Control Explained - Who is the Former? [Spoilers] 

One of the most unique and fascinating game's I ever played.

What an amazing/horrifying game/challenge

god finally someone covered this. there's something so much bigger going on here in regards to the former and other than this video no one seems to acknowledge it at least not in much depth. there's just something so creepy about it about how hush hush the board is about it it's basically begging to be explored.

The fact that Remedy would hide this in a side quest made me love them so much more. I seriously respect games that reward the observant player.

I love this game so much. Makes me feel scared and incredibly curious at the same time.

In the dlc called "The Foundation," the rift between the Former and the Board is explored in more detail, but still leaves us with way more questions than answers.

SPOILER: Former said in the Foundation dlc that it was once part of The Board, but was removed from them, as it was blamed for something unknown. I believe there will be more to the history & relationship between The Board & Former revealed when AWE expansion is released.

I just finished this game and I'm sad. I'm not a videogame addict but I adored this. Unique masterpiece, I loved the lore, I think they developed the parallel universes theme in the best way I've seen. I just discovered this channel and I've seen there are looots of video about CONTROL. Happy bout that. This is a real cult game, I'll really miss it

I played again this game and I have an interesting theory about the Board and its creatures: based on what Jesse said to Emily about the Former, "a bug like creature", I personally think that every (or at least most) of the Board creatures are like the Former: giant, bug sized and with too much arms. This theory came from what Dylan said to Jesse when he met her for the first time: he felt Polaris in her head and said "You are a worm through time". Maybe he was referring to the Board, a group of creatures like worms that had always protected humans from other dimensional creatures...

It becomes very interesting when you find the former start helping you in the DLC. And the board has so much to hide from you. More questions have been raised!

I know I’m 2 years late but anyone notice after defeating Marshall in Foundation, when you walk back out to where the Foundation pillars are, you see FORMER in the distance before he disappears? Such a cool detail if you’re paying attention.

I wonder if you're interested in covering this "speech" of the Hiss. This is still one of the most mysterious moments in the whole game for me, yet no one seems to ever talk about it. All that can't just be a random set of words. Or can it?

The board is a group of entities, but it sounds like one distorted voice, maybe the leader of the board is talking. And I really like the / in almost every sentence of the board. As Jesse says: "maybe we will never understand, maybe we don't need to"

Well I'm now less confused. Thanks.

IMHO Former is one of the previous Directors, Ash presumably, as Northmoor is a power generator right now.

It may be that Jessie perceives the astral plane through the Board's filter. So they make her perceive the Former's area as corrupt, whereas their own looks pure.

Guess what The Former is back in the DLC.

this game is seriously one of the best and most unique ever made.

Funny how I just found your channel after beating the new expansion 'Foundation' and you actually ended up calling a few things right! This is a really great detailed lore video and you definitely got yourself a new sub. Always nice to find another big Remedy fan, they don't have enough people making videos about the stories of their games honestly, especially for how good their games are! Looking forward to seeing your video about the DLC when you get a chance to play it!

Another Lucifer parallel is that the name actually means "light bringer". It being an entity in a shadowy realm with a bright light for what I can only assume is its eye. Part of Lucifers fall was that he could no longer stand in the light, thus his realm is dark and shadowy. Not saying he is meant to be evil, just that the parallels are obvious.

the Former was one of my favorite boss fights from that game. figuring out you can launch the black orbs back at it was such an awesome moment

I really liked this game, I couldn't put it down. I wish there were more games like it

The Former is definitely gonna be in Control 2. I had the same conclusion theory that it used to be a board member who got fired based off of reading the Journals. Theres alot of objects of power & altered items that continue to escape P4,5,&6 of the jail. Some have gates closed too that will be explored in the sequel game. The reason I think the board doesn't want Jesse to pursue the former is probably because the former has the ability to take people from one plane to the next and it's not sure 100% as to whether the people that the former takes from one plane to the next automatically kill them or they get transported somewhere else or does he create some sort of energy that the board feels like they can use obviously they're protecting him because he has some sort of high importance for them otherwise they would want Jesse to kill it and what's ironic is you fight him twice in the game but he still manages to escape so he's a really powerful being. Former is the Gatekeeper of a very different version of the astral plane ✈ & without it existing that plane may be closed forever or for a long period of time. The Board knows this and for unknown reasons want to keep that plane open and available even at the expense of lives. This is why the Board is stuck between a rock and a hard place with the director.

My first time not referring to the Former as the moon man (he throws “moons”) 💀

just wanted to thank you for covering this game, I think you're the only one that's doing so. this game just leaves me clueless and having someone eli5 is a bless lol

Nothing scared me more in all of horror gaming then when I touched that damn fridge.

Ngl i love the manner in which the board/former communicate, giving you the meaning/hint/intention in the same sentence so there’s almost no may to misinterpret concepts which have no exact/precise words in any language

Great video! I've been loving your videos as of late and I'm quite surprised that you haven't blown up yet! Regardless, keep up the good work!!!

Hey, haven't you noticed that by the very end when you climb up the cliff to the crossroads after the final ritual is completed, and you have the vista of the foundation pillars stretching to your left, you can see the former looking at you in the distance from between the pillars! EDIT: Ahh, i haven't realised this video is probably pre dlc and because i was late to the party i completed the main game and the dlc in one go which kinda made me forget the last part was dlc since they merge so seamlessly. Pretty sure we will learn more about the former in the future.

I find myself wondering if The Former has any sort of connection to The Darkness. On a surface level, it shrouded the otherwise blinding white Astral Plane in darkness, and there's numerous mentions of increased AWE and altered items "over the last 10 years" which goes back to Bright Falls, and together it could make something.

Great work as always. I suspect we will learn more about our one eyed friend in the foundation DLC, although in true Remedy style it will probably generate more questions than answers. I remember when playing I always liked the idea of there being a conflict in multiple dimensions, while we were busy fending off the hiss in physical reality the board also had to deal with presumably an attempted coup in the astral plane.

Your voice is soothing and calming. (Just had to say it)

i think the astral entities are speaking their normal language while simultaneously playing pictionary with Jesse as a way of translation, searching her mind for images of ideas they can use to communicate. i think that the subtitles are images shes seeing or they're looking for the words she uses to describe those images. the former doesn't do that at all until the foundation. i wonder if he wasn't able to until she allowed him to. at first he's always violent, but in the foundation, maybe the former realizes that they both want the same thing, protecting the nail and fixing the locks. i think the former was cast out over a small argument and may join the board again if Jesse makes them have a meeting and discuss their differences

In the Foundation DLC, in my interpretation it is actually foreshadowed that the Board may in fact have some sinister intentions, or at least questionable objectives. Jesse can't fully understand what the Former is trying to tell her, but it is obvious that it is trying to tell us something about the Board. On one hand, it could be that the Board is a representation of order and is trying to stop chaos from spreading into the universe from the Astral plane. On the other hand, the Board appears to be the creator of the Service Weapon which has been used throughout history in different forms (See item description for Service Weapon) to basically control humans and bend them to their will. It also appears to corrupt the minds of some of the Directors who are bound to it, making them dangerous. Interestingly , the game is named "Control" possibly for this very reason.The Directors are all essentially being "controlled" by the board against their will. While I certainly don't think the Former is "good," it is worth mentioning that The Board may actually be the greater evil in the grand scheme of things

Excellent analysis and hypotheses!

i never hated a fridge this much...

Will you be doing a follow up video on the former soon? I really love your videos and would like to know your thoughts on the former now that the dlc for control is out

And yet, somehow I got the impression that the Former helped Jesse to acquire the second Shape ability during the events in the Foundation because it doesn't want the Board to fall. If it has a nefarious agenda of its own including stealing and influencing Altered Items, surely it would be best helped if the Board is destroyed and the Board's dominion over the Astral Plane or the part it presides over is ended, right?

thanks for putting so much time into this. I've been looking for help into diving into the lore and hidden stories. Great work!

Dammnnnn watched this ages ago and now it has almost 120k views? Lucky you!

9:32 the former isnt one entity. If you play the foundation there is a another former and it actually talks to you in an understanding language.

Since you recently addressed Chester Bless and the Blessed organization, I have a hypothesis. That the Former is the boss/overseer of the Blessed organization who has empowered them to create AIs. Its intervention is why the Board exiled him. It seems it wants to propagate the use of AIs in the world, and the Board wants to limit this, as shown when criticizing jesse for accepting power from the Former. Perhaps the Board was trying to protect Jesse because they were concerned that too many OoPs would overwhelm her like Northmoor.

The former reminds me in many ways about Lucifer: they both are fallen from above, they both are corrupt, they both change the meaning of previous established symbols. I know that religions are similar to each other, so Lucifer will almost surely have its correspondent in other believes

I remember the fear I felt when the Former made its 1st appearance. Unknown things like this are by far my biggest fear but I also love it.

It was also talking to Theodore ash about the board when he found the little pillar with the eyes

I’ve only really watched your videos but just spitballing could the former have anything to do with that blessed group providing a service of making altered items or changing effects for the worship it needs for nourishment? I want to preface that I’m new to this and have no idea what I’m talking about lol

I assumed that Jesse could understand the Board because the Service Weapon acts as a sort of conduit for them and helps Jesse sense their meaning, but Former, not being on the Board anymore, can't channel its communication through the Service Weapon.

Former might be my favourite character in the game, probably. Especially after the Foundation. But there's so much mystery about it even my own thoughts about it are impossible to know for sure :D

I know this video is old as the hills now but I think the Former is an abstraction of Thomas Zane. His visual design is eerily similar to the "To Its Shores I've been" scene at the very start of Alan Wake and considering that it can change the literal meaning of Objects of Power, the implication to me is that Zane is revising his draft of the Alan Wake story during Control (who is then revising his draft of the Control narrative, if we're all in agreement that Control is a tale Alan is spinning inside the Dark Place, seemingly supported by Alan Wake 2 but I havent played Alan's story yet in that game so if the order if any of this revision is actually mentioned there, my bad).

Thank you. Just subscribed. Hi from Serbia. :)

lol imagine how insipid a plastic lawn flamingo or a cold food box with crude drawings must seem to a being like that. I can't help imagining it being all like "I can't believe I have to do this, this is so humiliating..." (on the other hand maybe it gets a real kick out of it because they don't have anything like that where it comes from. Or just doesn't understand them at all). But then maybe the Former (and the Board for that matter) are themselves just trying to "eat." Dr. Ash calls them "parasites," which makes me think they're deriving some kind of metaphysical sustenance from the Oldest House's connection to the collective unconscious (their connection to the House isn't as old as they claim, but their existence might be relatively recent as well if that's the case). I get the feeling the Former split with the Board because it felt the Board was overdoing it somehow and wanted to take a softer, less intrusive and manipulative approach to getting fed. Or maybe the other way around. But if the Former were genuinely inimical to the wellbeing of humanity and the Bureau I feel like the Board would have tried to communicate that that and not just said "don't believe its lies," which suggests it's capable of at least making the case it's the goodguy. But I wonder if the rest of the board is of this same "species," or if a giant headlight cyclops worm spider is unique to the Former and the rest of them all just look like whatever, reflecting their conceptual individuality, and like one might be more avian, one might be more humanoid, one might be a train, or a slice of pizza, etc. Or maybe they don't have a conventional body at all and the Former only assumed that shape for the very first time once it left.

My only gripe with this video is the bit about the pentagram, I think it should be more clear that this is the common belief yes, but it represents more than just the “evil stuff” tied to it.

I kind of got the sense that The Former might have been implied to be Trench. As in 'the former director'. Not really up to date with Control's lore anymore though. It's been a hot minute since I've played it

when the former says he is happy whe visit him I cried so much he is so cute 😭

Knowing the events of the DLC, I would hypothesize that Former represents those parts of the unconscious that keep traces of trauma and are shut out from our consciousness. When we can't understand them, hide them and push back, they do a lot of harm. But reintegtaing them and getting to know them may actually get us more resources and be very helpful, the thing that happens in the Foundation.

Can I just point out that the FBC‘s overtime-policies contradict the theory of Relativity? If someone spent time in an alternate dimension, that time happened regardless of whether or not the same amount of time has passed in the „home“ dimension. Just like time that passes differently during a space flight also definitely happened.

hey uhm how do you know the fridge is called artic queen ? also how did you get that "adventurer" outfit

I enjoyed this game, but the map navigation, puzzles and controls were quite frustrating. The lore is great though. I'll keep watching videos like this because I don't have time to go through all the files found throughout the game.

The change in the collective unconscious as a cause is interesting, though I would argue that the collective unconscious is probably a factor but unlikely the only factor w.r.t. the power of AAs. Also, changes in collective conciousness including the interpretations of symbols happen all the time, often very rapidly.

great vid

You don't have to shoot it... It has a peaceful dialogue with you then

I feel like I remember seeing The Former in the background of a scene, maybe in one of the DLCs?

I think the former is latching onto these items to survive, or to get back at the board, or both

I would have guessed the nail and fake nail are what allow the.. I suppose not. The nail did break.. did they have trouble connecting them?

is there update version due to Former appearance in new DLC and have much more lore about it

I have a theory to why the board doesn't want us to beilieve or trust what the Former says, it might go with everyones theory but it's deeper than that. When we first encounter the former, what it said to us was a bunch if symbols(symbols have letters and meanings,im pretty sure our great buddy here will explain it). After we beat it the first time, the board says not to trust it or believe any of it's lies. In a hotline call...they explain that the former was a member but was fired due to unknown reasons(that will later on be explained). Then in another Hotline call for something else, the board was a little piss that Jesse had question what their goal was so they said, if the directive ever questions them, disobey them, or abuse the O.O.P, the directive will cease to live/exist. The former knows things about the board that we don't

For me it's a shame that great side story coming out from fridge is not explained more enjoyable in game itself, same as the main story. This game has the most enjoyable combat of the games I've ever played, I hope that they will make combat and puzzles like that

I just finished it, and it was an amazing but a horifying journey. If you are kinda megalophobic this game can make you feel anxiety. I braved it tho and wow.. Sometimes it's a cosmic type horror, almost lovecraftian.

What if the astral plane where the Former is located is a black void instead of a white one because it is contained within the black pyramid as a form of prisoner? In which case the Board would not only know of Jesse's interactions, but view them firsthand from their own perspectives.

I wonder if we can compare: The former vs Shades vs Hiss to each other. They all exist in darkness and I wonder if that means darkness thresholds will be formed .. or already exist ..

But we know the pyramid isn‘t the only basis for communication, as Polaris is able to do it as well, as are the Hiss in their way.

The foundation DLC is out now and... it's going to make you reconsider your stance on the former...

I just want to point out… the name of the Former and it’s linking with the pentagram could imply it’s seeking to return altered items to their “former” state… just as the pentagram was formerly a holy symbol. Expanding on this, maybe the Board’s choices of energy infusion are the cause of the corruption, not the Former; which I might add would be a very Remedy thing to do.

I'm not sure the Board/Former can make Altered Items. I think humanity's subconscious does it, and our subconscious is linked to the Astral Plane. The Board/Former can turn an AI into an OoP once it's linked to the Astral Plane, or perhaps they can't even do that but just hijack an OoP and claim they're responsible for it. Has the Service Weapon/Excalibur always been tied to the Board? The slide/projector is an OoP wholly disconnected from the Board, for example.

How did you un-redact the files?

5:51 what your totally saying makes complete and utter sense! Except one missing element, ash jr spoke of 11 IDs in one of his media's. Could the 11 IDs (been the formers) have been former directors that were fired? That's what I think. If you go into the executive office with Emily on the back wall there is 14 directors on the wall and one missing frame photo.

Can you make a video that talks about the significance of jesse being p7 having connections to the religious significance of the number 7? Coz that would be cool. like. There are 7 heavens in some religions, there are 7 deadly sins, and 7 connects to astral theoretical psychology. But that's just a theory, a game theory

Seems like an ex-employee, right? We know that. Probably she was opening the fridge door to keep cool, thinking it was only an odd curiosity with the unbreakable drawings. It sat there while being studied, and was being used by employees thinking it benign. Then as she would stand there with the door open, she could hear the voice of Micheal, who had jumped inside during the building collapse for safety. So they get to talking and a supervisor notices her wasting electricity and for playing with an altered item so frivolously (as well as other infractions like his lunch continuously going missing once put in the fridge) she gets fired. But she is Michael's only friend, so he convinces her to go inside. She gets hot flashes and detests the heat, which is why she afterward goes straight for the pink flamingo to control the weather. She is manifest as a giant whispering eye because that's how her secret PK ability worked and allowed her to converse with Micheal in the first place. Call it a motherly instinct of you will. In Control 2 they will return as a duo, hell bent on making her former supervisor melt in a scorching heat and reunite Micheal with his lost mother, returning from the astral plane the same age he was when he vanished. Or maybe he finds she already died and decides instead to stay with his new surrogate mother, and they retire to somewhere that is almost always nice and cool/cold.

I alwazs thought the former either was the former intelligent entity/inhabitant of the astral plane before the board or a failed/former director himself, who maybe got into a clinch with the board, so now they recruit new directors from another plane basically, so humans instead of maybe other lifeforms/entities

How do you see the hidden text in memos in control I have level 6 clearance but still can't see all text in memos

Are you going to further explain this, since we have more information about the FORMER from the new DLC?

Former Reminds me of a Combine Advisor

Possiblity: the former is the reason why the hiss happened, and the board made Polaris

Now that I've finished the Foundation DLC, doesn't The Former play a part in that too? Namely getting Jesse access to the 2nd of two powers to manipulate the environment (either destroy or create)? You can then leave peacefully after getting the 2nd power, or fight The Former a 3rd time. This time on a narrow path that keeps getting destroyed during the battle so you need to keep retreating.

I gave this game a 6.5/10, but then I got the levitate ability 9/10

Other possibility: the Former may not be a more negative influence than the rest of the Board, just different.

I still have a doubt, I'd be greatful if you could shed some light on it, Question: why would board ask Jesse to not believe the lies of the former when infact she can't understand what the former is saying. Why is the board under the impression that Jesse can understand the former? If your theory about "filtering " is true, then board must be aware of the fact as they are the one who are filtering...

I never thought of the Formers area as a corrupted part or version of the astral plane. I though that it was just very far/below the area the Board is in.

He comes back in the Foundation, and it was weird.

Omg he freaked me the hell out when i saw him, omg.

While this was before the dlc that made it more clear there are plenty of hints before then that the board is not really good guys. The negative slant you give the former really ignores this. The altered items the former links being aggressive should not be seen as proof of this. Simply because many AIs have killed ppl, even those clearly linked to the board. It's possible that how an AI manifest to humans isn't fully under the control of the Astral being linked to it. As for it attacking Jesse. She was attempting to take control away from the former. Control that it seems to be in its struggle against the board. So it fought back. More so equating dark to curroption is a bit silly. Since the only part of the astral that we see (outside the former areas.) is what the board holds domain over the blinding white might not be is natural state.

For all those who have been asking, here is the supplement since this was released before the Foundation DLC was even announced. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-usnvyptj_90.html

Hi After the foundation dlc I am confused even more Who are the board ? Good or bad ? Black pyramid ? Good or bad ? The 1st directer ? Good or bad ? Former ? Good or bad ? Hiss good or bad ? ( yes I am this confused )

Its confirmed we will get Control 2 after Alan Wake 2 is done

What if “mother monster” types like Mold-1 were also part of The Board at some point? 🤔 or even The Clog

underrated

Really love the name word play. Sadly, the language I played the game in only had the (matter) former meaning.

Isn’t the former in the foundation DLC? Does that change things?

Why would the FBC want to “bind” unconscious energy? Newbie here but wouldn’t an organization like this find OOP’s and such in the world and collect it to safely “unbind” it at the oldest house? Why not? Thoughts?

I think former is a cool dude