Control ARG

The **Control ARG** was an online promotional alternate reality game created by Remedy Entertainment to promote the upcoming release of *Control*. It began on December 20, 2018, and ended on March 26, 2019, and was primarily carried out on the official *Control* Discord server. The ARG revolved around a hidden code encrypted in three hexagon symbols inspired by the Hedron symbols in *Control*. The ARG led to the discovery of a hidden video featuring Casper Darling on the official *Control* website; additionally, the individuals who solved the ARG were listed in the credits of *Control*, with some even being named in the game itself.

## ARG

On December 20, 2018, Remedy Entertainment released the World Trailer for *Control,* featuring scenery from the interior of the Oldest House. One scene from the trailer (1:27) featured a hallway with a strange hexagon-shaped symbol on the wall. On the same day as the new trailer, Remedy did a live stream featuring Remedy staff and *Control* cast members including Sam Lake, Mikael Kasurinen, Courtney Hope, Thomas Puha, and Vida Starčević. This live stream featured a second hexagon on the wall behind the developers, situated above a brief Morse code segment written on a box. On March 1, 2019, Remedy released a third video featuring Courtney Hope in-character as Jesse Faden giving a tour of the Remedy Entertainment offices in Espoo, Finland. A final hexagon was featured in this video (3:57), for a total of three.

Fans determined that the three hexagons were meant to be some sort of code, but were unable to find a conclusive solution. Most speculation took place on the *Control* official Discord server run by Remedy Entertainment, with Starčević and other Remedy community managers serving as moderators. Progress on solving the hexagons was made through a collaborative effort between a small group of fans within the server's lore speculation channel. Fans were able to deduce a definite correlation between the hexagon in the live stream and the Morse code featured in the same video, but were not able to translate this into any conclusive sequence of numbers or letters.

On March 26, 2019, the official release date for *Control* (August 27, 2019) was formally announced with the release of a Gameplay Trailer. On the same day, the formatting of the *Control* official website was updated, and fans discovered that an icon of the Black Pyramid featured on the page was in fact a hidden link to a secret page known as the "restricted area." The page asked for a six-digit authentication code, which fans realized was encrypted in the hexagons. On the same day, a user on the *Control* Discord hacked the website and found the six-digit code before the ARG was formally solved. An actual solution to the hexagons was discovered hours later, with each of the hexagons correlating to two digits in the six-digit authentication code: 97C1A3.

In the summer of 2019, the restricted area of the *Control* official site was removed.

## Restricted Area

The restricted area page on the official *Control* website was labeled "Federal Bureau of Control - New York National Safety Headquarters". Below, the current date and time was listed. The user, addressed as "Doctor," was then asked to enter their six-digit authentication code. This was the code discovered in the ARG: 97C1A3. Upon entering the code, users were presented with a 48-second video featuring Dr. Casper Darling, a character from *Control*.

Following this page, the website noted that an "unauthorized log-in" had been detected and demanded the user's full name to receive valid Bureau authentication codes. No matter what name was typed, the site then stated that the user had been disconnected from the FBC network.

## Participants' names in *Control* credits

Upon the release of *Control* on August 27, 2019, the participants' names entered into the ARG website were featured in the game's end credits. Additionally, five participants were listed in a Collectible located in the Executive Sector detailing individuals who had breached the Bureau's online security (see Data Breach). The names listed in the credits are as follows:

* Patrick Streutjens
* Rubens Nogueira
* Arto Kolumäki
* Christopher Mills-Bowling
* Jaakko Saarinen
* Keira Copeland
* Haitham Haider
* Wihan Cahill
* Philipp Jensen
* Muffin Lord
* Alessa Miller
* Waseem Haider
* Sergey Malyshev
* Cosmic Monster
* Franco Santos
* Jarvis Callister
* Pasha Pavlyuh
* James Heller
* Cooper Klachan
* Sean Purnell
* Michael Madden
* Clare Livick
* Lucas Pessoa de Freitas
* Zachary Warfield
* Brett Francis
* Kyle Copeland
* Ari Arnbjörnsson