Control: AWE Reviews

Control: AWE is ranked in the 67th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
Aug 27, 2020

CONTROL‘s second and final expansion raises more questions than it answers. AWE is a great on its own, I just wish there was more to it. It feels like it’s going to do bigger things with this crossover, then doesn’t. So I feel like Remedy set expectations a bit too high with this one. AWE is still incredibly well written, has great main and side stories, and the unique gameplay changes things up in clever ways. With the Remedy Connected Universe in motion, things are now falling into place, and AWE gives a glimpse into the future of Remedy’s games and universe at-play that we’ve never seen done before. After all, it’s not a lake… it’s an ocean.

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8 / 10.0
Sep 5, 2020

AWE may be a teaser for the next game in the series, but that would be disregarding the fact that the contents of the DLC are very well put together. In any case, we got a taste of what a Control game would be like when it enters the realm of Cauldron Lake. I, for one, can’t wait for what’s next in the story of Allan Wake and the Federal Bureau of Control.

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Lee Mehr
Top Critic
8 / 10
Sep 27, 2020

Control: AWE leverages Remedy's lineage to make one of the best expansions of the year.

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8 / 10.0
Sep 15, 2020

Control: AWE offers an enjoyable two-hour romp that fans of Alan Wake are sure to love, even if it doesn’t make the most of the source material in all elements of its design. Sure, battling Dr. Hartman and the darkness is great, but I’d have loved to have seen a bit more of Alan Wake’s world woven within the experience too. Still, with its brilliant blend of gameplay mechanics and countless nods to Alan Wake, Control: AWE really is quite special. It might only really appeal to those that played Alan Wake before, but, as a big fan of the title myself, it has left me very excited for the future of Remedy’s shared universe.

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8 / 10.0
Oct 3, 2020

It’s great to see the Alan Wake connection grow, and the mysteries of the oldest house are always a delight. While the AWE expansion doesn’t do much to change the core mechanics of the game, it does offer a new area to explore, a new weapon, and a delightfully demented antagonist.

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7.8 / 10.0
Aug 28, 2020

If you're waiting for Alan Wake to take a stroll in the corridors of the Oldest House, you might be disappointed by AWE. But if on the other hand what you're looking for is to shed a light on Alan's misadventures, face familiar foes and play an instrumental role in the writer's path to freedom, and also have an excuse to dive back into Control with new tools to play with, AWE is the right DLC for you.

Review in Italian | Read full review

7.5 / 10.0
Aug 28, 2020

Control: AWE is good in that it's more Control. But it feels like it was leaning a little bit too hard on being a teaser for its Alan Wake connections and the Remedy Connected Universe, which hurt its ability to be a really fun and engaging expansion for the Control side of things. For as brief as the expansion is, much of the runtime feels like it's just spinning its wheels and never really going anywhere. I'm always happy to step into the shoes of Director Jesse Faden again, but AWE never gains its own identity as anything more than an interactive MCU-style post-credits scene; a lot of set up that we'll need to wait years to see payoff. But hey, now you can replay the Ashtray Maze while you wait.

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75 / 100
Sep 1, 2020

AWE is like a bridge to establish the connection between Control and Alan Wake. The DLC, which we can consider as the first step to Remedy's Connected Universe plan, is satisfactory. It's a good DLC package, though it offers less than The Foundation as new content.

Review in Turkish | Read full review

7.5 / 10.0
Sep 1, 2020

Control’s AWE Expansion doesn’t do much to innovate, but it doesn’t need to. It continues building on the already strong combat encounters of the original game whilst adding a small twist on that. The main draw is with the brilliantly crafted story that brings Alan Wake into the Control universe.

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70 / 100
Sep 4, 2020

In the end, AWE is another solid but lacking chapter of Control. The gameplay is fun, and a fantastic boss in Hartman is introduced. But there's not much more to it besides that. The new weapon form isn't necessary, and I'm not even sure it fits in the narrative.There aren't new abilities, and you're going to finish AWE pretty quickly. But detractors aside, I got two things I really wanted, more of Alan Wake and more of Control, which is all that really matters. Here's to hoping the Remedyverse has more of both for us out there.

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7 / 10
Sep 5, 2020

If you’re already a fan of Alan Wake, this is a brilliant experience that provides more juicy tidbits from the beloved property. If you’re new to Alan Wake, though, this is not the right starting point.

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7 / 10.0
Sep 3, 2020

Despite some flaws, AWE is a very good expansion that brings Alan Wake into Remedy's shared universe and teases exciting things for the future.

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7 / 10.0
Aug 30, 2020

Control’s AWE DLC reintroduces the world of Alan Wake, but he is only a very small part of the overall experience. It also adds a new ability, a new service weapon, a new enemy, and it’s more of the same Control that you already enjoy. Gamers buying AWE only for Alan Wake may be a little letdown, but it’s a good addition to the overall universe and mystery of the Oldest House with the wonderful promise of a very interesting future from Remedy Games.

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6.5 / 10.0
Aug 31, 2020

Alan Wake makes his official debut in Control in full force, delivering a very large helping of lore and storytelling that goes down great with the overall game experience. If only he had a brought a small side of new gameplay mechanics as well, because the formula remains pretty much the same.

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6.5 / 10.0
Aug 31, 2020

An integration of the Control and Alan Wake universes is an incredibly exciting premise on paper. AWE promises this as the final DLC for Control, but the execution doesn’t meet what was possible. At the end of AWE, I felt excited about any future exploration of these universes, but underwhelmed about what I had just played.

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6.5 / 10.0
Sep 3, 2020

Control: AWE admirably serves its purpose as a formal beginning to the Remedy Connected Universe and adds a few cool perks along the way, but fails to stand as a compelling Control expansion in its own right.

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6 / 10
Aug 28, 2020

AWE is full of fun lore tidbits linking Control to Alan Wake, but it underwhelms as an addition to both the latter's universe and the former's weird game world.

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Aug 31, 2020

Control's AWE Expansion will satisfy a lot of Alan Wake fans who have been theorizing for nearly a decade about what happened to the writer. While it does introduce some great ideas, you'll ultimately have to wait for whatever Remedy does next to get real resolution.

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6 / 10
Aug 27, 2020

AWE had a lot of potential and I'm sad to say that it's mostly wasted here. Most of what it offers is exactly the same as what players have experienced before and I found the new stuff to be equal parts obnoxious and tedious.

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GameSpace
Xevrin
Top Critic
6 / 10.0
Sep 4, 2020

Control's new AWE DLC is simply more Control. While it explores a new area of the building, it doesn't do anything new or expand on the lore of the first house directly. It does reveal officially how the 505 Games world setting interconnects, but that may not be such a good thing for some players.

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