The Control franchise has a lot of growth in its future. Remedy Entertainment is apparently working on two new games set in this universe, including a direct sequel to the original Control. It's great to see that Remedy is so enthusiastic about Control after the positive response to the first game, because there are still plenty of potential mysteries to solve and supernatural entities to battle. Jesse Faden may have been able to stave off the Hiss, but Control merely serves as her introduction to the world of the supernatural. Now that she's in the thick of it, Jesse is bound to experience even stranger things than the first game had to offer.
For Jesse, there's no escaping the supernatural now that she's the Director of the Federal Bureau of Control. Being the Director means answering directly to the Board, a league of extradimensional beings who advise and guide the Director; the Board is also the keeper of the Service Weapon. Control 2 has a lot of narrative options, but ideally the Board will get an even bigger role in the next game. The Board got a relatively small amount of screen time in Control, but the franchise lore implies that it has a much larger impact on the human world than fans may know.
The Board's Importance in Control
The first Control makes a big deal out of the Board, even though they're largely peripheral to the story. Throughout the game, the Board acts as a helpful force to Jesse in a variety of ways. It guides her through Astral Plane challenges that commence when she finds an Object of Power, and it provides information with the help of the Hotline. However, until the Hiss tries to destroy the Board with Dylan's help, it largely stays detached from the story, which emphasizes Jesse and her fellow human members of the Bureau. Thanks to that, many questions about the Board are left unanswered.
Control 2 shouldn't entirely explain the Board, of course, since part of Control's appeal is the sense of mystery created by unfathomable alien beings. However, it would be nice to get a slightly better sense of the Board's goals over the course of Control 2. Even though Control presents the Board as a strange, ethereal, and sometimes funny otherworldly force, it clearly has specific goals and desires, based on its pattern of seeking out humans who can handle the Service Weapon. If the Service Weapon really appeared as artifacts like Excalibur in humanity's past, then clearly the Board has been trying to accomplish things in the Control world for centuries, if not millennia.
Control 2 Can Expand on the Board
There are a lot of ways in which Control 2 could make good use of the Board. Jesse is an obvious vehicle for characterizing it in greater depth; with the threat of the Hiss dealt with, the Board might start giving Jesse new information and objectives that shed light on its intentions for humanity, its relationship with the Oldest House, its desires for the Bureau, and more. Depending on how Jesse feels about these tasks, she and the Board could experience some significant tension that propels the plot in new directions. The Hiss' animosity towards the Board is also a great way to incorporate the Board into the next game's story, since Control didn't specify why it tried to destroy the Board.
Control 2 has a lot of worthy human relationships to make greater use of, but it also needs to add more layers to Jesse's relationship with the paranatural. She may have solved her own paranatural mystery and reunited with her brother, but as the Director of the Bureau, Jesse is bound to face a lot of new supernatural mysteries that change the way she thinks about her new role. Mysterious characters like Ahti and the Board will be extremely useful in designing a new Control story full of inexplicable discoveries.
A sequel to Control is in development.
