Control Resonant Review

Paranatural phenomena, Objects of Power, and interdimensional threats all defying the laws of physics – developer Remedy has built its reputation on these kinds of concepts, and none more intriguing than the fantastic Control in 2019. The subtleties in its SCP-adjacent mysteries are what left a lasting impact, so in many regards, Control Resonant is an antithesis. Not only has the series moved from metroidvania-esque shooter to open-world stylish-action, it also goes for a more straightforward story focused on the lives of its characters. It's not always elegant in its action, and can even range from frustrating to somewhat dull in certain stretches. Still, I came away impressed by how conceptually consistent it is with Control while also being radically different. Remedy could've played it safe, but Control Resonant dares to be bold where it counts, with swings that land alongside some of this studio's best.

Control Resonant is centered around Dylan Faden, the brother of the first game's lead Jesse Faden, who backflipped into becoming the director of the Federal Bureau of Control, and it uses his perspective to fill in a lot blanks from the jump. He goes from being Jesse's tortured brother who was the subject of abusive FBC experiments gone awry to a fully formed character with thoughts, feelings, and dark memories he confronts as he tries to salvage whatever life he has left. He's treated as subhuman and initially seen as dangerous with superpowers he can't always control, but still volunteers to be a tool of the FBC with what's effectively a shock collar bolted onto the back of his head.

With this as the foundation, Control Resonant treats much of its paranatural conspiracy as a matter of fact. The Oldest House couldn't contain the Hiss outbreak as it spills into a New York City that's been folded in on itself in interdimensional isolation, which turns out to be a swift and effective setup as Dylan tries to find Jesse, who's been lost over the last seven years. And while this story does expand on what we know about things like the Hiss and AWEs, it resonates more as an exploration about what you would do in the aftermath of a life and world fallen apart.

Your search mostly comes in the form of physically dismantling paranormal entities and the monsters they spawn, which have filled the streets, with up-close and personal combat. Dylan himself contrasts with Jesse in that he plays fast and nimble with a suite of melee combos and abilities that he was specifically built for. Similar to Jesse's shapeshifting gun, Dylan's melee weapon called the Aberrant transforms into whatever form you either assign to it or combo into. The Aberrant can be a sword, scythe, hammer, or even a drill, but instead of equipping these as individual pieces of gear, it automatically swaps forms depending on whether you're doing a light combo chain, heavy attack, or a combo finisher. All of this can be customized to suit your preferred playstyle as you expand in power and capability through upgrade trees, giving a level of variability I appreciate.

The action is slick and responsive like a Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, with some of the platforming and momentum I miss from Gravity Rush or NieR: Automata. If I'm mid-combo but need to dodge immediately, I can cancel out of the animation with a dash/airdash and pick the combo back up so long as I don't get hit. Grasping this cadence of character-action is paramount because you will die a lot in the early hours. The kid gloves come off very quickly, and part of the difficulty is a consequence of not having many tools to pull from initially, but enemies hit hard and are oftentimes relentless with just how much they throw at you. It can be frustrating when you're on the verge of conquering a combat encounter, so there's an element of chaos management to consider.

Control Resonant's RPG edge is the equalizer here, offering progression and some build crafting through both Dylan's own skill tree and weapon upgrades paths. Some of my favorite powers were as satisfying as they were effective, like summoning a minion that I can throw like a massive bomb to inflict significant Falter damage (this game's stagger meter) and clear mobs of pesky Hiss. Once I unlocked the Ignite power that let me set weapons ablaze to quickly inflict Burn status and melt enemies into piles of Faltered targets to execute, the action changed significantly. Instead of feeling vulnerable and picking my windows of opportunity to strike, Dylan became the real threat as my Spin Edge combo and Hammer charge scorched anything that was once deadly. (It also helped that Ignite sheds off mold poison, which gave me so much trouble early on.)

There are status effects that are important to account for, but it did feel a bit like I had found the "correct" build. Even though that took away some of the need to be incisive in combat, I can't deny that it was pretty sweet to play things more like a hack-and-slash just by virtue of understanding how to wield its systems. So, the RPG aspect isn't quite as deep as it looks at first glance since your approach won't drastically evolve at a certain point and the combo system doesn't change much, but the fundamentals are there.

Combat is designed to encourage and reward aggression, with every killed enemy dropping health and each melee attack feeding back into the power meter you use for special abilities. That philosophy is also seen in the design of most encounters, which are primarily built around killing heavy enemies since they continuously spawn minions in the combat arenas that form as you explore. Trying to whittle down mobs is sometimes wasted effort, you just have to go for the big ones and treat the rest like obstacles or a way to replenish health if you can wedge a combo in there unscathed.

The handful of bosses you'll find in story quests, are quite striking and most of them play extremely well into the otherworldlyness of Control's phasing realities. Their attack patterns and movesets aren't anything out of the ordinary for action games of this style, but their unsettling and imposing presence is certainly seen and felt. However, encounter design is where Control Resonant falters most. Roughly half the bosses are spongy slogs that are less about testing your mastery and more about grinding out a war of attrition. Once you see their handful of tricks, you just have to rinse and repeat as you chip away at their health bar and hope you don't trip up in the repetitive cycle that it demands from you. A few later bosses also leaned heavily into aerial combat against faster moving targets, which was curious as its systems weren't exactly built for this type of encounter. Dylan can glide like using a hookshot, airdash, hover temporarily, and hit an air combo, but when you combine this with floating platforms and a targeting system that doesn't reliably agree with the camera, it chipped at my enthusiasm.

I kept pace with progression, which revolves around levelling up your status in each zone afforded by main missions and side activities alike. And I upgraded the Aberrant accordingly to raise its overall power level while seeking out optional health and power capacity upgrades judiciously. So, I didn't exactly feel noticeably underpowered for most of the 30-hour journey, and that makes hitting walls like these so jarring. I've loved the challenge that came with games like Sekiro or Devil May Cry V on Dante Must Die difficulty, and those deftly demand precise execution and sharp focus – Control Resonant doesn't always define challenge in interesting ways. It's undercooked in spots, but that doesn't sour everything around it. So frustrations aside, Remedy's first crack at this style of action combat is admirable because its foundationally sound and does have satisfying moments that the genre greats pull off.

Control Resonant strikes a delicate balance, letting the world itself take the lead rather than waypointing every little thing.

Where Control Resonant really shines is in the mind-bending, gravity-defying world Remedy built for it. You're not going to find your local bodega in the Lower East Side or the 4-train to Harlem in this version of Manhattan. However, the way the design language of The Oldest House has spilled into the streets gives it a personality that's so distinctly Control. The environment seamlessly guides you on what's what and where to go, so even in the absence of a more detailed map, I was rarely ever lost as long as I paid attention to my surroundings. This strikes a delicate balance, letting the world itself take the lead rather than waypointing every little thing.

Deeper in, you'll be able to shift Dylan's gravitational center in parts of the map, and it quite literally adds an extra dimension that is both visually brain-breaking and a marvel in level design. Those strange areas where city streets shoot upward or solid ground is oddly above you – yeah, those are other planes waiting to be explored. Sometimes combat shifts between these planes in the same encounter, which occasionally had my head spinning (mostly complimentary). The Gravity Rush of it all plays a major role in how you move through late-game zones as the feeling of falling through the sky creates a unique thrill outside of combat. And when you start to understand how these various planes converge and break from each other, I can only envy the genius of how it was designed and the headache it must have been to create, especially at this scope and scale. It's not just for show; even when it gets unwieldy, it adds depth and texture to what would've felt like a fairly standard world.

There are more than just checklist objectives to find as you explore these spaces as well, though I don't mind a sprinkling of typical open-world activities when navigation itself is part of the joy. While side content and the rewards it provides aren’t always particularly interesting, there's usually something enticing to glean about the psychological toll AWEs have had on survivors. For example, strange taxi cabs found in each zone take you to an alternate realm for a sidequest series to help a woman stuck between dimensions. Here, you essentially play multiple sequences of minigames that are as silly as they are unsettling. There are nice moments where Dylan cleans up a hangout spot people once had and sketches the scene to show his artistic side. Requiring you to physically go to fast travel points to use them(as opposed to just pulling up the map and selecting a point), you're more likely to stumble upon neat things like this and Resonant is better for it. Sometimes these moments are super goofy, sometimes they're pretty dark, and often they are both – such is the tonal contrast that is Remedy's signature.

Along with the studio's strong Lynchian vibe, what I always remember about Remedy's games are the unconventional ways they tell their stories. With this in mind, Control Resonant is interesting in how it follows more typical storytelling conventions, brushing up against tropes we've seen time and again, but still remembering why we're drawn to the Control universe. Even in Jesse's absence, her presence lingers over the story to drive Dylan's convictions and remind us of how powerful a figure she's become. Dylan is a real sad sack who feels sorry for himself, and it's quite tragic as you unpack what really happened to him as an FBC experiment. And that's what makes Dylan so compelling and easy to root for; he's not a complex character, but he is a good guy and a clear lens to demystify a lot of the esoteric concepts of Control's world.

Control Resonant's story isn't as heavily shrouded in mystery, but the things that happen within it are potentially more fascinating than ever. The way this bizzaro-world manifests during a few specific parts makes for some of its best moments – particularly in how Resonant also works seamlessly as a sort of prequel that tidies up a lot of what was either left to implication or collectible documents in Control. And man, I wish I could tell you tricks it has up its sleeve, because Resonant has some of my favorite twists in all of Remedy's work – and definitely one of the most memorable moments I've had in a game, period. Part of Dylan and Jesse's past is rooted in having video games as kids, and where this goes hit me hard as someone whose childhood was shaped by the very references made here. You'll often see games, movies, or shows make references as a gimmick that don't really go beyond “hey, look at this thing you remember!” (Take a look at the Verconn building in-game; clearly Remedy has some Evangelion fans in the building, but that's cool.) For Control Resonant to transcend that in such an effective way further speaks to Remedy's storytelling prowess.

One specific quest arc delves into alternate realities and timelines; it gets progressively more fascinating as you unravel both the science/lore behind this and how it contrasts with the human cost on its researchers. Audio tapes and documents left behind complement the Inception-like phenomenon happening in the quest, giving you enough pieces to explain things while not being overbearing, trusting that you can make sense of it all. More than being a fascinating spin on the concept, it made me feel for characters I barely got to know. It's a microcosm of how the various mechanisms and anomalies of Control's world are couched in a tight consistency.

The various mechanisms and anomalies of Control's world are couched in a tight consistency.

In the process of the FBC trying to clean up the outbreak and solve its interdimensional crisis, Dylan develops a dynamic with his quippy handler named Zoe. She plays an important and persistent role as Dylan's foil, but the shifts in their dynamic don't always feel earned, as if it just needed to accelerate to match the pace of the campaign itself. Similarly, the main story relies on a few easy logical leaps to tidy things up, which means it may not be quite as moving in the grand scheme of the Remedyverse. That leaves Control Resonant feeling like a collection of incredible moments – cohesive when strung together and powerful in what they say about characters who exist in such a deranged world, but not necessarily as effective when it comes to its central, overarching tale. Still, the humanizing element and the paranormal it is embedded within bolster each other, which helps this sequel come out the other end as a fitting part of the universe Remedy has built all the same.