Control

Control builds props from many pieces so they break where hit. Instead of only swapping an intact prop for a pre-broken copy, Control builds tables, chairs and concrete walls from many independently breakable pieces. A table breaks near the point of impact, and the broken pieces are joined by physics joints, so a table broken in half falls into two parts and collapses realistically.

The basic swap stores two versions of each prop in memory, an intact one and a broken one. Control goes further, so players see damage they actually caused rather than a canned animation. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 uses the simpler prefab approach, with an intact and a destroyed version of each building piece.

Control hides the seams of destruction with particles, material effects and decals. A particle effect plays when an object breaks, covering the change from intact to broken. Props are tagged as metal, concrete or wood so each plays a fitting impact effect. Decals such as craters and bullet holes make players believe they put a real dent in the wall.

The decals are the part that sells it: in Control they trick you into thinking you made a real dent in the wall.

Control sets the standard for readable subtitles. Its subtitles have big fonts, speaker names and high contrast backgrounds, and players can tweak them in a menu. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Metro Exodus do this well too.

Plain sans serif text beats on-brand fonts. Crackdown 3 and The Surge 2 have tiny subtitles, and Blasphemous's pixelated gothic font is a miss.

Control shows that strength in one accessibility area can be undercut by another. Control has huge subtitles but small UI text, so accessibility is uneven within one game. Options should be checked to work together and across the whole game.

Borderlands 3 shows a related failure: boosting both UI and subtitles makes text fall off the side of the screen. Days Gone's options arrived months late, leaving players waiting.

Control added an Assist mode after launch instead of one fixed difficulty. A later patch gave Control an Assist mode that changes everything from damage output to reload time. Remedy said it wants as many people as possible to experience the game the way they want.

It is an example of splitting difficulty into independent assists rather than one setting, as Assassin's Creed: Valhalla does with separate exploration, fighting and sneaking difficulty. It is also an example of patching in accessibility features in response to player feedback, like Among Us symbols and Jedi: Fallen Order's QTE toggle.