How Control’s Ending Connects to Alan Wake

28 November 2025

If there’s one thing you can count on from Remedy Entertainment, it’s that their games love to get weird—in the best, most mind-bending way possible. We’re talking talking-lampshades, otherworldly dimensions, and stories so tangled you’ll need a red-string board to follow the plot. But what really got fans buzzing is how Control’s ending drops some cryptic—and not-so-cryptic—breadcrumbs that link directly to none other than Alan Wake.

Yep, that’s right. Jesse Faden, the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), the Hiss, the darkness, and Alan freakin’ Wake all seem tangled up in one eerie, shared universe. So buckle up, because we’re diving deep into the rabbit hole to figure out how Control’s ending connects to Alan Wake.

Welcome to the Remedy-verse 🎮

Before we get into the thick of it, let’s talk about the Remedy-verse (yes, that’s what fans are calling it). Remedy Entertainment has a knack for crafting standalone stories that secretly live in the same twisty universe. That means Max Payne, Alan Wake, Control, and potentially future titles... they're all tied together in some form.

Now, Max Payne might be off doing his own gritty-noir thing, but Alan Wake and Control? These two are practically hand-in-hand, skipping through the darkness together. And Control wastes no time teasing that connection.

A Quick Recap: What the Heck Happened in Control?

Okay, here's the deal. In Control, you play as Jesse Faden, who stumbles upon the FBC while searching for her missing brother, Dylan. Not a typical office tour, though. There are floating bodies, creepy red lights, and an entity called the Hiss messing everything up.

Eventually, Jesse becomes the Director of the Bureau (yep, on her first day—talk about fast-tracking your career). She learns about the Bureau’s role in investigating paranatural phenomena, known as Altered World Events (AWEs), often involving creepy objects of power and unexplained otherworldly forces.

By the end of the game, Jesse faces off against her brother, who’s been possessed by the Hiss, and takes a deep dive into the Oldest House—a shifting, reality-bending building that makes Hogwarts look like a studio apartment. It has connections to other dimensions… and other characters.

Enter Alan Wake: The King of Creepy Typewriters

Alan Wake is about a thriller novelist who gets stuck in a small town where the stories he writes start coming to life—emphasis on the horror parts. He’s haunted (literally) by a dark presence in Bright Falls, and he has to use light to fight it off while trying not to lose his mind.

Sounds trippy? Oh, it is—and it ties into Control in ways that made fans scream “I KNEW IT” at their screens.

The Smoking Gun: AWE DLC Drops the Bombshell

While Control already hinted at a shared universe, the AWE (Altered World Event) DLC swung the door wide open. You can’t really miss the Alan Wake references here—they're laid out like a neon sign.

This expansion literally takes you back to Bright Falls through FBC documentation and sequences where Alan himself narrates eerie scenes. The DLC reveals the FBC had been investigating the Bright Falls incident all along. Yep, our dear Alan Wake didn't just have a bad vacation—his nightmare was officially labeled an AWE.

And get this: they even have memorabilia from the event—like a cardboard cutout of Alan and pages from his manuscript. There’s even a moment when Jesse enters a dimension and hears Alan’s voice echoing from the shadows. Chills, right?

The Dark Place Is More Than Just a Metaphor

Here's where things get crazier than a cat in a laser pointer factory. The mysterious entity that haunts Alan in his game? It's called “The Dark Presence,” and it resides in a dimension called the Dark Place. In Control, Jesse learns that the FBC is studying this exact dimension.

So what's the big deal? The Dark Place isn’t just a spooky concept. It’s a literal space—a pocket dimension filled with storytelling gone rogue. And Alan, poor guy, is still trapped in it, rewriting reality like some cursed ghostwriter.

Control’s ending and DLC suggest that the FBC is actively trying to reach, study, and maybe even rescue Alan from this narrative prison. Suddenly, that flashlight seems a lot more important.

Jesse and Alan: Two Sides of the Same Paranatural Coin?

While Jesse's journey is about finding truth and controlling chaos (pun intended), Alan’s is about unraveling fiction from reality. But both are fighting supernatural forces they barely understand, using mysterious objects of power. See the pattern?

Both characters are caught in a battle against forces trying to rewrite reality itself.

And if that’s not compelling enough, both games use altered states of awareness, psychological tension, and the age-old "Am I losing my mind?" trope to pull you in. It’s like Remedy is weaving one giant Lovecraftian tapestry across multiple timelines.

Cauldron Lake: The Nexus of Weird?

Remember Cauldron Lake from Alan Wake? That’s the place where all the creepy stuff started. It’s heavily implied that the lake is a threshold to the Dark Place—a sort of backdoor to the very reality-warping dimension the FBC loves poking around in.

In Control, multiple FBC files directly reference Cauldron Lake as a high-priority site. The Bureau’s been watching it for years, even before Alan’s story kicks off. That means the Alan Wake incident wasn’t just a fluke—it was part of a much larger paranormal ecosystem that Control sheds light on.

And if Cauldron Lake is the center of gravity for all the wild activity, then Alan and Jesse are the two satellites slowly being pulled toward an inevitable collision.

The Bigger Picture: Setting Up a Remedy Crossover Event?

Now that the cat’s out of the bag (or should we say, the darkness out of the lake), what does this all mean for future games?

Well, buckle up. Remedy has already teased that Alan Wake 2 will continue this universe-spanning narrative. From what we’ve seen, it’s not a sequel in isolation—it’s a continuation of the events that spiraled out of Control (literally and figuratively).

Future titles could even feature Jesse and Alan teaming up. Imagine it now: Jesse with her Service Weapon and Alan with his flashlight, fighting off waves of corrupted entities in a reality-bending tag-team.

Marvel had the Avengers. Remedy’s building its own justice league of paranormal badasses.

Hidden Clues and Easter Eggs You Might’ve Missed 🕵️‍♂️

Remedy doesn’t do anything without sneaking in some juicy secrets for eagle-eyed players. Here are a few nods you may have glanced over:

- 📎 FBC case files reference Bright Falls, Cauldron Lake, and even Mr. Scratch, Alan’s evil doppelgänger.
- 📺 There are TV sets in Control that flicker with scenes from Alan Wake’s story.
- 📖 Jesse finds documents discussing manuscript-like reality shifts—eerily similar to what Alan experiences when he writes.
- 👨‍💻 There’s even a shared cast of characters behind the scenes. Some FBC scientists may have been involved in both stories.

These aren’t just cute references—they’re confirmation that the events are not only connected, but possibly simultaneous.

So... Are They in the Same Universe?

Oh, absolutely. Remedy’s not even subtle about it anymore. Control’s ending and AWE DLC are the “aha!” moment where the studio basically says, “Yep, we’ve been planning this crossover all along.”

And the fact that Control’s lore refers to Alan as an active but missing subject? That basically sets up Alan Wake 2 as a potential search-and-rescue mission with Jesse—or maybe a deeper descent into the Dark Place where the narrative rules break down entirely.

Either way, the Remedy-verse is here, and it’s only getting juicier.

Final Thoughts: When Worlds Collide, Things Get Awesome

Control’s ending is like the post-credit scene of a superhero movie. It changes everything you thought you understood and hints at something much, much bigger.

Alan Wake isn’t done fighting the dark, Jesse Faden still has questions that need answering, and the FBC’s secrets are only beginning to unravel. The connection between these two games isn’t just fan service—it’s a carefully planted seed for what’s going to bloom into a spectacular, twisted saga.

So next time you pick up your flashlight or levitate a hiss-infected enemy into a wall, remember: you’re part of something bigger. A Remedy creation that’s daring to create its own genre-defying, reality-warping, flashlight-wielding universe.

And man, we are so here for it.