Control Publisher Tries to Explain Its Free Next-Gen Upgrade

In case you missed it last week, publisher 505 Games announced that a new version of the popular [...]

By Rollin Bishop

In case you missed it last week, publisher 505 Games announced that a new version of the popular video game Control called Control Ultimate Edition would release for current and next-gen platforms. The new Ultimate Edition includes both The Foundation and AWE expansions for the game as well as all of the content updates since release -- and folks that purchase Ultimate Edition for the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One will receive free, next-gen upgrades. That's led to a bit of confusion as it means that anyone that has just purchased the thing as it's come out will not get the free upgrade, and now 505 Games has tried to explain why.

"We spent several months exploring all of our launch options for Control Ultimate Edition and no decision was taken lightly," today's statement reads in part. "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," it continues. "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."

In short, the free upgrade just is not going to be available to anyone that doesn't purchase the Control Ultimate Edition thanks to a myriad of factors that 505 Games doesn't really get into. That said, the same statement confirms that players will still be able to play the original Control and its expansions on the PS5 and Xbox Series X thanks to backwards compatibility.

Control Ultimate Edition is set to release on PC via Steam on August 27th and will come to the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on September 10th. It is set to be released for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X by the end of 2020. You can check out all of our previous coverage of Control right here.

What do you think about the next-gen upgrade explanation? Are you still looking forward to picking up Control Ultimate Edition? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!

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