Control Resonant Resonates Responsibly

With a Remedy game, you can always count on seeing something you’ve never seen before. The studio has built its reputation on surreal storytelling, striking visuals, and ideas that feel unlike anything else in the medium. Control Resonant, the sequel to the excellent Control, continues that tradition while taking some surprisingly bold risks. It swaps protagonists, overhauls the combat system, and expands the structure into something closer to an open-world action RPG. The good news? Most of those risks pay off.

After a lengthy “previously on Control” recap, players find themselves in the shoes of Dylan Faden, Jesse’s “troubled” brother. Following the opening where the Hiss decide to play a lil game of Escape the Oldest House, chaos spills out into Manhattan, and Dylan is suddenly thrust into the odd situation of helping the organization that imprisoned him for so long. Along the way, he meets Zoe, who fills the familiar “voice in your head” role for much of the adventure. While she accompanies Dylan physically early on, most interactions happen over the radio. It’s a surprisingly effective dynamic and, honestly, an improvement over some aspects of the original Control. Zoe’s voice provides a welcome sense of grounding when the world inevitably descends into complete supernatural madness.

What’s New FBC?

Several familiar faces return, including Pope, Darling, and a few FBC veterans, but their relationships with Dylan are filtered through an entirely different perspective than Jesse’s. That shift gives returning characters fresh context and helps the sequel carve out its own identity rather than simply retreading old ground.

Dylan himself ends up being one of the game’s strongest assets. Without venturing into spoiler territory, Control Resonant spends considerable time exploring what happened to him before and during the events of the first game. The result is surprisingly emotional. For a character who once seemed destined to be a side character in Remedy’s universe, Dylan emerges as a sympathetic and genuinely compelling protagonist. Some of the game’s biggest story moments hit hard.

One of the more subtle storytelling successes comes from Dylan’s relationship with the Federal Bureau of Control. Early in the game, fellow soldiers openly mock and distrust him as he passes by. By the midpoint, those same soldiers are cheering him on and treating him like one of their own. It’s a small detail, but it effectively shows how both Dylan and the organization evolve over the course of the story.

At roughly 24 hours in, I still haven’t reached the credits, which speaks to the game’s size. There’s certainly no shortage of content here.

The Manhattan Patterning

Like its predecessor, Control Resonant adopts a semi-open-world structure, though it’s far more expansive this time around. The game is built around a series of interconnected hub areas where players complete story missions, side quests, and various objectives for the FBC. Dylan retains familiar movement abilities such as hovering and dashing, and the increased emphasis on traversal gives the game a greater sense of freedom than I expected.

In fact, traversal becomes one of the highlights. Soaring between rooftops and chaining movement abilities together occasionally reminded me of Infamous. While the game presents itself as open world, it feels more accurate to describe it as a collection of large interconnected zones. There are also strong Metroidvania influences throughout such as regularly encountering blocked pathways and inaccessible areas that can only be reached after acquiring new powers later in the game.

Each zone introduces unique enemy types (somewhat), collectibles, and progression systems. Completing missions raises that area’s Zone Level, unlocking perks such as increased health drops, improved vendor access, and skill points. Those points feed into the game’s RPG systems, while fast-travel locations gradually reduce some of the travel burden. It’s worth noting, however, that fast travel is restricted to specific access points rather than being available on demand.

Paranatural Melee

The biggest departure from the original game comes through combat. Rather than focusing primarily on gunplay and telekinetic powers, Control Resonant embraces a melee-focused combat system that feels somewhere between a hack n slash and a light Soulslike.

If you’ve ever wondered what Control would look like with melee combat at its core, this is essentially the answer.

Thankfully, the game leans more toward fast-paced hack-and-slash action than punishing Soulsborne encounters. Dylan can equip multiple primary and secondary weapons alongside an arsenal of supernatural abilities. Weapon types feature different damage profiles, attack patterns, and crowd-control options, allowing players to customize lengthy combo chains to suit their preferred playstyle.

My preferred setup consisted of dual daggers paired with a massive drill weapon and fist-based finishers, creating a mix of critical-hit potential, stagger effects, and raw damage output. The system’s greatest strength is how much freedom it gives players to mix damage types within a single combo sequence. Different damage categories contribute to a stagger meter that eventually causes enemies to falter, opening them up for devastating finishers.

The customization offers solid depth, though one aspect feels awkward. Switching loadouts mid-fight requires pausing the game entirely. During one boss encounter that constantly alternated between one-on-one duels and multi-enemy skirmishes, I found myself repeatedly pausing to swap between single-target and area-of-effect setups. It works, but it hurts the flow of combat.

There is also an extensive perk tree, although many of its upgrades never felt particularly impactful. Later tiers place significant emphasis on summoning lil buddies, and I rarely found summons useful enough to justify investing heavily in them. Fortunately, managing upgrades is quick and convenient thanks to Dylan’s “Gap,” an instantly accessible hub where he can upgrade abilities, test builds, and customize equipment without loading screens.

Each region also features a major Resonant boss encounter. Defeating these bosses resets enemies throughout the area while serving as major progression milestones. Visually, the Resonants are creepy and yet beautiful, embodying the bizarre artistic sensibilities Remedy is known for. Unfortunately, they rarely posed much of a challenge in my time.

The optional Fault encounters fare better. Completing these not only offers worthwhile rewards but more story content and also unlocks additional powers for Dylan. They’re technically optional, but I’m not sure how you could beat the game without completing them.

The Backtracking

Unfortunately, this is where the negatives come in

For context, I’ve spent nearly 100 hours with the original Control and completed it multiple times. I adore that game despite its flaws. That’s why it’s disappointing to say that Control Resonant often feels like a step backward in terms of quest design and some other areas.

The biggest offender is the backtracking.

At times, it borders on comically frustrating. The game repeatedly sends players back to the same locations multiple times in succession, often with little narrative justification beyond padding out travel time. It’s not uncommon to spend thirty minutes completing a mission, get redirected to another NPC, and immediately be told to return to the exact same location you just left. There was one stretch where four consecutive story objectives repeatedly funneled me back into the same area over the course of a couple hours.

Side quests often suffer even more. Many boil down to lengthy fetch quests that involve traveling across the map, discovering you don’t have the required item, returning to a previous location, and then retracing your steps all over again. Normally I can tolerate this kind of design, but the sheer volume of it eventually became exhausting. I’m someone who always 100% a game, but I found myself ignoring some side quests here.

Traversal issues further compound the problem. While new powers unlock worthwhile shortcuts, there are numerous areas where progression feels unnecessarily restrictive. Certain routes only function in one direction, forcing lengthy detours even when the destination is visibly only a few feet away. Combined with frequent backtracking, exploration gradually became less exciting and more frustrating.

This is especially disappointing because the world itself is fascinating. More than once I spent over thirty minutes trying to figure out how to reach a location that seemed directly in front of me. Mystery and exploration are valuable, but confusion isn’t always fun.

Combat also begins to lose its impact over time. Early on, the weapon variety and customization systems create the illusion of tremendous depth, but after the first few hours, enemy encounters become increasingly predictable. While enemy types vary visually, most fights play out in very similar ways. Eventually, I found myself sprinting past many combat encounters altogether.

One area where Remedy deserves enormous praise is accessibility. Control Resonant offers one of the most comprehensive accessibility suites I’ve seen in an action game. Players can customize incoming damage, outgoing damage, enemy health, enable god mode, or effectively turn the game into a one-hit-kill power fantasy. Even better, these options don’t disable achievements. It feels less like a traditional difficulty menu and more like having access to a developer console.

Ironically, the one accessibility feature I desperately wanted was a clearer navigation option. There was at least one occasion where a “show me where to go” toggle would have saved me over an hour of frustration. To be clear, I’m not someone who usually opts for “plz show me the yellow line.”

TLDR

As of now, I’d give Control Resonant an 8/10.

For most of my playthrough, I was leaning toward a 9. The world, story, characters, and atmosphere represent some of Remedy’s best work. Dylan proves to be an excellent protagonist, and the studio’s trademark weirdness remains as captivating as ever.

But the final stretch has been dragged down by excessive backtracking, uneven quest design, and combat that begins to feel repetitive as a result. There’s an incredible game here, and at its best it’s easy to remember why so many people fell in love with Control in the first place. Getting from one great moment to the next, however, can sometimes feel like more work than it should.