During the deluge of new game announcements at The Game Awards this week, Remedy snuck in a free update for Control. This isn't the story expansion called Foundation due out early next year, though. Rather, Expeditions is a time trial mixed with a horde mode for Control players who just can't get enough of that telekinetic combat.

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Cautiously Optimistic

I'm not one of those players, unfortunately. I love the world of Control and exploring the Oldest House to unravel its SCP Foundation-inspired mysteries is one of my highlights of 2019. The combat, on the other hand, didn't do much for me. Slamming chunks of concrete into Hiss soldiers is delightful, don't get me wrong, but it never really evolves beyond that. A number of fights were downright frustrating in fact, so when I heard Expeditions was a new endgame activity in which you'd need to fight waves off to earn mods my pulse didn't exactly spike.

I've been playing it all night and I'm probably going to keep playing it tomorrow too.

Expeditions begins with an object of power called the Jukebox. When the Jukebox plays, it teleports anyone within earshot to another dimension that looks just like the quarry. The FBC periodically sends expeditions into this dimension to keep an eye on things, but the last one hasn't returned. To fix this situation, I guess, Jesse needs to run a gauntlet of objectives while fighting off waves of Hiss before the Jukebox stops playing and she gets pulled back into the Oldest House.

There are three difficulty stages, each rewarding better mods with less time on the clock. When the expedition starts, you need to complete four encounters in any order before time runs out. One might be to claim capture points while fighting off waves, and another might require you to scour an area looking for items while fighting off waves. You'll get incremental rewards for each encounter you complete, but if you're able to finish all four in the time limit, you unlock a cache of powerful mods that will help you in the next higher difficulty. If you die in any encounter, you have to start the entire encounter over without getting any time back on the clock.

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Reconsideration In Control

The objectives add a surprising amount of nuance to the combat for me. Giving me something to actually do while I fight off never-ending hordes of Hiss has managed to keep me engaged with the combat more than any battle throughout the main game. I wish death wasn't so punishing, as I haven't actually made it to the end of the second difficulty. If you have to start over even one encounter, it's likely you won't finish in the time limit. Learning the layout of the encounters and where the objectives help a lot, though. Even still, I'm sticking with it much longer than I thought I would.

Overall, I think Expeditions goes a long way to make combat more interesting by rewarding you for carefully planning your attack strategies and load-outs. I got through 99% of the base game just huckin' big rocks at guys, but in a few hours of Expeditions, I've experimented with a variety of weapon load-outs and mod builds. I still think the upgrade and mod system is lacking, but I'm pretty satisfied with Expeditions as far as endgame activities go. I didn't expect it, and I'm pleasantly surprised.

A PC version of Expeditions was used for this review. Expeditions is available now as a free update for Control on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

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