Remedy Entertainment has never been particularly interested in making straightforward games, and CONTROL Resonant certainly doesn’t change that approach. As a sequel to 2019’s CONTROL, it takes the strange paranormal world established in the original and pushes it far beyond the confines of the Oldest House, putting Dylan Faden at the centre of a much larger and considerably more aggressive adventure. The result is an ambitious action RPG that trades Jesse’s firearm-focused combat for a much more physical fighting system while turning a distorted version of Manhattan into a playground filled with bizarre phenomena, dangerous enemies and secrets. It is not always an easy game to understand or master, but when its many systems begin to click, there is little else quite like it.
Dylan’s story is closely tied to everything that happened in the first game, making CONTROL Resonant considerably less welcoming to newcomers than the premise might initially suggest. After years of confinement, Dylan finds himself outside the Oldest House as the paranormal crisis spreads through Manhattan, while his sister Jesse has disappeared. The Hiss is no longer contained, the Mold remains a threat, and a new phenomenon known as the Resonance is twisting people and the environment in increasingly disturbing ways. Dylan’s own history gives the story a more personal angle than the original, particularly as he attempts to deal with what happened to him and the terrible things he did while under the influence of the Hiss. The narrative remains deliberately strange and refuses to explain every mystery neatly, but there is more emotional grounding here than the first game’s deliberately cryptic presentation might suggest. Players who enjoy digging through documents, recordings and environmental details will find plenty to uncover, while anyone simply following the main story should expect to finish with a few unanswered questions. The opening hours can consequently feel rather opaque, especially without a solid understanding of CONTROL’s lore, but the story becomes considerably more compelling once its various pieces start falling into place.
The biggest change is found in the combat. Where Jesse relied heavily on the Service Weapon, Dylan is built around the Aberrant, a shapeshifting melee weapon capable of switching between different forms. It can become a hammer, blades, a scythe and other configurations, with primary attacks, heavier strikes, finishers and special abilities gradually expanding the possibilities. Dylan’s paranormal powers complement the weapon rather than replacing it, allowing attacks such as projectiles, elemental effects, protective abilities and summoned creatures to be worked into the fighting system. Dodging and movement are just as important, because enemies hit hard and standing still for too long is usually a quick route to death. Health does not simply regenerate, either, encouraging players to keep attacking weaker opponents while managing larger threats. Once the different systems are understood, battles can become fast, physical and satisfyingly tactical, particularly when several enemy types have to be managed simultaneously.
That combat system is not without its problems, however. The progression structure can initially feel overly complicated, with numerous statistics, upgrades, weapon forms and build possibilities competing for attention while Dylan’s available options are still relatively limited. The early game is consequently more difficult than it perhaps needs to be, and some encounters can feel poorly balanced when enemies substantially outclass an underdeveloped Dylan. Later on, the combat becomes much more expressive, but there is also a risk of falling into a familiar rhythm of repeatedly using the most effective attacks rather than experimenting with the available systems. The variety of enemy encounters helps, as does the need to prioritise tougher opponents, but the basic combat structure does not always evolve as much as its impressive collection of abilities suggests. The game’s detailed accessibility options are therefore welcome, allowing players to adjust combat difficulty in considerable detail, although they do not solve the more fundamental issue of the learning curve.
Exploration is where CONTROL Resonant arguably becomes most distinctive. Manhattan is considerably more open than the Oldest House, but it is anything but a conventional open world. Gravity can change direction, streets and buildings can twist into impossible configurations, platforms can disappear, and traversal abilities allow Dylan to leap, dash and manipulate his surroundings in increasingly unusual ways. The player is frequently required to work out the route rather than simply following a waypoint, and the map provides guidance without completely removing the need to understand the environment. This makes exploration feel like a puzzle in itself, particularly when later abilities open previously inaccessible areas. There is plenty of optional content to discover as well, ranging from strange side missions and environmental puzzles to unusual encounters and excursions into alternate spaces. The approach rewards curiosity and gives Manhattan a genuine sense of place, although the same refusal to provide straightforward directions can occasionally become frustrating. A marker indicating the destination does not necessarily mean the destination can be reached directly, and some of the more elaborate traversal sections demand considerably more patience than the combat.
The structure surrounding all of this gives the adventure a strong sense of progression. Manhattan is divided into distinct areas that gradually become more developed as Dylan gains abilities and completes activities, while exploration provides resources for improving his abilities and expanding his combat options. Side content consequently feels more meaningful than simple filler, since investigating another corner of the city can directly contribute to becoming stronger. There is a healthy mixture of combat, traversal challenges, puzzles and narrative discoveries, and the world frequently rewards players for wandering away from the objective. At the same time, the sheer number of systems can make the experience feel overstuffed during its early stages, and some of the progression mechanics require more attention than players might expect from an action game. Once that initial complexity has been overcome, however, the open-world structure provides a convincing reason to keep exploring rather than rushing from one story mission to the next.
Visually, CONTROL Resonant is a fascinating mixture of artistic brilliance and less convincing technical execution. The distorted Manhattan is the clear star, with impossible architecture, altered gravity, surreal environments and enemy designs that constantly find new ways to make reality look broken. The Resonants in particular are memorable creations, and the game’s strongest environments have the kind of visual identity that immediately marks them as part of the CONTROL universe. The problem is that the underlying character models, textures, lighting and general detail do not always reach the same standard. Dylan and several other human characters can look noticeably less impressive than their surroundings, while some technical roughness prevents the game from being a consistent visual showcase. On PS5, players can choose between performance-oriented and quality-oriented presentation, with the former making considerably more sense for a combat system that benefits from fluid movement, while the latter improves visual fidelity at the cost of frame rate.
The audio work is more consistently successful. Music plays an important role in both atmosphere and pacing, moving naturally between unsettling exploration and more intense combat sequences, while the sound effects give the Aberrant’s attacks and the game’s stranger entities an appropriate physical presence. Spatial audio also helps during battles and exploration, making surrounding threats easier to locate, while voice acting contributes strongly to the more personal sections of Dylan’s story. Any problems appear relatively sporadic rather than fundamental, but are noticeable in a game that relies so heavily on its atmosphere and narrative presentation.
CONTROL Resonant ultimately works because Remedy has been willing to make substantial changes rather than simply reproducing the original. Dylan’s melee-focused combat gives the sequel its own identity, while the expanded setting allows the studio’s fascination with the paranormal to operate on a much larger canvas. Its greatest strengths are the bizarre world, inventive traversal, intriguing narrative and willingness to make the player figure things out rather than presenting every solution immediately. Its weaknesses are largely found in the friction created by that ambition: the early learning curve is steep, some combat encounters feel overly punishing, exploration can become needlessly convoluted, and the technical presentation does not always match the quality of the artistic direction. Still, once the various pieces begin to fit together, CONTROL Resonant becomes a remarkably distinctive action adventure. It may not have the balance or technical polish of Remedy’s very best work, but its strange ideas, memorable world and willingness to take risks make it a sequel that feels like much more than a repeat of the original.
Score: 8.5/10