505 Games has issued an explanation surrounding the Control Ultimate Edition controversy, explaining why it “can’t offer an upgrade to everyone.” If you’re upset about the lack of a PS5 or Xbox Series X upgrade for current owners of Control, you’re not going to find any comforting answers.
“We spent several months exploring all of our launch options for Control Ultimate Edition and no decision was taken lightly,” 505 Games said in a statement on its forums. “While it is challenging bringing any game to next gen platforms, we quickly realised it was even more difficult to upgrade our current user base to next-gen with full parity across platforms with our year-old game.”
“Every avenue we pursued, there was some form of blocker and those blockers meant that at least one group of players ended up being left out of the upgrade for various reasons. As of today, we can’t offer an upgrade to everyone, and leaving any one group out feels unfair. We understand that is not what you want to hear.”
The explainer goes on to say that current owners of the game will be able to “enjoy an enhanced experience” on the PS5 and Xbox Series X. However, it also states that Control Ultimate Edition “[takes] full advantage of the power and features provided by these new consoles.”
505 Games’ announcement implies that there is going to be some kind of upgrade for Ultimate Edition players on the PS5 and Xbox Series X that won’t be available to current players, noting that it is doing “additional development” on Control Ultimate Edition for next-gen platforms.
So what does this all mean, ultimately? 505 Games’ messaging is frankly confusing here and fails to address the elephant in the room, not quite clearly stating the differences for players of each edition on the next-gen console. From what we’ve read so far, it seems that we might not find out if or how these two versions of Control will be different until the game is actually launched.
