A week ago, Remedy and publisher 505 Games announced Control Ultimate Edition, an upcoming packaging of the title complete with the base game, content updates, and DLC. This upgraded version will first launch on consoles and PC, before making its way to next-gen. Exciting, yes? The trouble lies in the free upgrade path being offered and its various limitations. Only those who purchase Control Ultimate Edition will gain access to a free next-gen upgrade. Early adopters have to double dip. Unsurprisingly, this caused a wave of confusion and dismay. Now Remedy and 505 are offering an explanation, which notes that previously announced upgrade plans remain unchanged.
The explanation appears in a blog post on Control‘s website. It starts with a brief statement, segues into an FAQ section, then is rounded out in TL:DR-like fashion. The gist of it is this–apparently, some concessions had to be made in order to bring Control and all of its content to next-gen platforms. Thus, the companies were “unfortunately unable to offer an upgrade path to all existing Control players.” Because of backward compatibility options, all who purchased the action title’s 2019 edition will still be able to enjoy an improved version on PS5/Xbox Series X.
Additionally, the statement elaborates on the challenges of bringing any version of Control to next-gen in a satisfactory manner for all. The post reads in part,
We spent several months exploring all of our launch options for Control Ultimate Edition and no decision was taken lightly. While it is challenging bringing any game to next gen platforms, we quickly realised it was even more difficult to upgrade our current user base to next gen with full parity across platforms with our year-old game.
Every avenue we pursued, there was some form of blocker and those blockers meant that at least one group of players ended up being left out of the upgrade for various reasons. As of today, we can’t offer an upgrade to everyone, and leaving any one group out feels unfair. We understand that is not what you want to hear.
Suffice it to say, the response to this explanation, so far, isn’t going over well with early adopters.
Control Ultimate Edition hits PC via Steam on August 27th. Digital versions for PS4, Epic Games Store, and Xbox One will release on September 10th. Physical versions are expected to drop later in the year, while the next-gen iteration should roll out in early 2021.
[Source: Control Website via Control on Twitter]
