Control has up to five Weapon Forms that you can unlock and upgrade while exploring the FBC building. Purchasing these weapons can be costly, so it’s natural that you might want to know what the best Weapon Forms in Control are ahead of time so you don’t waste money on something you won’t like.
First let’s get the cop out answer out of the way: whatever weapons you like best and play best with are the ones you should buy and upgrade first.
There’s no PvP meta or anything like that in Control that you have to worry about. So just buy ’em all and then try ’em all.
Finally, if you haven’t unlocked all the Weapon Forms yet, be sure to check out our guide for how to do just that.
If you’re looking for recommendations though, below we’ve ranked our favorites from least useful to best.
Control: Best Weapon Forms
5. Charge
Charge is kind of a niche weapon despite how cool it is and fun it is to use. It essentially is a rocket launcher and can fire up to three rockets at once once fully charged.
However, the pathing of the rockets can be unpredictable and the explosion radius isn’t as big as it looks. Plus, it has a long reload time and the charge time means you’re a sitting duck for a few seconds.
In tight spaces, it’s very easy to accidentally blow yourself up, and in big spaces it can be hard to land shots.
For a big target with lots of HP, it’s honestly better to work the Evade-Shatter-Launch combo to take them down rather than hanging back hoping you hit enemies with Charge.
The one use we found for it is that it’s quite effective at bringing down large packs of flying enemies that can sometimes be annoying to hit otherwise, assuming you can time out the connection well. It’s also not bad for taking out packs of enemies from far away if you’re truly afraid of getting too close.
4. Pierce
Pierce is the closest you get to a sniper rifle in Control, but in practice it functions more closely to a hand cannon of sorts.
This weapon form does extremely high damage, more so if you can land headshots consistently. Pierce will easily one-shot all but shielded enemies and other large and powerful foes.
However, Pierce has a high skill ceiling as it has a very high recoil and can only fire a couple of shots before needing to recharge.
If you know you’re not going to consistently land headshots with this weapon form, don’t pick Pierce.
If you can though, you can mix extremely high damage headshots into your attacks that will be particularly useful for enemies with high HP like bosses.
3. Spin
Spin is pound for pound one of the most reliable and powerful weapons at short to medium range. If you slowly tap fire, it can hit enemies further out, although it’s not ideal.
Up close Spin rivals the damage that Shatter can put out, and it’s more forgiving to use as you don’t need to be as accurate with it as projectile spread isn’t a factor with Spin.
Where it shines over Shatter is that it can hit enemies with that same kind of intensity at medium range too and it’s one of the best weapon forms in Control that you can use on pesky flying enemies, provided you have the accuracy for it.
There are two weaknesses with Spin that you have to keep in mind though.
First, it runs out of ammo quite quickly if you’re just spraying and praying. You have a lot of shots, but if you’re missing most of them you’re not going to have a good time. Thus, Spin is particularly great versus enemies with lots of surface area to hit as a result.
Second, like we’ve been alluding to, it’s not the most accurate weapon and can get a bit unwieldy if you’re holding down the fire button. That said, if you can control this weapon, and Control its fire you’ll be rewarded with high damage.
2. Grip
Grip is the first service weapon form you get in Control and it’s the most reliable and easy to use form you’ll have available to you all game.
There isn’t a situation where Grip is useless, but there’s also not really a situation where it is the best either. It is very accurate, effective at any range, has high ammo capacity, but does just okay damage.
If you can consistently land headshots, and mod it to enhance headshot damage, then its damage can reach higher levels too.
It functions essentially as a great sidearm weapon and is a solid and versatile companion weapon to have if you have a favorite out of the other five that you like to use most of the time. It will cover you in any situation that any of the other four weapons can’t.
Given the lack of solid long-range weapons, if you’re not a crackshot with Pierce, Grip is a go-to weapon for long range then.
1. Shatter
Shatter is extremely effective at close ranges and will do a ton of damage to any enemy in the game as long as you can safely get in close. Think of it as a shotgun essentially.
Clear off any shields with Launch first, and then rush in and start blasting away with Shatter which has a surprising amount of available shots before needing to recharge considering the high damage it can pump out.
If you can funnel enemies into a tight enclosed space you can pick off large groups one by one very easily.
The more abilities you unlock to protect yourself, the better Shatter becomes. You can Shield to rush into the fray, Evade enemy attacks, Launch debris to bring down shields and then just rain Shatter shots over and over again, creating more health elements than you’ll need to survive the shots you end up taking.
There were hardly any situations in my run through of Control where I didn’t want to use Shatter. While I cycled through the other four depending on the situation, I always had Shatter ready to roll for when the coast was clear to dive in and start blasting away.
The only drawback of Shatter is an obvious one: the range. Shatter has terrible range, so definitely make sure to pair it with something that can hit enemies at medium to long distances.
That’s all you need to know about the best Weapon Forms in Control. For more tips and tricks for Control, check out our wiki guide. And for our thoughts on the latest from Remedy, check out our fully scored review.
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