US vice president’s secret life in Remedy’s Control resurfaces

Maybe you’ve heard of Kamala Harris; she’s the current US vice president and very likely the Democratic party’s official presidential nominee for November’s US election. But now she’s firmly back in the spotlight, the mildly curious case of her secret life in developer Remedy’s 2019 action-adventure Control has resurfaced online.

You see, pinned to a whiteboard in an unassuming corner of The Oldest House – the transdimensional Brutalist office block at the heart of Control’s story – is a picture of a missing 40-year-old Bureau employee, Jane Farland, lost during one of the House’s shifts. Only, Photoshopped eyes aside, Jane Farland is the spitting image of Vice President Harris.

Harris’ surprise secret life as a fictitious video game character has been noted before – in this five-year-old Reddit thread, for instance – but the picture has started gaining traction again as Harris once again makes headlines thanks to her likely US presidential bid.

Unfortunately, the story behind the image is a little harder to uncover. Journalist Stephen Totilo tried to get to the bottom of it as part of his latest Game File newsletter, first pinpointing the image’s location to a whiteboard near an elevator in Control’s Central Executive hub.

Unfortunately, Totilo’s attempts to get a comment from Remedy on Harris’ appearance in Control have so far been met with silence (I’ve reached out to the developer, just in case it’s feeling chattier today), but the real answer is likely to be a fairly boring one.

The image appears to be an only lightly doctored official photo from Harris’ time as a US Senator. And given US government materials are generally in the public domain, Remedy would be free to use Harris’ headshot if it was Googling “US federal employee in a business suit” for its missing person whiteboard (notably, Harris isn’t the only real-life US senator who appears there). One eye-tweak later and – ta da! – another in-game asset is complete.

Still, if Jane Farland suddenly finds her way back to The Oldest House in Control 2 and she’s still got Kamala Harris’ face, then Remedy might have some explaining to do.