Where Brutalism Becomes a Video Game
Where Brutalism Becomes a Video Game
In some games, the setting is just a backdrop. The characters carry the story, and the buildings and rooms are the scenes that connect them. Control completely reverses this relationship. The game, published by Remedy Entertainment in 2019, drops the player into the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control hidden in New York, inside a huge and ever-changing structure called The Oldest House. Here, the building is not just the place where the story takes place; the narrative itself becomes the antagonist, the labyrinth, and even one of the characters. Remedy also describes Control as a third-person action-adventure game that combines open-ended environments with its own approach to world-building and storytelling.
When you see Control for the first time, perhaps the thing that sticks in your mind the most is the concrete. Giant columns, heavy ceilings, geometric spaces, long corridors and a scale designed to almost crush people... Then comes red. A saturated, almost physical red that attacks the bureaucratic greyness. Then signs, department names, door numbers, documents and corporate graphic systems that look like they belong to a government institution come into play. When all these are combined, Control is no longer just a “brutalist looking” game. It turns into a corporate and architectural identity designed from start to finish, with its own rules.
The Psychology of Concrete: Why Brutalism Is So Right for Control
Brutalism is often associated only with bare concrete. However, the basis of the movement is not to hide the material, to make the structure visible, not to hide the load-bearing system behind the decoration and to make the mass felt physically. The world of Control is based on exactly this logic. Stuart Macdonald, who took part in the world design of the game, shows that in the early works they developed a brutalist palette through "mass, ritualistic cascading, surface behavior and structural expression".
The Oldest House is therefore not an office designed to look nice. It is designed to make you feel authority.
The corridors are longer than necessary, the ceilings are higher than necessary, the stairs are heavier than necessary. The human scale is deliberately reduced. When an employee enters this building, he feels that he is under the organization, not that he is a part of it.
At this point, architecture and story begin to tell the same thing.
The Federal Bureau of Control is a secret government agency that classifies, conceals and attempts to control the supernatural. Therefore, it is not a coincidence that the building also has an architecture that "controls people". Concrete is not just a material here; The physical equivalent of the idea of institutional power.
The Oldest House: Not a Building, but a System That Is Constantly Rewritten
One of Control's strongest world design decisions is that The Oldest House has no fixed architecture.
The building is changing.
The corridors are shifting.
The walls are opening.
Floors are being rearranged.
Some parts are almost M.C. It turns into geometries that remind us of Escher's impossible spaces. Remedy's concept studies also show that it consciously combines brutalist architecture with variable space structure and Escher-like compositions.
This decision isn't just a visual trick.
It prevents the actor from trusting the place.
Normally when we learn a game map we start to gain confidence. We say, “This corridor leads here, this staircase leads to this floor.” Control constantly destroys this sense of trust. The map helps up to a point, but the building acts as if it has a will of its own.
This fits perfectly with the basic idea of the play: Man tries to control things he cannot explain; But some systems refuse to be controlled.
The Color Red Is Not a Decoration, It's a Threat
When considering the visual identity of Control, the second element as important as gray concrete is red.
When the Hiss, the supernatural threat in the game, appears, the environment is often covered in intense red. Light, fog and surfaces combine in the same color, completely changing the perception of the space. The previously seemingly neutral office suddenly becomes hostile and sinister.
The usage here goes further than classic color psychology.
Red doesn't just mean "danger".
It means a change of situation.
He says the rules of the normal world have been temporarily suspended.
In the analysis of Control's visual system, it is emphasized that Hiss's red works as a "break" within the brutalist system rather than a decorative color: breaking up the controlled world of gray concrete with a single saturated color is one of the important sources of the psychological tension of the game.
This is an extremely powerful lesson in graphic design. There's no need for ten different accent colors in every project. Sometimes, when the function of a single color is clearly defined, the whole system can communicate with that color.
Control does this almost flawlessly.
If the Federal Bureau of Control were a real agency, would this be its identity?
One of the most enjoyable aspects of the game in terms of design is the corporate identity of the Federal Bureau of Control.
Here, Remedy didn't just design a logo and stick it on the wall. It answered the question of what graphics systems the Bureau would use if it were truly an American government agency that had been operating for decades.
Door signs.
Department names.
File folders.
Safety signs.
Routing systems.
Warning boards.
Official correspondence.
ID cards.
Office furniture.
These are all part of the same corporate world.
Typography also gains special importance at this point. The design language evokes the direction and bureaucratic design language of mid-20th century government institutions, with capital letters, wide letter spacing, and simple corporate writing systems that give a sense of classification.
The result is a consistent brand system that extends from the user interface to the signs inside the building.
In fact, Control is a great example of how far fictional brand design can be taken. Instead of just designing a logo for a brand, you design its entire physical and corporate culture.
A Visual Language Between Swiss Typography and Bureaucracy
Another striking element in Control's graphic system is the sense of order, reminiscent of modernist and Swiss design.
Clear alignments, sans-serif typography, controlled spacing and functional orientations; it leaves out ornamentation almost entirely. This aesthetic fits well with the corporate character of the Federal Bureau of Control, which wants to appear “scientific, rational, measurable.”
The irony is that none of the things the institution investigates are truly rational.
This is where design adds a second layer to the story.
The graphic system tells us, "Everything is under control."
The story constantly answers, “Nothing is under control.”
This contradiction is one of the most important details that makes Control's identity unforgettable.
When Architecture and Interface Speak the Same Language
One of the most important indicators of good game art direction is that the user interface and the game world do not appear separate from each other.
In Control, menus, section titles and on-screen graphic elements also continue the corporate aesthetic of the building. Thanks to the large, clean typography and controlled use of color, the player doesn't feel like they've jumped into another visual world even when they pause the game and switch to the menu.
This is the equivalent of the logic we talk about as “touchpoint consistency” in brand design in the gaming world.
If a brand's website speaks differently, its packaging speaks differently, and its store speaks differently, its identity becomes fragmented. In Control, however, the building, graphic design, sound, menus and character designs act as parts of the same world.
Environmental Storytelling: Even an Office Desk Can Tell a Story
Control tells its story not only through cinematic scenes.
Documents, clipboards, files, records and small objects left in offices expand the world. When the player enters a department, he can feel not only what the place is for, but also what kind of bureaucracy the people working there live in.
This approach is one of the successful examples of “environmental storytelling”.
Here, graphic design ceases to be a decoration and turns into the source of the narrative.
A poster.
A warning sign.
An employee memo.
An official form.
Each of these can carry new information about the world's past.
That's why Control is particularly interesting for designers: Graphic design doesn't just make the game look good; It becomes one of the ways the player learns the story.
When Telekinesis Shatters Brutalist Spaces
Control's gameplay is also directly linked to its art direction.
Main character Jesse Faden can lift objects around him and throw them at enemies with telekinetic powers. Tables, chairs, pieces of concrete and different objects can suddenly turn into weapons. In the official descriptions of PlayStation and Xbox, the game's supernatural powers that transform environmental elements into deadly weapons are highlighted as one of the main gameplay features.
This mechanic ensures that the brutalist architecture is not just a backdrop to behold.
The player can physically shatter the concrete world.
He feels the mass.
The weight of columns, walls and objects is transferred to the gameplay.
That's why architecture and mechanics are not disconnected from each other. The game's idea of "the world is your weapon" transforms the visual design itself into the gameplay system.
What kind of game is Control?
The design side is so strong that sometimes it's easy to forget that Control is also a pretty well-rounded action game.
The player controls Jesse Faden and investigates The Oldest House after the Federal Bureau of Control becomes supernaturally invaded. Jesse's personal story also ties into the institution's secrets as he attempts to track down his missing brother, Dylan.
The game features a third-person combat system, telekinetic abilities, Service Weapon that can transform into different forms, character development system and open-ended exploration structure. Remedy designed the game as a larger structure where you explore interconnecting areas rather than a straightforward linear corridor experience.
Therefore, Control is not just a game whose design we tour. The visual system and action constantly feed each other.
The Foundation and AWE: Expanding the Boundaries of the World
Control's base game was supported by two major expansions: The Foundation and AWE. The Ultimate Edition includes the main game, two expansions and post-release content in one package.
While The Foundation delves into the more fundamental, geological layers of The Oldest House's architecture, AWE strengthens the connection between Remedy's Alan Wake universe and Control.
This shows that Control is not just a one-game aesthetic experiment.
Remedy gradually established its own “Connected Universe” approach, and the Federal Bureau of Control became one of the most powerful fictional institutions at the center of this structure.
Where Can It Be Played?
Control is available on a wide range of platforms today. Remedy's official site states that Ultimate Edition is available on platforms such as Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch; The Remedy support page also lists Amazon Luna among its authorized access channels.
The game is a single player experience. PlayStation Store also lists Control Ultimate Edition as single-player.
Since the Ultimate Edition includes the base game as well as The Foundation and AWE expansions, this is the most comprehensive version for someone starting the game for the first time today.
The Lesson Control Left to the Design World
For Voldi Creative, what makes Control so valuable is not so much that it's a "pretty game" but the way its design decisions tie together.
Brutalism is not just an architectural reference.
Typography is not just headlines.
Red is not just a color.
Corporate identity is not just a logo.
It's all part of the story.
And most importantly, they all serve the same main idea: control.
Concrete represents control.
Bureaucracy tries to control.
Graphical system classifies information.
The player is trying to control the space.
Feeling disrupts the whole system.
Therefore, Control's visual identity is conceptual, not decorative.
This is where the most powerful form of good design emerges.
If we can answer more than "it looks nice" when we choose a color, a structure or a font, the design begins to become a system.
Concrete, Red and a Government Institution's Nightmare
If Control continues to be talked about in terms of art direction even after years, this is not only because brutalism is fashionable.
The game does not use brutalism as a superficial style.
It turns it into the psychology of the story.
While the heavy concrete mass of The Oldest House represents the authority of the Federal Bureau of Control, the red of the Hiss fragments this order. While corporate typography tries to classify everything, the building refuses to be classified by constantly changing. As Jesse tries to gain control, the player gradually realizes how uncontrollable the world actually is.
As Voldi Creative, we see Control as one of the projects that combines art management and branding in the most powerful way in the gaming world. Because here, architecture, graphic design and game mechanics are not separate layers added on top of each other; different forms of the same idea.
And perhaps Control's greatest design achievement is precisely that:
Taking the cold corporate identity of a government agency and turning it into one of the most haunting supernatural worlds in gaming history.
Nur Oğuz