done so much in an attempt to mix movie-type storytelling into their games (looking at you, Quantum Break TV episodes) and done so amazingly well. I've played almost every game by them (I'm only missing Max Payne, which, came out way too early in my life in my defense) and have enjoyed all of them. And Control is right up there at the top of my list. Everything about the title is phenomenal. From it's characters to powers to it's super crazy AF story that goes into some crazy directions. There's only a few annoying ticks I have with the title, and one of them is the game's intense difficulty.
We know I'm not a fan of ultra tough games. That's why I see the fact I beat Control as a huge accomplishments. Yes there was many times I got extremely frustrated and just-done with the game. But the need to see what happens next was so important to me, that I pushed on. When I beat it, I honestly had no reason to come back to it due to the combat. But, then Remedy did the one thing that had me racing back, like a cookie on a string. They announced a connected 'Remedy-Verse', a DLC that brought in another character from their past, Alan Wake, and an assist mode for the game.
Talk about right up my alley.
So I booted up Control as the DLC and the assist options went live, eager to start up and learn about a character I haven't seen in ages (did I mention I really loved Alan Wake? I really do) and I instantly went into the options to find the assist options. When I did, I got a glimpse of them. Immortality, the ability to change the percentage of damage taken, reloading, the energy gain...it was immense and amazing. But when I scrolled over to turn them on, a message caught my eye.
Oh. Oh, that's not good at all.
Yeah, let's discuss this. For one, I can get designing your game to be challenging and rewarding. I, for one, felt incredibly rewarded after I beat it, knowing I fought through the difficulty and frustration to reach that satisfying ending. But, key word was I fought the difficulty. To be frank, I hate difficult games, not difficulty options. When you pick the 'casual' option, and the game is still extremely difficult? Then we have issues.
Well, let's infer that's the reason the developers put in assist options a year after the game released. why weren't they put in at launch? Was it hard, or did the developers want people to play the game the way they intended to? Well, I'm a disabled gamer, with my anxiety making playing difficult games...difficult. I strive on games that include assist options and difficulty options such as Story Only, with aim assists, etc. So, for one, I cannot for a fact play games the way most developers intend people to. But I can still enjoy myself, I can still feel rewarded.
Assist mode was made for people like me, to enjoy games like Control the way we want to. It allows us to still enjoy a game for it's story, it's characters, and even it's gameplay when we can edit it the way we want. Now, what we don't want, is a game to honestly patronize us for turning them on.
Let me explain.
We don't care if your game was meant to be 'challenging and rewarding'. That's fine. But a game should also be rewarding for those not looking for a challenge, especially for those who do not want one. I play games to be relaxed. I do not play games to get so frustrated I almost put the game down for good. That's just a waste of my time and money. When a game gives me assist options, to me that's the developers saying we want you to enjoy yourself, no matter how you play. We just want you to play our game and have fun in the process. Which I am all here for.
I always go back to it, but The Last of Us 2 is a perfect example of this. Those assist options are just-everything. It does not diminish your experience, you can raise the challenge as much as you want, and I did. I still played that game with the level of difficulty I felt comfortable with, and changed it if I wanted to. Even those who are not disabled, still got use of those options to help them through the game. But what The Last of Us 2 did that I appreciate greatly? Was it did not scold me for turning on some of those options. It did not tell me 'hey these options are here, but this game is meant to be challenging, and we are telling you not to turn them on.'.
What Control does, is it flat out tells you that this was not the way Remedy wanted the game to be played. Well, then how did they want disabled gamers to play Control? Did they want us to fight the difficulty, or the aiming in tense situations? While i'm aware this wasn't their intentions, the way it's worded is they basically don't want us to, or force us to fight through the difficulty and annoyance. Because obviously, we don't want to fight the developers and the play the game the way they didn't intend us too! (That was sarcasm, friends).
((image credit; engadget))
As I spoke to others about this when it released, I began to see that not everyone was fans of the way Remedy chose to represent it's assist options. Speaking to two friends, I got two answers that resonated with me extremely. While my friend Blaine had no real need for them, she did consider the way they represented them problematic.
"..but seeing "This game is intended/designed to be difficult so please try it normally before using assists" just sends an awkward message implying ppl who need those assists are thereby not getting the "Proper" experience."
Blaine's line about the "proper" experience was extremely telling. While a lot of games are made with a wide amount of players in mind, there are still some that are made with a narrow set of players. Games that are 'souls' like are a good example. Excruciating difficulty with no difficulty options or handicaps to help. While I wouldn't exactly call Control a 'souls' like, it still has some features. Very sparsely placed checkpoints, respawning enemies, etc. are designed to make every encounter difficult and stop you progression until it is beaten.
Basically, Remedy is saying that they want the game to be that, difficult and challenging, because that's how they made it to be. Rewarding is one thing, but it's also a very loaded word. People can find anything 'rewarding', to the hardest challenge and the easiest one. You can complete what looks like the most impossible looking jump, or defeat the toughest, secret boss and still feel rewarded, even if you used assist options to do both of those things.
Speaking about challenging and difficult as I brought up earlier, the second person I spoke to used said assist options specifically for the difficulty. Speaking to Jeff, he wanted to play the game and enjoy the story it was trying to tell, not the gameplay attached to it. Asking him how he felt with the assist mode wording, he also brought up the idea on developer intention.
"Yeah I didn't care for it. I have no problem with a developer having an "intended" default mode that they feel best conveys the experience they want the player to have."
"But that message went too far into guilting you for using it"
I know it's taken me long to say this (at least I think, i've been typing for awhile) but I have no problem with developers having an intended way to play their games. I know for a fact I am not like every other gamer, so i'm used to every game having it's 'way to be played'. But, if I'm given the option to make it more tailored towards me, I will do it. No, I'm not hurting the developer, if anything, I would praise them for making the option. Now, as Jeff mentioned, guilting you for using said option? Now that's a different story.
Again, I'm aware they most likely didn't mean to word it like this, but to me it feels like those who pick assist options, for disabled or non-disabled reasons, are hurting the developers. Ruining the image they had for their game, when that should totally not be the case. You can say they added those options in for more people to enjoy the game, but it also comes one year (holy shit) too late. By this point, people who have played it have already beaten it, and have fought through the difficulty, and some have (like me) had a bad time doing it.
I love Control alot, like, alot alot. It's one of the most psychologically crazy and down right mind-twisting game that I have ever played, and I love it for that. But it also, in my opinion, not disability-friendly. Even with the assist options. As my title says, you should never feel judged or guilty for picking assist in video games, disabled or not. When a game does do that, it sours the experience by non-verbally telling you that you are 'ruining the experience the developers made' even if it didn't outright say it. With, as someone with severe generalized anxiety, I can say is really, really not good.
((image credit; Game Rant))
So, we'll end this by asking, how can they fix this? And that's easy, either rewording or getting rid of their statement all together. The best thing I can say about the options, as The Last of Us did, they aren't gameplay stoppers. You can still get trophies/achievements, you can still beat the main game and all of the DLC with it on and nothing changes with unlockables and side missions. You can still play the game, just in your normal, which is most important. You should be able to enjoy games the way you want to, no matter what. How developers want you to enjoy something is one thing, but they should also give you the options to enjoy it the way you want to, if you decide to use it. Or, if you have to use it, and need to edit the experience to enjoy at you own pace.
Hi guys! Thank you so much for reading this, and a bigger thank you for Blaine (@morbidcuriousty on twitter) and Jeff (@Jeffsimulator on twitter) for allowing me to ask them questions and quote them in this piece! Their both amazing and deserve the love.
PS; AWE was fucking great and it's so good to have you back, Alan.
