After spending several hours with it, I found plenty of games that feel somewhat comparable to Control Resonant. This is an RPG that blends a sort of pseudo open-world structure—what Remedy called an “open-ended contemporary realm” during its media presentation earlier this week—and it features skill trees, along with some light resource hunting and item upgrades. You’ll also run into gentle platforming elements, including a double-jump and a dash, plus close-quarters fighting that leans on flawless dodges and follow-up aerial combinations.
That said, it’s hard to point to many games that truly mirror Control Resonant. Even though it pulls in a range of familiar touches—and at first glance may strike some players as especially recognizable for fans of games like Prototype or Infamous—it’s still been shaped in a distinctly Remedy way. Parts of the demo I tried felt as if they probably wouldn’t show up in other AAA releases; they rely on inventive decisions that either wouldn’t be made elsewhere or, more realistically, would likely be dialed back as development progressed. The result is a bit more rugged than the original Control, and that can mean it doesn’t always blend together with perfect smoothness during play. Still, it offers a genuinely engaging experience.
In Control: Resonant, you step into the role of Jesse’s notorious brother, Dylan Faden. Once he was the villain, Dylan now plays more like an emo antihero—walking through a twisted, refractive New York while his particular set of abilities helps him deal with the Hiss, though there’s a trace of hesitation in how he does it. At first, he looks like an almost stereotypical Video Game Character, complete with a customizable weapon, messy brown hair, and stubble. But he’s actually a little more distinct than that. He carries sorrow, regret, and—if I’m being honest—a certain amount of pity. “He’s come out of being affected by the Hiss, dealing with something that overtook his life, his trauma,” Dylan’s voice actor, Sean Durrie, explained in an interview right after my session. “And now he’s on a journey to take back his humanity. So it is a new beginning.”
After a guided breakaway from the Oldest House and some early combat, I got a chance to dig into how Control Resonant works. There’s essentially an overworld, plus what Remedy loosely refers to as “dungeons,” along with side missions you can pick up. There’s also a very Remedy-style hub where you can redo your setup, sharpen your abilities, or move through an extensive skill tree. The actual “build” side—centered on how deeply you can min-max buffs and similar systems—seems to have a moderate amount of complexity. Different combat approaches can apply different debuffs to enemies; for instance, some can knock foes back, while others provide opportunities for critical hits. You can equip a limited number of charms for buffs, and some offer significant trade-offs, like taking extra damage in return. You can uncover resources and rare items by scavenging the environment or defeating bosses.
This element isn’t particularly captivating on its own—apart from the fact that it signals a new direction for Remedy, which has generally taken a lighter approach to RPG mechanics in earlier titles like Control. “We were right on the brink of action-adventure versus action RPG,” Mikael Kasurinen, Control Resonant’s creative director, told me during our conversation about the original Control. “Now we’re making a full leap into that territory.”
A good chunk of the demo’s opening portion was built from familiar Remedy ingredients: systems you already know, like double jumps and dodges, presented with extra style through visions and flashbacks, flickering screens, meta jokes, abstract platforming stretches, unusual glitch effects, and strange obelisks. The most memorable part, however, was one of the dungeons.
This area, called the Sinkhole, showcased gameplay from a few hours into the experience. Dylan heads downward via a probe platform, guided with caution by an FBC agent over a radio connection, into a cylindrical pit that has opened up in the city.
In the pit, where the probe initially stops and a wave of enemies arrives, Remedy uses the enclosed space to highlight its design talent. The city area itself is serviceable—it’s a video game metropolis without any residents—but these tighter settings really stood out. The first stretch brought enemy waves with a respectable range, from sniper-style threats and difficult sub-bosses with odd names that disappeared in clouds of red smoke, to plenty of regular foes. Just as importantly, it also delivered an unexpectedly confusing combat arena to fight through: a chain of rooms knotted across three impossible dimensions, where you can run up or down walls and ceilings by tapping the left bumper.
I’ll admit it’s hard to put into words, but picture this: you’re inside a giant cube that looks like a honeycomb, packed with midcentury office interiors. Climbing up a wall using gravity-defying moves is essentially a trick of visual perception—you’re turning the world around you, while Dylan stays locked near the center. Enemies sprint along ledges that wrap around the space, you tumble in strange ways from the tops of rooms into others, almost like a figurine sliding from one dollhouse into another, upside down. And during all of it, there are fast-moving combat encounters pressing in around you.
It’s genuinely impressive. If you trigger it too quickly, it’s also disorienting—and maybe just a touch nauseating. That’s exactly why I doubt this kind of mechanic would last in other AAA games; it’s the sort of idea that usually gets refined into something safer, less likely to frustrate certain players, while still trying to impress others.
Combat, though, settles into a rhythm as you— the player—gain skill and experience. It’s a framework that grows alongside your ability. You can dash, double-dash, double-jump, and even hover (for a long span) while you’re in mid-air, linking aerial combos that feel reminiscent of Devil
May Cry, letting you hover above the chaos in a way that feels almost impossible. On top of that, you can also pick from several unusually creative weapon choices.
For me, it started with a pair of short, high crit-rate, dagger-like tools that I used for my main assault—basically hitting Square over and over—alongside a heavier weapon. I opted at first for a whip that could be snapped out for mid-range damage, or briefly “charged” for a wonderfully loud crack. Beyond that, there are special techniques with a relatively low cooldown: toss a few large rocks, form a temporary rock shield (a big chunk of the signature Control brutalism is involved here, with concrete and steel), trigger a powerful ground slam from the air, or even launch something like… a fireball?
Where it really stands out is in the tougher set pieces. The toughest boss fight near the end of the demo—and in the odd pit I had climbed down into—put me in a large circular arena bordered by platforms. It threw an enormous number of enemies at you, plus a glowing red demon that pounded the area like a hovering jet. The approach is all about stacking bloodlust: use certain attacks to fill an enemy’s stagger gauge, then sprint in to carry out a finisher. Doing finishers restores bloodlust, which means more healing orbs spill out from defeated foes and your odds of landing critical hits or dealing extra damage go up. Perfect dodges further guarantee a kind of crit, and once the crowd of enemies swelled, it turned into a rhythm of chaining advantages—dodge, counter, finish—then repeating attack-after-attack to stretch the damage window as far as possible. A note on the death screen puts it plainly: offense is the best defense here. It’s completely true.
After all of that, the escape became a chance to lean into more Remedy surrealism. Stranger, rotating locations and physics that refuse to behave. Even more antigravity platforming. More music-driven interludes too—though this time it isn’t a full live-action dance segment. Still, there was at least one odd moment where it seemed like Remedy may have pushed the idea a bit too far: a stretch where you move through what feels like an endless sequence of living rooms, kitchens, and bathrooms, guided by the lights and sounds of TVs playing an appropriately emo needle-drop. It ran a touch too long, and you could feel an otherwise excellent concept start to lose momentum.
Even so, it shows what taking creative chances looks like. Control Resonant is scheduled to launch in a few months, and the build I tried was, I’d say, unquestionably slightly outdated—so it makes sense that some parts will be smoothed out and polished before release. There are small rough spots, including audio and visual glitches that need attention. And then there are the minor inconsistencies: sections that may drag, or occasionally feel a bit difficult to parse; combat that can be thrilling in terms of speed and intensity, but sometimes slips into a little too much chaos. Those issues come from experimentation—this is a studio trying to approach a more standard, triple-A RPG structure while still using its own distinctive style. There’s a lot of promise here, as long as Remedy can strike the right balance. Exploring ideas like these is a risk that might not pay off—and it’s also the kind of risk game makers should absolutely be encouraged to take.