Control’s Narrative Designer Talks About Handling A Female Protagonist

There’s a lot that fans of Remedy Entertainment will find in Control that’s pretty familiar. While the game definitely is quite the departure in a lot of ways for the famed developer, it takes bits and pieces from their previous titles in one bizarre package. Something totally new, however, is the fact that the game has a sole female protagonist.

In an interview with OnlySP, Narrative Designer Brooke Maggs talked about how the studio handled Jesse. One thing she highlighted is that while Jesse is front and center, it was important to also have other women in the world of Control, with one mistake people making in (well-intended) representation is having a female or minority lead, but surrounded by men and non-minorities. It’s an interesting look in how they chose to handle things.

“I love that Jesse is the active female protagonist but she’s also not the only woman in the world,” says Maggs. “I think sometimes we play games and we’re like ‘this is great, there’s a main female character’ and then the world around her is largely male; whereas Jesse has Emily Pope to talk to and Helen Marshall, we even met another character, [Dr.] Underhill in the research sector who is very much doing her own thing quite confidently. It’s cool to see there’s more than one woman in the Bureau. Also, the Oldest House and the Bureau of Control, we’ve made quite clear, have largely been operated by men for a very long time.”

Control is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. To check out our review of the game to see what we thought of it, head on over here.