Ashtray Maze

The Ashtray Maze is a designed spatial phenomenon within the diegesis of Control (2019). Created by Remedy Entertainment as part of the game's reality‑bending location known as the Oldest House, it functions as a level and narrative set piece. Developers iterated on the sequence for an extended period and ultimately linked its traversable state to an in‑game cassette player and the song "Take Control," making the sequence both a gameplay obstacle and a music‑driven spectacle.

Presented as a series of corridors, passageways, and rooms in the Research Sector of the Oldest House. In its default state the corridors appear straightforward but repeatedly reconfigure when approached; passages close and new ones open until the player is returned to the entrance. When the sequence becomes traversable, hallways divide or rotate, surfaces move around the player character, and enclosed spaces expand into combat arenas populated by hostile forces.

As a gameplay architecture phenomenon, its primary behaviors are spatial reconfiguration and active denial of passage: corridors continually rearrange and redirect the player, preventing logical navigation and returning them to the entrance. Under a specific gameplay condition—when the protagonist receives a cassette player and headphones from the janitor Ahti and listens to the song "Take Control"—the maze stops obstructing traversal and instead opens choreographed routes forward, alters hallways and surfaces in time with the music, and becomes a combat set piece populated by the Hiss. These behaviors are described as properties of the game's shifting architecture rather than traditional supernatural powers.