Control Resonant Review – Is Remedy’s Supernatural Action RPG Worth Playing?

TL;DR

• Control Resonant released September 24, 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and macOS.
• You play as Dylan Faden, Jesse’s brother, in a warped supernatural version of Manhattan.
• Combat is now melee-focused instead of shooting-based.
• The game is an open-world action RPG — a big change from the original.
• Critics mostly praise the world design, traversal, and story but some find combat repetitive.
• Metacritic and OpenCritic scores sit around the mid-80s.

What Is Control Resonant?

Control Resonant is a supernatural action RPG made by Remedy Entertainment. It is a follow-up to the 2019 hit Control, but it is not a traditional sequel. The game changes almost everything — the protagonist, the setting, the combat, and even the genre.

This time you play as Dylan Faden, Jesse’s brother. Dylan spent years locked up by the Federal Bureau of Control. He wakes up into a Manhattan that has been completely torn apart by a paranatural disaster.

Instead of exploring one impossible government building, you are now walking through a version of New York City where the laws of physics have gone completely sideways.

Control Resonant Review

Control Resonant Story – Who Is Dylan Faden?

Dylan was always an important figure in the first game, but you only heard about him through Jesse’s investigation. Now he gets to be the main character.

Jesse contacts him and essentially pulls him into a massive supernatural conflict. Dylan has to fight the Hiss, the Mold, and a mysterious cosmic entity — all while dealing with an organization that still has enormous control over his life.

That word — control — runs all the way through the story. Dylan is fighting enemies that once controlled him and navigating an institution that still does. It gives the game a personal layer that the first Control did not quite have.

His relationship with Jesse becomes one of the emotional cores of the game. If you found the original Control cold or detached, Resonant should feel noticeably warmer.

Control Resonant Setting – Manhattan Instead of the Oldest House

This is probably the biggest change Remedy made.

The original Control took place almost entirely inside the Oldest House — a massive, impossible government building in New York. That setting was iconic. It felt claustrophobic in the best way.

Resonant takes you outside and blows up the entire city.

But this is not normal Manhattan. Buildings distort. Gravity shifts. Entire neighborhoods operate under completely different physical rules. Some areas feel like they belong to a different reality altogether.

Remedy takes familiar city environments — streets, buildings, underground spaces — and twists them into something surreal. The studio has always been great at making ordinary spaces feel deeply wrong, and here they do it on a much bigger scale.

Control Resonant Open World – Is It Any Good?

This is where reviewers start to disagree pretty sharply.

Some critics loved the extra freedom. The shift from a single building to a full city gives you more space to explore and removes some of the original game’s occasionally confusing layout.

Others felt the open world weakens the focus that made Control special. A tight, claustrophobic building with one mystery running through it is very different from a large open city with enemies scattered across a wide map.

The complaint from critics who were less impressed is not that the open world is broken. It is that the larger space means you end up doing the same combat loop more often than you should.

GamesRadar argued that the big world spreads repetitive combat over too much territory. But other reviewers, including the team at VICE, praised the freedom and said it made exploration feel much better than the original game.

So your opinion of the open world will probably depend on what you want from a Control game.

Control Resonant Combat – Melee Instead of Shooting

The combat is the most controversial change in the game.

The first Control was a third-person shooter. Jesse threw objects and fired the Service Weapon. Control Resonant throws most of that out and replaces it with melee combat.

Dylan uses a supernatural weapon called the Aberrant. It can shift between forms including a two-handed hammer and dual blades. The basic combat loop works like this:

• Hit enemies to build up resources
• Stagger them
• Execute them for cinematic finishers
• Use the advantages you gained to keep attacking

It pushes you toward aggression rather than hanging back at range. Think less Control, more Devil May Cry.

One notable design decision: the game does not use a parry mechanic. No parry window, no precise timing block. Remedy focuses the combat around movement, spacing, and pressure instead. That makes it feel different from a lot of action games right now.

Is the Combat Actually Fun?

At the start? Most critics said yes.

The issue is the late game. Because the world is large and enemies are spread across it, you end up doing the same fundamental combat loop many, many times. IGN gave the game 8/10 and specifically said the action becomes more tedious in the later hours. GamesRadar was more blunt, calling the combat monotonous over time.

PC Gamer scored it 76/100 and praised the world design while criticizing the amount of mediocre combat you have to wade through to reach it.

The sound design helps. Kotaku praised how heavy and physical the melee strikes feel. Every hit has real weight behind it. That matters a lot in a game built almost entirely around punching and smashing.

Control Resonant Traversal – The Best New Addition

If there is one feature that almost everyone agrees on, it is the traversal.

Dylan can move through environments in ways that make the city feel like a supernatural playground. He has access to:

• Air dashes
• Enhanced jumping
• Gravity manipulation
• Rapid vertical movement

The level design frequently asks you to think about spaces in three dimensions. You are not just running between markers. You are flying through city blocks from unusual angles, passing through areas from above and below, and using environmental gravity shifts to reach places that should not be reachable.

VICE highlighted the ability to move through the city using gravity and aerial movement as one of the game’s best features. TechRadar also praised the smooth traversal.

This is one area where the bigger setting works in the game’s favor. A wider city gives the traversal system room to breathe.

Control Resonant RPG Systems – Skill Trees and Builds

Resonant adds substantially more RPG structure than the original game.

You can develop Dylan through skill trees and choose how you approach combat. Different builds change how you fight, which abilities you lean on, and how the Aberrant weapon behaves.

Tom’s Guide praised the customization and called the skill tree system a major strength.

However, IGN raised a fair point — the RPG systems might not be as deep as they first appear. The presentation makes them look more complex than they actually are under the surface.

So if you are expecting something as deep as an actual RPG, manage expectations. But if you just want meaningful ways to shape how Dylan plays, there is enough here to keep things interesting.

Control Resonant Level Design – Still Peak Remedy

This is where the game absolutely delivers.

Remedy has a specific talent: they take normal spaces and make them feel fundamentally wrong. A government archive becomes an impossible labyrinth. A subway becomes a place where gravity is optional.

Resonant does this across an entire city. You will walk into areas that should not exist. You will stand somewhere and genuinely not understand what you are looking at.

One particularly memorable section takes place in a massive underground area that transforms into something resembling a giant, supernatural version of the Backrooms. Instead of fighting enemies in a corridor, the space itself becomes the puzzle. You explore and try to understand the environment before you can move forward.

That is classic Remedy. And according to VICE, some of the level design is among the most ambitious they have encountered.

Control Resonant Art Direction and Visuals

From a pure technical standpoint, Resonant is not quite on the level of Alan Wake 2. But the art direction is excellent.

PC Gamer described Remedy’s environmental and lighting work as the studio operating at the peak of its abilities. The game leans hard into:

• Brutalist architecture
• Paranormal lighting
• Surreal geometry
• Reality distortion effects
• Strange atmospheric environments

Even when individual technical details are not cutting-edge, the overall identity of the game is extremely strong. It looks and feels like a Remedy game.

Control Resonant Boss Fights

This is one weaker area for the game.

The bosses are visually spectacular. They fit the supernatural setting perfectly. But some reviewers found them mechanically underwhelming.

GamesRadar described the boss fights as visually compelling but not very mechanically interesting. This feeds into the broader combat criticism — the spectacle is often stronger than the variety.

Control Resonant vs Control – How Do They Compare?

This might be the most important question for anyone who played the original.

The original Control worked because it had a brilliant, focused concept: one impossible building plus one supernatural mystery plus one outsider discovering it all. Everything pointed in the same direction.

Resonant takes a different approach. It gives you an impossible city, an action RPG combat system, an open world, a character-focused story, and extensive traversal mechanics all at once. That is a lot more variety.

But more variety also means more places where the experience can feel unfocused or repetitive.

If you loved the original for its tight, claustrophobic atmosphere and investigation feel, Resonant will feel very different. If you liked the world and weirdness more than the specific mechanics, you will probably enjoy what Resonant does with a larger canvas.

Control Resonant Review Scores

Here is how major outlets scored the game:

• VGC: 5/5
• VICE: 10/10
• Game Informer: 8.5/10
• IGN: 8/10
• TechRadar: Positive / Recommended
• PC Gamer: 76/100
• Eurogamer: 3/5
• GamesRadar+: 3/5

Metacritic and OpenCritic scores settled around 84 as of late September 2026. That puts it firmly in the “generally positive” range, but with much more variation between outlets than a typical blockbuster.

Who Should Play Control Resonant?

You will probably love it if you:

• Enjoyed the world and weirdness of Control more than its specific shooting mechanics
• Like Remedy Entertainment games in general (Alan Wake 2, Max Payne, etc.)
• Enjoy supernatural action games with aggressive melee combat
• Like open-world exploration with strong traversal
• Want a more character-driven story than the original

You might want to think twice if you:

• Loved the Oldest House specifically and want more of that claustrophobic feeling
• Preferred Jesse Faden as a protagonist
• Enjoyed the third-person shooting from the original
• Do not enjoy repetitive combat across large open worlds
• Liked the mystery-first, slow-burn investigation style

Control Resonant – Final Verdict

Control Resonant is a brave game. Remedy could have made another supernatural third-person shooter starring Jesse Faden and it probably would have sold fine. Instead, they rebuilt the formula almost from scratch.

A new protagonist. A new setting. A new combat system. An entirely new genre emphasis.

A lot of it works. The warped Manhattan is fascinating. Dylan’s movement makes the city feel alive. The paranormal level design is some of the best in any game this year. And Dylan’s personal story gives the Control universe something it was missing — a real emotional center.

But the game has problems. The combat, while fun at first, wears thin over a long playthrough. The open world gives it more room to breathe but also more room to feel unfocused. Some bosses do not live up to how they look.

The critics who love it say it is exactly the evolution Control needed. The critics who are less enthusiastic say the expansion costs the game the tight focus that made the original special.

Both are right.

Control Resonant is a flawed, ambitious, genuinely weird action RPG from one of gaming’s most creative studios. If you can accept that it is not trying to be the same game as Control, there is a lot here to love.

Frequently Asked Questions – Control Resonant

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