Control Resonant Review: A Rabbit Hole For Remedy's Artistry

Control Resonant ambitiously reframes its predecessor's gameplay to mixed results, but Remedy Entertainment's undeniable style still captivates.

Seven years in the making, Control Resonant is nothing if not an ambitious follow-up to its 2019 predecessor, and while developer and publisher Remedy Entertainment has stepped into a few common sequel pitfalls, the studio also delivers its trademark style and storytelling to incredible effect. Shirking Control's third-person shooter framework, Resonant adopts frantic hack-and-slash melee combat amid a shift in protagonist.

A seven-year lockdown of the Oldest House has followed the events of the first game in an attempt to keep the subdued Hiss invasion contained, but Federal Bureau of Control Director Jesse Faden's disappearance has seen various extradimensional threats break containment and take over Manhattan. Control Resonant is thus something of a role reversal, with Dylan Faden now searching for his sister, becoming embroiled with the enigmatic Board and working with the FBC—which kidnapped and tortured him as a child—to untangle the city and stop the Patterning from spreading.

New York, New York

Control Resonant broadens the series' scope by opting for an open-zone design. Leaving behind most of the Oldest House (a few key areas are still explorable) is the sequel's greatest disappointment, trading what feels like an endlessly mysterious labyrinth for many nondescript city streets. This isn't to say the world design is outright bad—mind-bending level design is still one of Control Resonant's best facets, but at a macro level, the setting isn't as fascinating.

It doesn't help that this kaleidoscopic New York doesn't really feel like New York in any meaningful way. A quest centered on taxis and a handful of delves into fractal subway tunnels is about as deep as the real-life city's representation goes; one of the major zones is called The Park, and it's not even a reimagining of Central Park. Resonant's architecture has the right vibe, but it has still traded a bespoke setting for an imprecise one.

It's a change in service of gameplay, with mixed results. Dylan can double jump, launch into a glide, and dash through the air twice (in any order), giving Control Resonant some gripping platforming and engaging point-to-point traversal, but the game is simultaneously designed to be played slowly, at least for your first time through an area. Various shops can be entered, sometimes with a puzzle therein, and clearing a zone of optional objectives and encounters is the optimal way to progress.

If you want to stay on the non-frustrating side of the difficulty curve, you should comb each area for upgrade materials, which sadly brings Resonant occasionally to the verge of generic open-world fare, especially early on, before things start getting really weird. It is luckily pulled back from this brink by Remedy's incredible world-building and meticulous storytelling.

Just like in Control, redacted office memos and tape recordings abound. The FBC comes across as a fully realized, multifaceted government organization, and one of the consistent pleasures is seeing how the agency is attempting to deal with the crisis and displays elasticity in response to player actions. Enemy encounters, for instance, are cleared from an area until one of the game's major bosses, the Resonant Entities, is defeated, but in the meantime, FBC researchers and Rangers will filter out into the newly safe city blocks and busy themselves with various tasks.

Control Resonant's ambient narrative also excels in its exploration of the effects the Oldest House's seven-year lockdown had on employees, both those who were locked inside and the ones that were kept out and in the dark. Some asides are clear allegory for the COVID-19 lockdowns, but it is never overt enough to distract from the main conflict and its ancillary sagas. Remedy's decision to broaden the setting's scope may have dampened intrigue at large, but it hasn't stopped the studio from being as clever as ever.

Raging Bull

One of Control Resonant's greatest contrivances is putting the spotlight on Dylan Faden. Taken as a child from his hometown after it became the site of an Altered World Event instigated by him and his sister, Dylan becomes the pet project of the FBC's Head of Research, Dr. Darling, who assigns him the designation P6, and grooms him throughout his formative years to become a powerful parautilitarian in hopes that he'll one day be chosen by the Board to ascend to the agency's directorship.

Dylan is most infamous within the FBC for killing hundreds during the Hiss invasion while under the entity's influence seven years prior to Resonant, and the mistrust this earns him plays incredibly well against his newfound status as the Bureau's best hope of containing the various threats in Manhattan. Remedy smartly pairs him with his handler, the tenacious and kind agent Zoe De Vera, to highlight Dylan's stunted growth and unique outlook.

A hatred of the FBC for what it's done to him lends itself to an intricate internal conflict as he partners with the agency out of necessity, to find his sister, who leads the Bureau and has deep relationships with much of the principal cast. The siblings' bond is the heart of Control Resonant, and it results in a few late-game sequences that are both heartfelt and visually arresting. Such substance does not, however, necessarily extend to the gameplay side of Dylan's character.

Control Resonant's combat is fun and flashy, but quickly grows rote. You get stuck in a cycle that becomes predictable early on: Dylan acquires a new combat ability that can radically transform how you approach encounters, but an optimal strategy emerges rather easily, and most fights follow the same cadence.

In its foundational mechanics, Resonant's combat is quite precocious. Abilities are used to stagger and subsequently execute enemies, which provides a temporary damage buff, letting you dispatch chaff enemies en masse to replenish the meter used to activate said abilities. There's a very satisfying ebb and flow to a fight, but as you familiarize yourself with the game's various heavy enemy types, you settle on an order of priority, repeating combos on certain threats first, killing the cannon fodder on your way across the battlefield to those of lesser importance.

The saving grace is that build variety—with three main weapons, three secondary weapons, six combo finishers, and many combinations of abilities, all able to be mixed and matched—is quite vast, and Control Resonant dishes out its upgrade reset items quite regularly. You can easily change your whole approach to combat, but it won't undermine the basic order of operations.

Taxi Driver

Control Resonant is ultimately well within expectations for a Remedy title, and that's meant in the most complimentary way possible. Sprinkling a bit more open-world flair than previous outings may help attract a larger audience, but the game's main strengths are Remedy's hallmarks. Fantastic character writing, vibrant and offbeat audiovisual presentation, and perplexingly good level crafting keep Control Resonant consistently and delightfully surprising.

One major gameplay sequence near the end of the game is so unexpected and so incredibly well done that it simply feels like Remedy is showing off. There's an inherent allure to a game revolving around phenomena that are often incomprehensible to the human mind, and after you've already been bamboozled and awed in dozens of different ways, both large and small, Remedy continues with stylistic flourishes from way out of left field.

Again, like the first game, the highs more than make up for the lows. Combat is varied but not exceptionally deep, and its open-zone design regularly feels overly familiar, especially when you step into the twentieth permutation of the same coffee shop, but the overall experience is so finely woven that the sheer artistry is undeniable.

I experienced some growing pains with Control Resonant. Maybe the combat hadn't clicked yet; maybe I chose an unfortunate weapon combination at first; maybe I wasn't exploring as thoroughly as I should have; maybe I just sucked at the game for a little while. It's a testament to Remedy's expertise that early frustrations and doubts are so easily absolved.

For all its ambition, Control Resonant is still a carefully tailored game. Some of the broader strokes fall short, but its most memorable set pieces resonate singularly and fittingly. Remedy Entertainment's single-player titles have become synonymous with quality, and all Control Resonant asks is that you let it take you along for the ride.