Rekall plays no role in the outcome of the story
If it was real. With or without Rekall Quaid would've still got the message from Hauser telling him to go to Mars, meet Melina & the resistance etc.
shareI guess you could argue that the Rekall visit kicked off events much sooner than planned so Cohaagen and his hench-people were unable to control what happened. Also in the original short story there is no trip to Mars and etc, it's basically the visit to Rekall and another attempt to implant a set of memories that ends with a twist.
shareRekall did kick start things sooner than expected, as Cohaagen said "Perfect my ass, you pop your memory before we could active you, Richter goes hogwild screwing up everything I spent a year planning, frankly I'm amazed it worked".
shareIf you belive the story ACTULLY happened. Rember the small line by the Recall assistant "This is a new one 'Blue skies on Mars' ".
That one line (probably the most important and most missed line in movie history) changes the whole complextion of the believablity of events.
Sorrymissed your if it was real