Fans of Remedy Games hoping to pick up its newest game, Control, over the holidays were surprised to hear Thursday morning that Xbox boss Phil Spencer confirmed the game was coming to the Xbox Game Pass subscription service. At the time, it was a surprise to everyone, as Spencer likely revealed the news unaware that it wasn't public knowledge. In a surprise twist, however, the team behind Control has since made an official statement clarifying that the news about Control coming to Game Pass was incorrect.
The official ControlRemedy Twitter account, which could be run by Control publisher 505 Games, made the following statement: "The information about Control coming to Xbox Game Pass as reported on a recent Mixer stream is incorrect. We have no news or announcements regarding Xbox Game Pass at this time." The message leaves a window open for Control potentially coming to Game Pass in the future but the developers have nothing to say about that possibility today.
It's clearly an unfortunate situation for all parties involved. Phil Spencer was likely either misinformed or spoke mistakenly during his Mixer interview and only wanted to bring attention to Control. Remedy and 505 likely only want to ensure that the game continues to be successful through the holiday season, regardless of whether it does come to Xbox Game Pass afterward. Everyone is likely hoping that there are no negative ramifications.
What's perhaps most surprising is that this is the first major case where a Game Pass announcement has been messed up, with likely negative consequences for the game in question. Xbox has done a great job of keeping Game Pass games secret until their announcement, thus ensuring sales of those games continue up until the agreed-upon announcement date. Odds are that, with the proliferation of subscription services offering free games, this kind of thing will happen more often.
Right now, there is no explanation for the confusion. Perhaps Xbox did have a partnership with 505 and Remedy Entertainment to bring Control to Game Pass. It's also possible that there was no such partnership, or that the partnership has been canceled due to Phil Spencer announcing it early.
Perhaps 505 isn't even worried about the situation, but has to quash the rumor for now due to its PC exclusivity contract with the Epic Games Store. In a perfect world, Control will still sell exceptionally well through the holiday and will then come to Game Pass in the mid-winter.
Control is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.