How Control Actually Exists In Alan Wake’s Universe

Major Spoilers For Alan Wake, Minor Spoilers For Control

There is evidence to suggest Remedy’s games Control and Alan Wake take place in the same universe. The latest project from Remedy Entertainment, Control, builds on the foundations of the developer’s previous projects, from Max Payne to Alan Wake. The latter title, originally released in 2010 as an Xbox 360 exclusive, has a lot in common with Control, to the point where pre-release speculation suggested the games might be connected somehow, perhaps even sharing continuity with one another.

Now that Control is out in the wild, we’ve spent a lot of time playing the game and doing our best to uncover all the secrets of The Oldest House. The Federal Bureau of Control deals with unexplained phenomena throughout the world. It’s like if The X-Files were well-funded and Fox Mulder had complete authority over its dealings. When it comes to unexplained events, few compare to the premise of Alan Wake. A psychological thriller packed with wall-to-wall action and a seeming obsession with Twin Peaks, Alan Wake involves the eponymous writer finding himself in a fight for survival when his own writing begins coming to life… And that’s just the tip of the iceberg for the surreal, scary, empowering, and harrowing adventure.

The events of Alan Wake fit the bill of an AWE, or Altered World Event, which fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Control. It’s easy to speculate about whether or not Alan Wake and Control share a greater setting, but the proof is in the proverbial pudding, or coffee, in this case. With that in mind, Does Control Share a Universe with Alan Wake?

Control’s Alan Wake Easter Egg Explained

Initially, Control is its own, self-contained story, but the lore documents littered throughout the world show off the true scope of the universe at hand. Incidents involving Altered Items, Altered World Events, and Objects of Power happen all over the world, and extensive paperwork can be found all over the game world, shedding some light on these mysterious occurrences.

Fairly early on, a document can be found explaining an altered item which should look familiar to fans of Alan Wake: a coffee thermos. Players of that 2010 game surely remember the grueling optional task of collecting 100 such thermoses scattered all over the game world. Altered Items look like ordinary objects, like a cup, a floppy disk, a refrigerator, etc, but they possess unique traits that make them special, or even dangerous. This particular Altered Item, as described by the document, the aptly titled Thermos Procedures, is a blue coffee thermos whose coffee is always “refreshing and strong, no matter its quality before being poured into the item.”

At first, this seems like an innocent Easter Egg meant as an acknowledgement of Remedy’s past, but reading on reveals greater meaning, further connections which transcend mere fanservice. Control‘s Alan Wake references aren’t just winks and nods; they’re a full-on plot thread!

Evidence Control & Alan Wake Are In The Same Universe

The Thermos Procedures paper is more than just an Easter Egg. The document states it was found in Bright Falls, Washington. The town is said to be the site of an Altered World Event involving a man named Alan Wake. Obviously, this is a clear reference to the events of that game, in which Alan Wake becomes embroiled in a supernatural surreal mystery, thus confirming that Alan Wake is part of the greater universe of Control.

The document has another tantalizing detail: Alan Wake was considered for the Prime Candidate Program. The story of Control shows that Prime Candidates are people whose supernatural acumen is such that they are in the running to be the Director of the Federal Bureau of Control. Dylan Faden was Candidate P6, while player character Jesse Faden (Dylan’s sister) is Candidate P7. A bit of investigation in the Prime Candidate Program section of Containment reveals Alan Wake himself was considered to be a potential choice by the Bureau to be a future director, but those plans came to naught, since Wake disappeared after the Bright Falls incident. According to the report, Wake dived into Cauldron Lake and was never seen again.

The events of Alan Wake‘s DLC chapters and standalone expansion, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, are thus inferred to all take place within Alan’s time trapped in The Dark Place at the end of the original Alan Wake. Control states that a monitoring station was established at the lake, but the lack of any documentation afterwards suggests Alan is still trapped in his mysterious limbo.

Control, Alan Wake, and The Dark Place

It’s established early on that former Director Zachariah Trench can communicate, or at least send one way messages, to Jesse. He’s dead, but his essence still exists, and is often projected into the game world, visible only to the current director, Jesse. If Alan Wake and Control exist in the same universe, there is evidence this version of the afterlife is possibly connected to The Dark Place from Alan Wake. The story of Alan Wake, among many other things, involves the title character’s efforts to rescue his wife from The Dark Place. In the end, he does, but at the cost of putting himself in her stead. The game, and all its DLC, end with Alan trapped in The Dark Place.

For all the Easter Eggs and clues it’s provided to lore sleuths, the Thermos Procedures document still has more to give. In addition to the aforementioned information, the provocative paper also offers up the location of the Thermos itself: Floor 05, Unit 05 of the Panopticon. This isn’t just flavor text to add immersion; Jesse can actually go there. She has to use Levitation to bypass a large gap, but she can go there and find two Altered Items and a pair of documents. One Item is, of course, the thermos, but the other is far more exciting. It’s a Typewritten Page, and looking at it triggers a vision of Alan Wake himself, seemingly communicating with Jesse from The Dark Place. The visuals are eerily similar to the way Trench communicates from beyond the grave.

Could Trench and Wake be in the same place? Is it somehow connected to the mysterious Astral Plane or the numerous Threshold events throughout The Oldest House? Thresholds events are described in Control as alternate dimensions seeping through into our reality, and The Dark Place of Alan Wake is referred to as a Threshold in the Bright Falls Supplement document in Control. Is the afterlife simply another dimension of existence? Or is the entire multiverse nothing but fiction made manifest through a mix of the supernatural and pure willpower?

How It’s All In Someone’s Mind (Who is Thomas Zane?)

Just when things start to make sense, a new clue arises that throws everything out of whack. A common fan theory for Alan Wake was that the events of the game were all a fiction created by Thomas Zane, a poet and fantasy author. Variants on the theory suggest Alan Wake himself is a fictional creation of Zane, made real by his writing, or even vice versa, that Zane was written into existence across time and space by Alan Wake.

The audio recording found in Control, “Jesse Therapy: Polaris,” possesses certain… Implications. Jesse talks about a poem by Thomas Zane, “Beyond the shadow you settle for, there is a miracle illuminated.” It’s a quote from Alan Wake, attributed to Zane. However, the therapist claims there is no poet named Thomas Zane. She says there was a European filmmaker who moved to the United States in the 1960s by that name, but Thomas Zane is not an accomplished writer in the universe of Control.

What does it mean? If Alan Wake and Control exist in the same universe, why isn’t Thomas Zane a known entity in Control? Is Control set in a parallel universe where Zane isn’t an acclaimed poet? Then where is Jesse from? Perhaps, if Zane is a figment of Alan Wake’s imagination, his existence ceases to be while Wake is trapped in The Dark Place. The Therapy tape ends with a cryptic note from the doctor, who insists no progress can be made until Jesse can get a grip on “What’s real and what’s imagined.”

But there’s more. Maybe Remedy games are set in a vast multiverse, but said multiverse is based on human imagination, rather than science fiction. During optional conversations with Dylan, who has been deeply corrupted by The Hiss, he can tell Jesse of his dreams, of other realities. He talks about a figure named “Mr. Door,” who shows him other realities. One, in which a writer creates stories about a cop. Another in which the cop is real. Alan Wake wrote the Alex Casey novels, stories of a hard-boiled New York City cop. Alex Casey was clearly based on Max Payne, to the point where Payne’s actor, James McCaffrey (who also voiced Thomas Zane and Zachariah Trench), plays Casey in a brief cameo as a direct tribute to his role as Payne. Thomas Zane and Alan Wake are both trapped in The Dark Place. Maybe all of existence, all of the Remedy games to date, chronicle their attempts to write a scenario into existence that saves them from their unhappy fate. This is further hinted at when Dylan muses, of the various universes glimpsed in his dreams, “Maybe it’s all a dream,” followed by the ominous statement: “Maybe it’s all real.”

Conclusion

Remedy games are written in such a way that they have a definitive story to tell, but also a lot of grey space for fans to draw their own conclusions. Jesse and Dylan are brother and sister, but they both have unisex names and Jesse has knowledge (of Thomas Zane) that doesn’t seem to exist in her universe. Are Jesse and Dylan the same person from two different universes? For this reason, is Jesse herself an Object of Power? Another of Dylan’s dreams shows himself as a single person, Jesse Dylan Faden. Was Jesse Dylan somehow broken up into two people, Jesse and Dylan? By whom, and for what purpose?

Like in the best fiction, the search for definitive answers only leads to an exponential increase in questions. The lore of Control, and of the potential Remedy multiverse, is not a shallow lake, but a deep ocean. The answers aren’t easy to find, if they’re there at all, but it’s worth diving in to experience for oneself the richness and depth of the storytelling water provided by Sam Lake and his team at Remedy. One thing’s all but assured: Remedy has big plans for the future of Control and Alan Wake.

Control is available for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

About The Author

Zak Wojnar
(946 Articles Published)

Zak Wojnar is a writer from New York City. He’s covered everything from video games and movies to maple syrup and deli business. Thanks to Screen Rant, he’s discovered his newest passion, interviewing artists. He takes great joy in letting film and gaming legends tell their own story and share their passion for their art.
Zak’s first memory is going with his dad to Tower Records and buying the VHS boxed set of the original Star Wars trilogy. Over the next decade or so, those tapes would be completely worn out through overuse. When he’s not preparing for the next big interview, he can usually be found sitting too close to the TV, either re-watching Miami Vice or The X-Files, or getting lost in a video game.
Zak has bylines at Game Informer, Muscle & Fitness, PopCultureGalaxy, Men’s Fitness, Cheese Connoisseur, and Deli Business (see, that wasn’t a joke before!), among others.
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