Control is one of those special, one-of-a-kind, games where its inspiration comes from obscure internet horror niches. Specifically, the SCP Foundation, which is a creative collection of stories about a fictional organization that recovers anomalies and anomalous objects. Control is one of my favorite games, even though it’s been sitting at 25% completed on my PS5 for the past year and a half. So when I discovered this relatively new ARG (Alternate Reality Game), the Field Studies Institute, I knew I might have to go back and finish Control.
The Field Studies Institute is a fully interactive experience with a website that has pictures, videos, audio, and even a text game. It also has the ARG staples of hidden pages that expand the story. Some participants even received actual real objects pertaining to the story. At a leisurely pace, everything visible on the website might take you up to 8 hours. However, if you want the deeper story, it might take you longer. I’ll be reviewing the first part of section 00.interior_overture/”, up to the entry “employee_log_02/”.
The Field Studies Institute starts us off by entering the website. It was a bit overwhelming for me to see all these different entries and I started just clicking things at random. There were different dates for a lot of the entries and none of the names made sense. So I clicked on the second entry to see what was going on because the title “employee_log_01” caught my eye. We then meet two Field Studies Institute employees: L. Ashford and T. Novak. T is the newest night shift employee and Ash is giving them a rundown on how to actually do their job. Very helpful for us, the audience, because there’s a lot of information that we need to digest.
I’m not sure what Ash and T’s actual job is, just that they work in the archives department. But in this instance, they got a memo from, whom I’m assuming is their boss, Ennis. Ash tells T the steps to do this job, they need to take anything analog from the archive bins they received from Ennis and make it digital. They then assign IDs and transcribe text descriptions. Ash lets T know that everything is internal and that nothing is transient yet. Ash and T then start to digitize the bin they received from Ennis. Ash remarks to T that nothing in the bin they received is transient yet, but there is an old reel-to-reel that is something to take note of. Ash will start, which is how we got our first entry “/018209_halycon_violation,” to which T asks the question we all want to know. What the fuck is going on with these names?
Going back to the first entry that Ash input in the databank, I watched this Field Studies Institute employee orientation video explaining how the Field Studies Institute recovers transient objects. This video definitely feels like something that Casper Darling would make in Control. While reviewing the next few items before “employee_log_02,” I definitely feel the SCP Foundation's scientific reporting style; they even have the infamous redacted. These entries include a bug that dies very quickly, a field research testing instrument, and a briefing of “Project SOMA” which was created by the Department of Defense. We, the audience, find out that at the end of Project SOMA that the remaining five members made the Field Studies Institute. Finally, you get some backstory on what this place is and why the Field Studies Institute operates.
In “employee_log_02,” Ash lets T know that the reel-to-reel tape that was in the bin is for sure odd, and even Ash isn’t sure what to make of it. Thankfully, we finally get the rundown on why the naming conventions are like that for the files. Ash tells T that the dude who ran the archives in the mid-90s just had a list of words that the files come from, and now all the file names have to come from the list. She goes on to tell T that the guy just jumps to different departments (which is a huge no-no) and that he doesn’t show up for work for periods of time. Unfortunately, something unexplainable happened to T, causing him to not even react to the information.
While I can’t help but feel like Control and the SCP Foundation were the main inspirations for the Field Studies Institute, the creators have definitely made the Field Studies Institute feel like its own separate story and world. This fun and relatively new ARG has many more mysteries and hidden pages to find in the investigation. And now, with the third batch that has just come out, I will definitely be working through that. So, I implore you that you go forth and explore the world that the Field Studies Institute has to offer. And maybe I’ll pick up the PS5 controller again to finally finish Control.
