Control left as if it was driving the last generation consoles to their breakdown points, with many performance issues on the old machines. Despite these problems, it was a great game, my favorite of 2019. Now, with the next generation of Control, many of these problems are gone, and a great game is improved with better performance and new features.
Control, developed by Remedy, the people behind Max Payne and Alan Wake, was released in August 2019 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. The PC version, after a few patches, was a fantastic way to play this whimsical third-person shooter filled with supernatural enemies. The console ports did not work so well. On PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, the more powerful, upgraded machines of the last generation, Control will still struggle to maintain its target of 30 fps. During large battles with many objects flying around and the particle effects popping up, it can fall far below the target. And on the older base consoles, it was more likely to play or become extremely sluggish. If you add long load times, you’ve messed up a bit.
Manage Ultimate Edition, available today for PS5 and Xbox Series X / S, is a true next-generation port of the game. It has reflections through rays, improved frames, faster loading times and a higher resolution. But there are some caveats. First, if you do not own Manage Ultimate Edition you will have to buy back the game as the original version of Control will not upgrade to the next generation port. This is a whole annoying thing it upsets a lot and is still a shit situation.
Another catch: Savings from the latest generation versions of the game are not transferred. Remedy says this is because the engine is so different that it would take a lot of extra work to transfer the savings properly. A final catch is that the game on Xbox Series S does not have ray tracing and that it will work at an internal resolution of 900p, which is then pushed to an output resolution of 1080p. Oh, and I have not yet played the Xbox Series X port of Ultimate Edition, although Remedy says that it should be visually identical to the PS5 game, and I expect that to be true.
G / O Media can get a commission
So with things out of the way, how does it not Control play on PS5? In a word: heavenly.
You have a choice on PS5 and Xbox Series X: performance mode and graphics mode. In performance mode, the game is aimed at 60 fps and hits it mostly. I did see a few small dives during larger areas filled with enemies, but it was barely noticeable and compared to how the game performed on PS4, it’s still a big improvement.
The other option, graphical mode, is blocked up to 30 fps, but supports reflections. The ray trace contains Manage Ultimate Edition is not as impressive as in some high-end computer games Metro: Uittog. But they still add an extra level of detail to the world. Shiny walls, glass windows and reflective marble floors all feature realistic and accurate reflections that add to the visual appeal of the game.
In the heat of battle, however, I rarely noticed reflections, and I missed the smooth feel of 60 fps. Outside of reflections by radiation research, both modes appear to be almost identical. For example, shadows do not look better in graphics mode or worse in performance. So it seems like the big decision you have to make is if you want 60 fps action or 30 fps action with beam reproduction. I think Controlon all platforms it already looks good, so the radiation tracking features do not feel like a noticeable improvement, especially at the expense of halving the performance. This is a good option to include. Both modes, by the way, deliver internal resolution with a 1440p version and deliver a scaled-up 4k version, creating a sharp, clean image.
Charging times are also much shorter on PS5, and most charging screens end in less than 12 seconds. While it’s fast, especially compared to charging times on old machines that can exceed 30 or even 40 seconds, the PS5 charging times are not nearly as fast as I had hoped. However, this is mainly due to the fact that I got used to other PS5 games, such as Miles Morales, which has lightning-fast charging times of a few seconds or less. Regardless, you spend much less time looking at a drawer screen Manage Ultimate Edition, which is wonderful.
Manage Ultimate Edition also comes with all the previously released DLC, which is great for me because I never played Control Rather, DLC chooses to wait for a next-generation port. Happy me!
If you can overcome it by having to reload the game and not be able to transfer old savings, Ultimate Edition next generation consoles are the best way to play Control outside a powerful computer. If you do not like it Control When it first came out because it was too difficult or you did not find the world attractive, this new port will not change plans. But if you skipped the old game due to long loading time or performance issues, this may be the best time to jump back in.