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121-434: Part of this genre's roots derive from pulp horror authors, whose stories were sometimes described as " weird fiction ". The "weird tale" label also evolved from the magazine Weird Tales ; the stories therein often combined fantasy elements, existential and physical terror, and science fiction devices. While New Weird fiction has been influenced by traditional weird fiction such as American H.P. Lovecraft's stories, much of

242-642: A " killer app " for Nvidia's RTX graphics cards, citing it as helping to enhance the game's visual style. Metal Gear series creator, Hideo Kojima, has expressed that he is a huge fan of Control , and as proof of this, he visited Remedy's studio during his visit to Finland in 2019. By December 2020, Control had sold over 2 million units and Remedy stated the game was their fastest-growing intellectual property since Max Payne . By August 2021, Remedy stated that over 10 million people had played Control , accounting for those that played it through Xbox Game Pass and other non-sales routes. By February 2024,

363-464: A bureaucratic government agency involved in these events. In Control , they reversed the role to make the bureaucracy at the center of the story. Narrative designer Brooke Maggs stated "there is an invisible, assailing presence of bureaucracy in the corporate office setting that is in itself, unsettling". The mundane features of the Oldest House helped to contrast against the paranormal aspects of

484-463: A clandestine U.S. government agency which investigates supernatural Altered World Events (AWEs). These AWEs are affected by the human collective unconscious and have a variety of "paranatural" effects, including the creation of Objects of Power, archetypal items which grant special abilities to their wielders. Objects of Power are connected to the Board, a black pyramid-shaped entity which exists within

605-406: A compilation of new weird stories and commentary, intended as a "rough guide to the moment or movement known as 'New Weird' acknowledging that the pivotal 'moment' is behind us, but that this moment had already lasted much longer than generally believed, had definite precursors, and continues to spread an Effect, even as it dissipates or becomes something else." Various definitions have been given of

726-414: A continuation of his Hugo Award-winning ERB-dom which began in 1960. It ran for 75 issues and featured articles about the content and selected fiction from the pulps. It became Pulpdom Online in 2013 and continues quarterly publication. After 2000, several small independent publishers released magazines which published short fiction, either short stories or novel-length presentations, in the tradition of

847-555: A deadly enemy known as the Hiss, which has invaded and corrupted reality. The player gains abilities by finding Objects of Power, mundane objects like a rotary phone or a floppy disk imbued with energies from another dimension, that have been at the center of major paranormal events and since recovered by the FBC. In addition to Hope, voice work and live-action footage was provided by James McCaffrey , Matthew Porretta , and Martti Suosalo , while

968-523: A dream-like experience in Japanese, with the English translation given by Saito. A further challenge in the game's design and implementation involved creating an environment that would encourage the player to explore, get lost in it, and learn by observation. Kasurinen felt they did not want to include a traditional heads-up display for the player, with mission markers or other clutter, and instead have

1089-471: A featureless Brutalist skyscraper in New York City, and the headquarters of the fictional Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), which studies Altered World Events (AWEs) and collects and studies Objects of Power from these AWEs. The Oldest House, itself a Place of Power, has an interior far larger than its exterior; an enormous, constantly shifting supernatural realm that defies the laws of spacetime . At

1210-424: A few quick dollars could bolster their income with sales to pulps. Additionally, some of the earlier pulps solicited stories from amateurs who were quite happy to see their words in print and could thus be paid token amounts. There were also career pulp writers, capable of turning out huge amounts of prose on a steady basis, often with the aid of dictation to stenographers , machines or typists . Before he became

1331-420: A good science-fiction setting, as it has "this sense of power, weight, strength and stability to it", and when the Oldest House's geometries are affected by the Hiss, "it makes for a really good contrast with the impossible architecture". The relatively flat colors of the background walls made it an ideal canvas to showcase other design and lighting effects in the game. It served well into the telekinesis powers of

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1452-582: A literary slant. It’s kind of like slipstream with a side of weirdness." The "new weird" descriptor has been applied to non-literary forms of media. Movies that have been recognized as fitting into the new weird descriptions include Pan's Labyrinth and the adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer's novel Annihilation . The video games Thief: The Dark Project , The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind , Disco Elysium: The Final Cut , and Control have also been recognized as new weird for their combination of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and weird elements. In music,

1573-488: A magazine called Pulp Adventures reprinting old classics. It came out regularly until 2001, and then started up again in 2014. In 1994, Quentin Tarantino directed the film Pulp Fiction . The working title of the film was Black Mask , in homage to the pulp magazine of that name , and it embodied the seedy, violent, often crime-related spirit found in pulp magazines. In 1997 C. Cazadessus Jr. launched Pulpdom ,

1694-688: A modern example of brutalism, and created the Oldest House as a "bizarre, brutalist monolith" to house the FBC. Other real-world locations used as inspiration included the Boston City Hall , the Andrews Building at the University of Toronto Scarborough , and the Met Breuer . Other real-world architects inspired the game's structures. Carlo Scarpa 's work was used heavily in designing stairways that ascended with other parts of

1815-448: A more open-world game where the player would drive what they experienced. Instead of focusing on creating a large and complex story, Remedy wanted to put more emphasis on creating a game world and universe that is rich enough for players to craft their own stories. The team still wanted to leave narrative elements for players to discover to help flesh out the world, and added optional documents, audio logs, and live-action video footage that

1936-469: A mysterious Finnish janitor. In October 2019, Jesse Faden arrives at the Oldest House following a telepathic message from Polaris, seeking the whereabouts of her kidnapped brother Dylan. Inside the building, Jesse discovers the lifeless body of Zachariah Trench, and is instructed by Polaris to pick up his fallen Service Weapon. Jesse is translocated to the Astral Plane, where the Board appoints her as

2057-679: A mysterious telepathic entity. Shortly thereafter, the FBC arrived in Ordinary, capturing Dylan and the slide projector while Jesse fled. In the present day, Jesse arrives at the Oldest House seeking her brother's whereabouts. Other notable characters in Control include missing Head of Research Casper Darling ( Matthew Porretta ), research specialist Emily Pope ( Antonia Bernath ), security chief Simon Arish (Ronan Summers), Head of Operations Helen Marshall ( Jade Anouka ), Panopticon supervisor Frederick Langston (Derek Hagen), and Ahti ( Martti Suosalo ),

2178-435: A novelist, Upton Sinclair was turning out at least 8,000 words per day seven days a week for the pulps, keeping two stenographers fully employed. Pulps would often have their authors use multiple pen names so that they could use multiple stories by the same person in one issue, or use a given author's stories in three or more successive issues, while still appearing to have varied content. One advantage pulps provided to authors

2299-454: A package that provided affordable entertainment to young working-class people. In six years, Argosy went from a few thousand copies per month to over half a million. Street & Smith , a dime novel and boys' weekly publisher, was next on the market. Seeing Argosy ' s success, they launched The Popular Magazine in 1903, which they billed as the "biggest magazine in the world" by virtue of its being two pages (the interior sides of

2420-462: A publishing partner, Control was developed using more efficient development strategies to keep costs and time low. In contrast to Alan Wake and Quantum Break which took seven and five years to complete respectively, Control was completed within three years with a €30 million budget, lower than the typical costs of a triple-A game. Mikael Kasurinen, who worked on Alan Wake (as lead gameplay designer) and Quantum Break (as lead director),

2541-503: A rescuing hero . Cover art played a major part in the marketing of pulp magazines. The early pulp magazines could boast covers by some distinguished American artists; The Popular Magazine had covers by N. C. Wyeth , and Edgar Franklin Wittmack contributed cover art to Argosy and Short Stories . Later, many artists specialized in creating covers mainly for the pulps; a number of the most successful cover artists became as popular as

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2662-606: A shared universe between the games. However, Sam Lake later confirmed the existence of a shared universe between Alan Wake and Control known as the Remedy Connected Universe. This later was cemented with the release of the AWE expansion, directly bringing characters and events of Alan Wake into Control . The game's main voice cast was announced at New York Comic Con in 2018, consisting of various actors from Remedy's previous games. Courtney Hope, who played

2783-670: A similar format to American pulp magazines, in that it was printed on rough pulp paper and heavily illustrated. During the Second World War , paper shortages had a serious impact on pulp production, starting a steady rise in costs and the decline of the pulps. Following the model of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1941, some magazines began to switch to digest size : smaller, sometimes thicker magazines. In 1949, Street & Smith closed most of their pulp magazines in order to move upmarket and produce slicks . Competition from comic-books and paperback novels further eroded

2904-470: A vision of Alan Wake. The past event in the town of Ordinary was alluded to by a backmasking track in the credits sequence of Alan Wake: American Nightmare , with an unknown speaker stating "It will happen again, in another town. A town called Ordinary." Kasurinen said that the inclusion of such references helps to establish a type of continuity between its games, elements to be found and shared by its player community, but not meant to necessarily establish

3025-487: A whole, they are narratively linked by the common format of reports written by the fictional SCP Foundation, which catalogs and studies the objects. Control was built atop this, having the various Objects of Power and Altered Items, along with numerous collectable writings about these objects or other stories in line with SCP. They fixed the story in the genre of the new weird , a modern variant of weird fiction with stories that combine science fiction and fantasy often with

3146-496: A year-long exclusivity deal for Control on the Epic Games Store with Digital Bros, the parent of 505 Games, for € 9.49 million ( US$ 10.5 million ). On 27 August 2020, the first anniversary of the game's release, Control: Ultimate Edition was released via Steam , including the base game, both the "Foundation" and "AWE" expansions, and the additional free updates. Control: Ultimate Edition launched on

3267-550: Is "a smart and sensational action-adventure." Phil Iwaniuk of PCGamesN gave the game a positive review and stated it as "a gripping descent into something between alternate history and fever dream, realized beautifully in audiovisual flair, and lacking just slightly in the combat itself." Sam Loveridge of GamesRadar+ awarded it 4.5 out of 5 stars and praised its "unique" setting, "TV-like" storytelling, "phenomenal" characters and "downright bonkers" moments, though criticized its short length. James Davenport of PC Gamer gave

3388-537: Is "a type of urban, secondary-world fiction that subverts the romanticized ideas about place found in traditional fantasy , largely by choosing realistic, complex real-world models as the jumping-off point for creation of settings that may combine elements of both science fiction and fantasy." Non-conformity to strict genre definitions is a commonly recognized facet of new weird fiction. In The 3rd Alternative forum debate, Miéville emphasized this fluidity in his post stating that "New Weird – like most literary categories –

3509-537: Is a floppy disk . MacDonald said he was drawn to use a floppy disk in this manner after reading a story about how many of the United States national missile defense sites had only recently transitioned off floppy disks, and prior to that, these disks could be seen as proverbial weapons that were held with high reverence. The copious presence in the Oldest House of 1960s and 1970s technology such as pneumatic tubes , slide projectors and monochrome monitors , and

3630-695: Is a 2019 action-adventure game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by 505 Games . The game was released for PlayStation 4 , Windows , and Xbox One in August 2019, and for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in February 2021. Cloud-based versions for the Nintendo Switch and Amazon Luna were released in October 2020, followed by a version for Stadia in July 2021. A version for macOS

3751-521: Is a collection of "pulp fiction" stories written by such current well-known authors as Stephen King , Nick Hornby , Aimee Bender and Dave Eggers . Explaining his vision for the project, Chabon wrote in the introduction, "I think that we have forgotten how much fun reading a short story can be, and I hope that if nothing else, this treasury goes some small distance toward reminding us of that lost but fundamental truth." The Scottish publisher DC Thomson publishes "My Weekly Compact Novel" every week. It

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3872-555: Is a moment, a suggestion, a tease, an intervention, an attitude, above all an argument. You cannot read off a checklist and say 'x is in, y is out' and think you've understand what's at stake or what's being argued." According to Gardner Dozois , the VanderMeers' anthology "ultimately left me just as confused as to what exactly The New Weird consisted of when I went out as I'd been when I went in." Robin Anne Reid notes that while

3993-528: Is able to rediscover Polaris within herself, allowing her to fight off the Hiss and save the Bureau. In the process, Jesse learns that Trench was the first individual to be possessed by the Hiss during the expeditions to Slidescape-36, and was responsible for releasing the Hiss into the Oldest House. Jesse finds the slide projector in the Executive Sector, where Dylan and the Hiss are attempting to enter

4114-457: Is eventually able to restore the Nail, but tremors occur between the Oldest House and the Astral Plane which threaten to destroy both dimensions. Jesse reaches the base of the Nail, where she finds Marshall possessed by the Hiss. With the aid of Former, Jesse kills Marshall and cleanses the Nail. Jesse learns that it was Marshall who damaged the Nail, as a preventative measure against both the Hiss and

4235-488: Is literally a pulp novel, though it does not fall into the hard-edged genre most associated with pulp fiction. From 2006 through 2019, Anthony Tollin's imprint Sanctum Books has reprinted all 182 Doc Savage pulp novels, all 24 of Paul Ernst's Avenger novels, the 14 Whisperer novels from the original pulp series and all but three novels of the entire run of The Shadow (most of his publications featuring two novels in one book). Control (video game) Control

4356-511: Is set to release in February 2025. Two paid downloadable expansions have been released. Control revolves around the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), a secret U.S. government agency tasked with containing and studying phenomena that violate the laws of reality. As Jesse Faden ( Courtney Hope ), the Bureau's new Director, the player explores the Oldest House – the FBC's paranormal headquarters – and utilizes powerful abilities to defeat

4477-456: Is still odd, and the mission structure can be obtuse at times." Gabe Gurwin of Digital Trends gave the game 3.5/5 and praised the gunplay, abilities, cast, presentation and setting, though criticized its story, texture issues, "filler" side missions and "unoriginal" powers. Christian Donlan of Eurogamer praised its "giddy" action and "astonishing" art design. Digital Foundry and Polygon considered Control on PC to potentially be

4598-624: The Astral Plane , an alternate dimension. The individual chosen by the Board to wield the Service Weapon, an Object of Power, is considered by default to be the director of the FBC. Control takes place within the Oldest House, a Brutalist skyscraper in New York City that serves as the headquarters of the FBC. The Oldest House is a Place of Power with several paranatural characteristics: it resists being noticed by anyone other than FBC members and individuals with an innate sensitivity to

4719-527: The Nobel Prize in Literature , worked as an editor for Adventure , writing filler paragraphs (brief facts or amusing anecdotes designed to fill small gaps in page layout), advertising copy and a few stories. The term pulp fiction is often used for massmarket paperbacks since the 1950s. The Browne Popular Culture Library News noted: Many of the paperback houses that contributed to the decline of

4840-493: The intellectual property rights to Control . In the press release, Remedy revealed that the game will have complex gameplay mechanics and that it will be a "longer term experience" than its previous games. P7 was being worked on by Remedy alongside two other projects. The game was officially revealed at Sony Interactive Entertainment 's E3 2018 press conference. Control was released for PlayStation 4 , Windows , and Xbox One on 27 August 2019. Epic Games had secured

4961-495: The posthuman aesthetics of artists like Arca or Björk also stand out. Pulp magazine Pulp magazines (also referred to as " the pulps ") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, due to their cheap nature. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it

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5082-692: The 1920s–1940s, the most successful pulps sold up to one million copies per issue. In 1934, Frank Gruber said there were some 150 pulp titles. The most successful pulp magazines were Argosy , Adventure , Blue Book and Short Stories , collectively described by some pulp historians as "The Big Four". Among the best-known other titles of this period were Amazing Stories , Black Mask , Dime Detective , Flying Aces , Horror Stories , Love Story Magazine , Marvel Tales , Oriental Stories , Planet Stories , Spicy Detective , Startling Stories , Thrilling Wonder Stories , Unknown , Weird Tales and Western Story Magazine . During

5203-535: The 1950s. Pulp magazines often contained a wide variety of genre fiction , including, but not limited to: The American Old West was a mainstay genre of early turn of the 20th-century novels as well as later pulp magazines, and lasted longest of all the traditional pulps. In many ways, the later men's adventure ("the sweats") was the replacement of pulps. Many classic science fiction and crime novels were originally serialized in pulp magazines such as Weird Tales , Amazing Stories , and Black Mask . While

5324-527: The Amazon Queen by E.A. Guest, their first contribution to a "New Pulp Era", featuring the hallmarks of pulp fiction for contemporary mature readers: violence, horror and sex. E.A. Guest was likened to a blend of pulp era icon Talbot Mundy and Stephen King by real-life explorer David Hatcher Childress. In 2002, the tenth issue of McSweeney's Quarterly was guest edited by Michael Chabon . Published as McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales , it

5445-399: The Astral Plane through a portal and overtake the Board. Jesse deactivates the slide projector and seemingly cleanses the Hiss from Dylan, which closes the portal but leaves him in a coma. In the aftermath, the Oldest House remains infested by the Hiss and under lockdown to prevent its escape, but Jesse has come to terms with her new role as director and resolves to find a solution together with

5566-537: The Board. Marshall's HRA was destroyed soon after, with her believing it to be retaliation by the Board, allowing her to be possessed by the Hiss. With the crisis averted but her faith in the Board shattered, Jesse vows to lead the Bureau her own way. AWE is a crossover between Control and Remedy Entertainment 's previous title, Alan Wake . Alan Wake takes place in Bright Falls, Washington; in that game, writer Alan Wake finds himself coerced and trapped by

5687-489: The Dark Presence that inhabited Bright Falls' Cauldron Lake, a dimension able to turn works of art into reality. Following the events of Alan Wake (as described in Control ), Emil Hartman, a psychologist who attempted to investigate and exploit this power, was confronted and arrested by agents of the FBC, who confiscated all of his research on the lake. In a final act of desperation, Hartman dove into Cauldron Lake and

5808-483: The Encounter Director controls interactions with enemies based on the player's level and location in the Oldest House. Enemies in Control are predominantly human agents of the FBC possessed by the Hiss, an otherworldly force. They range from standard humans carrying firearms to heavily mutated variations that possess a variety of superpowers. Control revolves around the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC),

5929-532: The Epic Games Store, GOG.com , PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on 10 September 2020, and on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on 2 February 2021. Players who owned the Ultimate Edition on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One were able to update their version to the newer consoles for free. 505 Games stated that while they looked to find a free upgrade path that would work for all users but that there

6050-475: The FBC's surviving personnel. Jesse is summoned by the Board to the Foundation, a cavernous area lying at the center of the Oldest House which houses the Nail, an object that connects the Oldest House to the Astral Plane. Jesse finds that the Nail has been seriously damaged, which is causing the Astral Plane to leak into the Oldest House, with potentially catastrophic consequences. As Jesse attempts to restore

6171-459: The Fall , an alternative rock group that are close friends of Remedy, provided songs for the game, including "Take Control", in-game stated to be by the fictional band "The Old Gods of Asgard", itself an allusion back to Alan Wake . Remedy used this song as part of the game's "Ashtray Maze", a section where Jesse fights through an ever-changing set of rooms set to the song. Remedy worked with Poets of

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6292-457: The Fall so that they could incorporate the song dynamically as the player progressed through sections of the maze. The core game includes Easter eggs referring to Alan Wake , which shares similar paranormal themes with Control ; one such Easter egg discusses the aftermath of Alan Wake as part of the FBC's case files, which concerned what happened in Bright Falls, the primary location of Alan Wake , to have been an AWE. A secret area includes

6413-634: The Hiss invasion, as to create a "crisis" for his "hero", Jesse, as part of his attempt to escape from Cauldron Lake. Jesse reaches the Bright Falls AWE area of the Investigations Sector and destroys Hartman. She is informed by Langston of a newly detected AWE in Bright Falls , the date of which is several years in the future. Control was developed by Remedy Entertainment . As their first major release since their initial public offering in 2017 and separation from Microsoft as

6534-402: The Nail, she seeks the whereabouts of Helen Marshall, who entered the Foundation during the Hiss invasion, and has gone missing. Meanwhile, Jesse discovers logs left behind by Theodore Ash, Jr., the former Head of Research who was part of the first expeditions to the Oldest House in 1964. Ash reveals that Broderick Northmoor, the director who preceded Trench, fell under the Board's influence during

6655-400: The Oldest House and Objects of Power within it, with Darling played by Matthew Porretta . Another set of videos are short episodes of a fictional show called "The Threshold Kids", a puppet-based show seemingly aimed at children who may reside within the Oldest House. "The Threshold Kids" was written by narrative lead Anna Megill and produced by senior cinematic designer Mircea Purdea. Poets of

6776-457: The absence of modern-day technologies such as cell phones , is explained in-game as the result of the tendency of newer technologies to fail or malfunction within the boundaries of the Oldest House. The Oldest House setting was based on brutalist architecture , a style utilizing large concrete blocks popularized in the 1950s and used in many government buildings at the time. The game's world design director, Stuart Macdonald, described brutalism as

6897-653: The annual pulp magazine convention that had begun in 1972. The magazine, devoted to the history and legacy of the pulp magazines, has published each year since. It now appears in connection with PulpFest , the summer pulp convention that grew out of and replaced Pulpcon. The Pulpster was originally edited by Tony Davis and is currently edited by William Lampkin, who also runs the website ThePulp.Net. Contributors have included Don Hutchison, Robert Sampson, Will Murray , Al Tonik, Nick Carr, Mike Resnick , Hugh B. Cave , Joseph Wrzos, Jessica Amanda Salmonson , Chet Williamson , and many others. In 1992, Rich W. Harvey came out with

7018-428: The art was black lines on the paper's background, but Finlay and a few others did some work that was primarily white lines against large dark areas. Another way pulps kept costs down was by paying authors less than other markets; thus many eminent authors started out in the pulps before they were successful enough to sell to better-paying markets, and similarly, well-known authors whose careers were slumping or who wanted

7139-518: The authors featured on the interior pages. Among the most famous pulp artists were Walter M. Baumhofer , Earle K. Bergey , Margaret Brundage , Edd Cartier , Virgil Finlay , Frank R. Paul , Norman Saunders , Emmett Watson , Nick Eggenhofer , (who specialized in Western illustrations), Hugh J. Ward , George Rozen , and Rudolph Belarski . Covers were important enough to sales that sometimes they would be designed first; authors would then be shown

7260-470: The band Poets of the Fall provided additional music. Control is inspired by paranormal stories about the fictional SCP Foundation created by an online collaborative wiki fiction project, based on the genre of the new weird . The environments of the Oldest House are designed in the brutalist style common for many government buildings created during the Cold War era, serving as a setting to show off

7381-436: The big-budget title will be a direct sequel to Control titled Control 2 , which had begun development with 505 Games by that time and is planned for release on Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. In February 2024, Remedy announced to their shareholders that they had repurchased the rights to the Control franchise from 505 Games. In August 2024, Remedy announced a co-financing agreement with Annapurna to fund 50% of

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7502-509: The building to previously unlocked Control Points. As the player completes missions, they unlock more of the building to explore, along with additional side quests, in addition to various rewards. These include skill points which can be used to improve psychokinetic powers that Jesse gains over the course of the game, such as projectile-launching debris at enemies or seizing control of enemies' minds temporarily to turn them into her allies. Mission rewards include resources that can be used to improve

7623-549: The character Beth Wilder in Quantum Break , stars as Jesse Faden, while James McCaffrey , known for his roles as the title character of Max Payne and Thomas Zane in Alan Wake , plays the role of Zachariah Trench. Matthew Porretta , who portrayed the titular character of Alan Wake , is featured in both voice roles and live-action videos as the character of Dr. Casper Darling. Finnish actor Martti Suosalo voices

7744-495: The concept of repetitiveness, process, and ritualism in these agencies, and that was used to define some of the internal artwork and architecture. Art director Janne Pulkkinen stated they looked at real world churches and other places where ritualism is common, as lighting and design of those spaces are often used to draw attention to specific points of interest. Certain areas of the game feature full-motion video sequences. Most of these are of Dr. Casper Darling explaining parts of

7865-487: The cover art and asked to write a story to match. Later pulps began to feature interior illustrations, depicting elements of the stories. The drawings were printed in black ink on the same cream-colored paper used for the text, and had to use specific techniques to avoid blotting on the coarse texture of the cheap pulp. Thus, fine lines and heavy detail were usually not an option. Shading was by crosshatching or pointillism , and even that had to be limited and coarse. Usually

7986-426: The cover price rose to 15 cents and 30 pages were added to each issue; along with establishing a stable of authors for each magazine, this change proved successful and circulation began to approach that of Argosy . Street and Smith's next innovation was the introduction of specialized genre pulps, with each magazine focusing on a particular genre, such as detective stories, romance, etc. At their peak of popularity in

8107-503: The definition of the new weird is disputed, "a general consensus uses the term" to describe fictions that "subvert cliches of the fantastic in order to put them to discomfiting, rather than consoling ends". Reid also notes the genre tends to break down the barriers between fantasy , science fiction and supernatural horror . In comparing the new weird to bizarro fiction , Rose O'Keefe of Eraserhead Press claims that "People buy New Weird because they want cutting edge speculative fiction with

8228-592: The development of Control 2, that would allow them to self-publish the sequel and its spin-off. The deal included Annapurna receiving the rights to expand existing Remedy IPs including Control to films and television. Control received "generally favorable" reviews from critics for most platforms, except for the Nintendo Switch version which received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic . Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb awarded it 5 out of 5 stars and stated it

8349-448: The direct precursors of pulp fiction. The first "pulp" was Frank Munsey 's revamped Argosy magazine of 1896, with about 135,000 words (192 pages) per issue, on pulp paper with untrimmed edges, and no illustrations, even on the cover. The steam-powered printing press had been in widespread use for some time, enabling the boom in dime novels; prior to Munsey, however, no one had combined cheap printing, cheap paper and cheap authors in

8470-748: The economic hardships of the Great Depression , pulps provided affordable content to the masses, and were one of the primary forms of entertainment, along with film and radio . Although pulp magazines were primarily an American phenomenon, there were also a number of British pulp magazines published between the Edwardian era and World War II . Notable UK pulps included The Pall Mall Magazine , The Novel Magazine , Cassell's Magazine , The Story-Teller , The Sovereign Magazine , Hutchinson's Adventure-Story and Hutchinson's Mystery-Story . The German fantasy magazine Der Orchideengarten had

8591-466: The end of the "pulp era"; by that date, many of the famous pulps of the previous generation, including Black Mask, The Shadow , Doc Savage , and Weird Tales , were defunct (though some of those titles have been revived in various formats in the decades since). Almost all of the few remaining former pulp magazines are science fiction or mystery magazines, now in formats similar to " digest size ", such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact , though

8712-412: The expedition, and was responsible for radically changing the Bureau in order to serve the Board's interests. As Jesse continues to restore the Nail, she encounters Former, an extradimensional entity which grants Jesse a new ability, enraging the Board. Former claims to have once been a member of the Board, but was exiled after being blamed for an unknown transgression. Torn between the two entities, Jesse

8833-491: The fight against the Hiss. Control is built in the Metroidvania format, with a large world map that can be explored at a nonlinear pace, unlike Remedy's previous titles which were primarily linear. As the player completes the main story missions, they will encounter areas known as Control Points, which can be unlocked after clearing the area of enemies and then used both as save points and for fast travel throughout

8954-440: The first use of "new weird" as a genre category in its introduction written by M. John Harrison. In 2003, Harrison created a forum post that sparked broader adoption of the term, asking "The New Weird. Who does it? What is it? Is it even anything? Is it even New?" and suggesting it may be a better alternative to the "Next Wave" label. The 2008 publication of Ann Vandermeer and Jeff Vandermeer's anthology The New Weird provided

9075-570: The front and back cover) longer than Argosy . Due to differences in page layout however, the magazine had substantially less text than Argosy . The Popular Magazine did introduce color covers to pulp publishing, and the magazine began to take off when in 1905 the publishers acquired the rights to serialize Ayesha (1905), by H. Rider Haggard , a sequel to his popular novel She (1887). Haggard's Lost World genre influenced several key pulp writers, including Edgar Rice Burroughs , Robert E. Howard , Talbot Mundy and Abraham Merritt . In 1907,

9196-409: The function of the Service Weapon, a special gun that can take on multiple forms, ranging from a close-range shotgun-like blast to long-range sniper-like form, with each form outfitted with various perks. The player can equip perks to improve Jesse's base attributes. Various side-quests and optional time-limited mission alerts are available with additional rewards if completed. An A.I. system known as

9317-664: The game 8/10 and praised the "gorgeous" art style, "fascinating" sets, "stylish" combat, though criticized the "confusing" map. Dave Tach of Polygon and stated, "I can't separate Control ' s deliberate oddities from its beauty or from its characters, and that's what makes it so easy to recommend." Michael Leri of GameRevolution gave the game 9/10 and praised the "fast-paced" combat, "intriguing" lore, challenging puzzles, cast, "beautifully constructed & destructible" environments, though criticized its "shaky performance on non- Pro consoles", "overly punishing" boss fights and long checkpoints. Michael Huber of Easy Allies gave

9438-560: The game 9/10 and stated it as an "incredible marriage of storytelling, world building, exploration, and combat", praising the "obsessive" attention to detail, ensemble cast and the protagonist. Mike Williams of USgamer gave the game 4/5 and stated, "The Oldest House allows Remedy to play with new ideas and variations on traditional gameplay, breaking up the shooting and superhuman powers with games of red light/green light and journeys through Alice in Wonderland -style mazes. The dialog

9559-459: The game a score of 88/100 and praised its "mystery, wonder, and glorious room-destroying combat", though criticized its "thin" protagonist and "abrupt" ending. Jonathon Dornbush of IGN gave the game 8.8/10 and praised the "engrossingly weird paranormal world", Jesse's "versatile psychic skills and main weapon", "strong" supporting cast, "well-written" script, though called Jesse's personal story an "afterthought". Peter Brown of GameSpot gave

9680-724: The game had sold over 4 million units, with over €100 million in revenue. By November, it had sold over 4.5 million units and reached over 19 million lifetime players. In Japan, the PlayStation 4 version sold 10,336 physical units, making it the 13th best-selling retail game during its first week of release. IGN chose Control as their " Game of the Year ", along with other awards including "Best Action-Adventure Game", "Best Video Game Art Direction", and "Best Video Game Story". Game Informer , Electronic Gaming Monthly , and GamesRadar+ also awarded Control as their "Game of

9801-584: The game's destructive environmental systems. The core game includes many allusions to Alan Wake , Remedy's prior game with similar paranormal themes, and Control 's AWE expansion is a crossover between the two series, which Remedy has said forms part of the Remedy Connected Universe. Control was among the first games released to utilize real-time ray tracing built into the hardware of newer video cards . Upon release, Control received generally positive reviews from critics, with several gaming publications naming it among their top games of 2019. The game

9922-490: The game, as the concrete walls would be used in lieu of a target object when the player throws debris at foes via telekinesis, and the initially pristine spaces end up showing the results of a large, destructive battle. Among real-world influences in the game's architecture is 33 Thomas Street , formerly known as the AT&;T Long Lines Building, a windowless building in the center of New York City. Macdonald used this building as

10043-438: The game, thus well-suiting the new weird, according to world design director Stuart MacDonald. The design team's goal in using the new weird approach was not to create terrifying moments as one would do in a horror game, but instead create a continuing sense of dread for the player. The everyday objects that would become Objects of Power in the game were selected to be within the concept of the new weird. One such Object of Power

10164-498: The game. In January 2021, The Art and Making of Control , a companion book about the development of Control , was published by Future Press. Remedy announced in June 2021 that they signed a deal with 505 Games to develop two additional games based on Control . One will be a "bigger budget" follow-up to Control , while the second is a smaller, four-player co-operative spin-off, codenamed Condor . In November 2022, Remedy affirmed

10285-405: The genre. J.A. Weinstock's summary of Steph Swainston's response to the 2003 forum discussion sparked by M. John Harrison as "exercises in worldbuilding characterized by a heterogeneity of sources, genres, and details" and "particularly eclectic; mixing modern street culture with ancient mythology." According to Jeff and Ann VanderMeer, in their introduction to the anthology The New Weird , the genre

10406-971: The genre–Ace, Dell, Avon, among others–were actually started by pulp magazine publishers. They had the presses, the expertise, and the newsstand distribution networks which made the success of the mass-market paperback possible. These pulp-oriented paperback houses mined the old magazines for reprints. This kept pulp literature, if not pulp magazines, alive. The Return of the Continental Op reprints material first published in Black Mask ; Five Sinister Characters contains stories first published in Dime Detective ; and The Pocket Book of Science Fiction collects material from Thrilling Wonder Stories , Astounding Science Fiction and Amazing Stories . But note that mass market paperbacks are not pulps. In 1991, The Pulpster debuted at that year's Pulpcon ,

10527-448: The janitor Ahti. Remedy's Sam Lake said that he had been yearning to add his native Finland to one of their games, and Control presented that opportunity to incorporate this. Among these pieces is a Finnish tango which Lake wrote, Petri Alanko composed, and Suosalo sang. The game includes a voice cameo by Hideo Kojima and his English translator Aki Saito; in one side mission, a recording by Dr. Yoshimi Tokui, voiced by Kojima, relates

10648-518: The main game with Jesse taking on her role as the FBC Director. However, at the time of Control ' s launch, the specifics of this content had yet to be determined, according to narrative designer Brooke Maggs, as the team's focus was on addressing performance issues for the console version of the games. "The Foundation" released on 26 March 2020 for PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows and for Xbox One on 25 June 2020. The second expansion "AWE"

10769-682: The majority of pulp magazines were anthology titles featuring many different authors, characters and settings, some of the most enduring magazines were those that featured a single recurring character. These were often referred to as "hero pulps" because the recurring character was almost always a larger-than-life hero in the mold of Doc Savage or The Shadow . Popular pulp characters that headlined in their own magazines: Popular pulp characters who appeared in anthology titles such as All-Story or Weird Tales : Pulp covers were printed in color on higher-quality (slick) paper. They were famous for their half-dressed damsels in distress , usually awaiting

10890-476: The members of Trench's management team, whom she helps secure the production of more HRAs. Marshall reveals that Dylan, known to the Bureau as Prime Candidate 6 (P6), was being groomed to succeed Trench as the Bureau's director due to his immense supernatural abilities. However, after killing several Bureau agents, Dylan was deemed too dangerous and locked away in the Containment Sector. Jesse rushes to

11011-598: The most durable revival of Weird Tales began in pulp format, though published on good-quality paper. The old format is still in use for some lengthy serials, like the German science fiction weekly Perry Rhodan (over 3,000 issues as of 2019). Over the course of their evolution, there were a huge number of pulp magazine titles; Harry Steeger of Popular Publications claimed that his company alone had published over 300, and at their peak they were publishing 42 titles per month. Many titles of course survived only briefly. While

11132-519: The most popular titles were monthly, many were bimonthly and some were quarterly. The collapse of the pulp industry changed the landscape of publishing because pulps were the single largest sales outlet for short stories. Combined with the decrease in slick magazine fiction markets, writers trying to support themselves by creating fiction switched to novels and book-length anthologies of shorter pieces. Some ex-pulp writers like Hugh B. Cave and Robert Leslie Bellem had moved on to writing for television by

11253-515: The movement's early momentum is attributed to British writers. Magazines such as Interzone and The 3rd Alternative (currently known as Black Static ) provided publication opportunities for genre-fluid writers of science fiction and horror. The 2000 release of China Miéville's Perdido Street Station marked the entry of what would later be called New Weird fiction into mainstream consciousness with its critical and commercial success. The 2002 publication of Miéville's novella The Tain contains

11374-498: The new director of the FBC in Trench's stead. Exiting Trench's office, Jesse is attacked by FBC agents possessed by an entity Jesse dubs "the Hiss". Jesse learns that the Oldest House is under emergency lockdown following the Hiss's spread, and that everyone in the building has been possessed by the Hiss except those wearing Hedron Resonance Amplifiers (HRAs), devices built by missing Bureau scientist Dr. Casper Darling. Jesse agrees to aid

11495-467: The number of control points, or "hard" checkpoints in the game where saving the game is possible, including adding ones before boss fights, as well as several "soft" checkpoints where players can restart without having to travel back to a control point should Jesse die. A new "assist mode" was also added to allow for the player to have more control on customizing the game's difficulty, with Remedy intending this to make it possible for novice players to complete

11616-421: The onset of the game, an entity called the Hiss is attempting to cross over through a dimensional barrier into this reality and has taken over numerous parts of the Oldest House, reconfiguring its architecture to its needs, as well as many of the FBC employees to fight for it. The player controls Jesse Faden, who has come to the Oldest House seeking answers about her brother after a prior AWE, and becomes involved in

11737-414: The paranatural, it is larger on the inside than on the outside, and its internal architecture is prone to shifting and rearranging in unpredictable ways. The FBC is able to stabilize portions of the Oldest House for its use by harnessing nexuses of resonance called Control Points. The protagonist of Control is Jesse Faden ( Courtney Hope ), who is chosen by the Board as the director of the FBC to replace

11858-488: The player could review at their own pace. Another goal for the team was to create a game that has high replayability. They still stated that they wanted to make a strong narrative, one that is "narrowly focused" according to Kasurinen. The first concept down was creating the fictional FBC, a realistic setting that would serve as a basis for paranormal events and a catalyst for events in the story. This enabled Remedy to consider multiple stories they could tell, not just about

11979-402: The player use mission descriptions in their log and careful observation of the environment to figure out where to go next. This further led to the decision to only tell player critical information via some means, leaving the player to fill in the missing parts with their own observations and imaginations. They also wanted a fluid environment, where nearly any object in it could be used as part of

12100-403: The player-character but other individuals in the FBC, but this also created the challenge of how to present the stories of the other characters in the open-world format. The gathered writings of the fictional SCP Foundation ("Secure, Contain, Protect") website was a major influence on Control . Stories on SCP Foundation's site are based on singular objects with strange paranormal impacts, and as

12221-477: The player-character's telekinetic powers, so that the game world could be both a weapon to be used by the player, or a weapon against the player-character. To achieve this, Remedy replaced the Havok physics in their in-house game engine with PhysX , and improved their artificial intelligence to enable enemies to take advantage of these changes. Control is built using Remedy's proprietary Northlight Engine, which

12342-433: The pulp magazines of the early 20th century. These included Blood 'N Thunder , High Adventure and a short-lived magazine which revived the title Argosy . These specialist publications, printed in limited press runs, were pointedly not printed on the brittle, high-acid wood pulp paper of the old publications and were not mass market publications targeted at a wide audience. In 2004, Lost Continent Library published Secret of

12463-539: The pulps' market share, but it has been suggested the widespread expansion of television also drew away the readership of the pulps. In a more affluent post-war America, the price gap compared to slick magazines was far less significant. In the 1950s, men's adventure magazines also began to draw some former pulp readers. The 1957 liquidation of the American News Company , then the primary distributor of pulp magazines, has sometimes been taken as marking

12584-456: The recently deceased Zachariah Trench ( James McCaffrey ). Seventeen years prior to the game's events, Jesse and her younger brother Dylan (Sean Durrie) were involved in an Altered World Event in their hometown of Ordinary, Maine. After discovering an Object of Power in the form of a slide projector , the two children accidentally unleashed paranatural forces which caused Ordinary's adult population to vanish. Jesse and Dylan were rescued by Polaris,

12705-437: The sector to find Dylan, only to learn that he has escaped and surrendered to the Bureau in the Executive Sector. Dylan reveals to Jesse that he has embraced the Hiss, and that the Hiss entered the Oldest House through the slide projector Object of Power the Bureau recovered from Ordinary. Ahti, a paranatural entity who manifests as a janitor, gives Jesse a cassette player which enables her to navigate an elaborate maze protecting

12826-575: The sector. Jesse is summoned to the Investigations Sector by an apparition of Alan Wake, who otherwise was considered missing after the events of Alan Wake . She encounters Hartman and is warned by Frederick Langston that Hartman cannot be allowed to escape the sector. As Jesse attempts to traverse the Investigations Sector and destroy Hartman, she receives visions of Alan revealing that he was responsible for writing Hartman's escape into existence, using Cauldron Lake's power to influence reality using works of art. Alan also implies that his writing helped cause

12947-473: The slide projector's chamber in the Research Sector. She finds the slide projector missing, but learns that Trench and Darling used the device to enter an alternate dimension known as Slidescape-36, where they discovered an entity they dubbed Hedron. Jesse finds Hedron and discovers that it is Polaris, but moments later, the Hiss attacks and destroys Hedron. Jesse's mind is invaded by the Hiss, but Jesse

13068-434: The structure, while Tadao Ando 's focus on lighting and spiritual spaces were reflected in other parts of the game. Additionally, the design team turned to film for other inspiration. Films of Stanley Kubrick , particularly A Clockwork Orange , as well as films featuring oppressive government agencies, such as The Shape of Water , served as part of the design basis. Other films, like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , evoke

13189-536: The surviving agents in reclaiming the building and containing the Hiss, in exchange for Dylan's whereabouts. Using an Object of Power known as the Hotline, Jesse communicates with the deceased Trench and learns that his former management team knows the secrets of the Bureau. After lifting the building's lockdown in the Maintenance Sector, Jesse enters the Research Sector in search of Helen Marshall, one of

13310-464: The term pulp fiction in reference to run-of-the-mill, low-quality literature. Successors of pulps include paperback books, such as hardboiled detective stories and erotic fiction . Before pulp magazines, Newgate novels (1840s-1860s) fictionalized the exploits of real-life criminals. Later, British sensation novels gained peak popularity in the 1860s-1870s. Sensation novels focused on shocking stories that reflected modern-day anxieties, and were

13431-409: Was Control 's director and Sam Lake served as the game's writer and creative director alongside narrative lead Anna Megill. Development of the game began before the release of Quantum Break . As they were finishing Quantum Break and deciding on the next project, Kasurinen recognized that that game rested heavily on full motion video and other cinematic elements, and suggested they look at

13552-514: 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." The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions and updates were delayed until early 2021 in an announcement just prior to the consoles' launches in November 2020 to improve the quality of the product. Digital versions were released on 2 February 2021, and retail copies on 2 March 2021. The Ultimate Edition

13673-407: Was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls , dime novels , and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century. Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines were best known for their lurid, exploitative , and sensational subject matter, even though this

13794-540: Was also released for Amazon Luna on 20 January 2022. Cloud gaming -based versions of the game were released for Amazon Luna and Nintendo Switch on 20 October 2020 and 28 October 2020, respectively. It was the first cloud-based game released on the Switch outside of Japan. Control was released on Google Stadia in July 2021. Remedy affirmed plans for at least two additional content expansions to Control , titled "The Foundation" and "AWE", both narratively set after

13915-492: Was bundled with sales of graphics cards supporting the RTX technology. Nvidia created or hosted nine videos, including an exclusive gameplay trailer, to display the game's ray-tracing integration. In May 2017, Remedy announced that they had partnered with 505 Games to publish the game, then codenamed "P7". 505 provided marketing and publishing support and a fund of €7.75 million to assist the game's development, while Remedy retained

14036-404: Was but a small part of what existed in the pulps. Digest magazines and men's adventure magazines were also regarded as pulps. Modern superhero comic books are sometimes considered descendants of "hero pulps"; pulp magazines often featured illustrated novel-length stories of heroic characters, such as Flash Gordon , The Shadow , Doc Savage , and The Phantom Detective . The pulps gave rise to

14157-680: Was first used on the company's previous title Quantum Break . Control was one of the first major games to be released after the introduction of graphics cards that support real-time ray-tracing through DirectX Raytracing . It was the first major title with a nearly-full implementation of all available Nvidia RTX features along with support for Nvidia's DLSS for resolution upscaling on supported graphics cards. The game also supports more standard rendering techniques suitable for less powerful graphical hardware. Nvidia heavily promoted Control in its campaign alongside its first RTX graphics cards featuring hardware ray-tracing support. The game

14278-411: Was nominated for numerous awards, winning several related to the game's art and design. It had sold over 4.5 million units by November 2024. A sequel, Control 2 , was announced in June 2021. A separate three-player co-operative first-person shooter spin-off, FBC: Firebreak , is scheduled to release in 2025. Control is played from a third-person perspective . Control is set within the Oldest House,

14399-473: Was possessed by the Dark Presence. Hartman was subsequently captured and brought to the Oldest House by the Bureau, who attempted to contain him in the Investigations Sector. However, after Hartman breached containment, the Bureau was forced to abandon and seal off almost all of the sector. During the Hiss invasion, the Hiss mixed with the Dark Presence in Hartman, twisting him into a monstrous entity which haunts

14520-399: Was released on 27 August 2020, marking the game's first anniversary. Additional smaller, non-narrative content has been released. The first, "Expeditions", was released as a free update on 12 December 2019, and presents standalone missions of various difficulty with power-up items for their character. A free update, released alongside the "AWE" DLC but available for all players, increased

14641-851: Was that they paid upon acceptance for material instead of on publication. Since a story might be accepted months or even years before publication, to a working writer this was a crucial difference in cash flow . Some pulp editors became known for cultivating good fiction and interesting features in their magazines. Preeminent pulp magazine editors included Arthur Sullivant Hoffman ( Adventure ), Robert H. Davis ( All-Story Weekly ), Harry E. Maule ( Short Stories ), Donald Kennicott ( Blue Book ), Joseph Shaw ( Black Mask ), Farnsworth Wright ( Weird Tales , Oriental Stories ), John W. Campbell ( Astounding Science Fiction , Unknown ) and Daisy Bacon ( Love Story Magazine , Detective Story Magazine ). Well-known authors who wrote for pulps include: Sinclair Lewis , first American winner of

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