505 Games, the publishers of Remedy’s smash hit third person shooter Control, have issued a statement regarding the controversial Control Ultimate Edition upgrade path. For the uninitiated, only the players who purchase the Ultimate Edition on PS4 and Xbox One would receive a free next-gen upgrade, while all other players would be getting shafted.
Naturally, the backlash to this decision was staggering, as systems like Smart Delivery are allowing developers to offer free next-gen upgrades for their games, something that games like Cyberpunk 2077 are offering. To offer this upgrade only to those who shell out an extra £30, even you’ve already bought the game and season pass separately, is bizarre.
Either way, 505 have issued a statement which refers to certain blockers when trying to bring a next-gen update to all players: “We spent several months exploring all of our launch options for Control Ultimate Edition and no decision was taken lightly. 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.”
505 Games don’t disclose what those “blockers” could be, but considering that the season pass itself launched first on the PS4, it’s possible that Sony might have had something to do with this. Maybe there’s some clause regarding exclusivity? That’s pure tinfoil hat conspiracy theory though, as again, 505 haven’t specified what it is specifically that’s stopping all Control players from receiving a next-gen upgrade.
As for the idea that owning Control and the Season Pass is essentially the same as the Ultimate Edition (which it is), 505 had this to say: “The PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X versions of Control contain the same content as the current gen game, though they do take full advantage of the power and features provided by these new consoles.”
It adds: “The upgrade path that we are offering is only possible when upgrading from the same version of the game. As we are only doing additional development on Control Ultimate Edition on the next gen platforms, we are unfortunately unable to offer an upgrade path to all existing Control players. We understand how this might upset a number of players but you will still be able to play the 2019 edition of Control and each Expansion on the new platforms.”
At the very least, all versions of Control will support backwards compatibility on next-gen consoles, so you’ll still be able to play this excellent game on whichever fancy bit of hardware you happen to purchase later this year, but only the Ultimate Edition will receive any real next-gen benefits, which haven’t been announced as of yet.
As it stands, for anyone who has yet to purchase Control, the Ultimate Edition is definitely the perfect way to experience it for the first time. It just sucks that anyone who has supported the game before this announcement is now being nickel and dimed for no real reason.
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