It is news these days that Control,the new title of Remedy and 505 Games, has not recorded a great sales success despite the excellent opinions of critics, including ours. The game does not appear in the ranking of the 20 best-selling games inthe USA in August, and even in the European rankings did not have better luck placing behind older or less important titles.

Add to this a study by the TrueAchievements website which, on a statistical basis of 500,000 Xbox subscribers, recorded that, on the day of the game's launch, only 20% of players were released by Remedy Alan Wake. had unlocked at least one goal, and the situation is even worse when compared to Quantum Break,compared to which only 14% of players unlocked at least one target at launch (obviously for AW and QB they only looked at the numbers of the day of situation has not improved much in the weeks since. This means that, in trueAchievements' player pool which is still statistically significant, buyers of the title were many fewer than the other works of Remedy, about 80% less.

These figures are confirmed by the US sales results: the absence of Control in the Top 20 strides against the non-exhilarating results of Alan Wake, who debuted in eighth place in May 2010 (but it is to be said that he clashed with the launch Of the Red Dead Redemptionbomb), and Quantum Break,which started at number seven on the NPD chart. And you have to consider, moreover, that Control is a cross-platform title, so it starts with a wider catchment area than previous Remedy titles.

It seems that the title of the Finnish company has disrespected the expectations of the Italian publisher 505 Games, which has certainly invested a lot in its first AAA title. What scenarios are now in place? It is very likely, as is the case with many non-high-sales single-player titles, that the game may suffer a drop in pricein the coming months, with major discounts on the major digital and physical stores.

But there's also another possibility: to increase the popularity of the game and maximize its user base in view of the paid expansions expected in 2020, it is possible that 505 Games decides to bring the game to Xbox Game Pass; it would not be the first time for the Italian publisher, which has already seen its titles Abzù, Brothers: A Tale of Two Songs and Laser League arrive in the service of Microsoft. This could, however, find an obstacle in the marketing partnership that the game has with Sony; It remains to be seen how long this deal will last and whether it allows, in the meantime, the arrival of the title on Game Pass.

Beyond all else, however, the stock's poor commercial performance is absolutely unfortunate news. they should try, but also because it perpetuates the belief that games of this kind, with exclusively single-player stories, no longer have much space in the modern market. This news, finally, casts a shadow over the future of Remedy Entertainment,which struggles to demonstrate the commercial viability of its visionary works and may not find new funders for games of this kind so easily in the future.

If you've never played Control,however, run to read our review in which we explain why we consider it a title to have for all fans of story-driven adventures!