Control made some waves last week, and not the kind that most consumers found favorable. Publisher 505 Games announced Control: Ultimate Edition, which would be a new version of the title that would come included with all post-launch DLC. Not only would Ultimate Edition be coming to current-generation platforms, but also PS5 and Xbox Series X. However, rather than letting those who already own Control upgrade to the next-gen iterations for free, 505 Games said it would be making them pay the standard retail fare once again.
In a new blog post over on the Control website today, 505 Games explained more of why it decided to make this decision in the first place. According to 505, the publisher "spent several months exploring all of our launch options for Control Ultimate Edition and no decision was taken lightly." It went on to purport that it would have been "more difficult to upgrade our current user base to next gen with full parity across platforms with our year-old game." Because of this, 505 says it would have always ended up leaving out one group of players when it comes to upgrades for next-gen consoles. This seems to imply that it didn't want to give free upgrades to those who didn't purchase the post-launch DLC rather than just the base game.
The explanation goes on to say that Control: Ultimate Edition was put together essentially for new players so that they could buy all of the game's content in one package. Furthermore, even if current players can't fully upgrade to PS5 and Xbox Series X for free, 505 Games does have a plan for them in mind: backward compatibility. Yes, Control will be backward compatible on both next-gen platforms, but they won't take advantage of the new hardware in the same way that the proper versions for each console do.
In my own opinion, this is a pretty poor explanation overall and is only making 505 Games look even worse. To claim that there are "blockers" in place for various groups of players when it comes to potential upgrades to next-gen comes off like a load of nonsense. It's really not that difficult of a situation -- if players presently own the base game and all of its DLC, just let them upgrade to next-gen consoles for free. They were your first adopters in the first place, so just reward them for being loyal customers.
In more positive Control news, the game's AWE expansion releases next week on August 27 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and will see the return of Alan Wake. I, for one, can't wait to see what it has in store.