The best tool you can own in life is a hammer, and in Control Resonant, fixing Manhattan requires a VERY big one to perform some percussive maintenance. The Aberrant is the melee weapon that you’ll wield in battle, and while it can take a variety of forms, it looks especially satisfying to morph it into a gigantic hammer that wouldn’t look out of place in a Looney Tunes cartoon if Rob Zombie were directing it. But what would that version of the Aberrant look like in real life? Pretty intimidating and impractical, it turns out.
Ahead of Control Resonant’s release next week, the blacksmiths of Man at Arms took a stab at building the Aberrant. In an episode of their YouTube series–and sponsored by Control Resonant developer Remedy Entertainment–the team put together a solid replica, but for the hammerhead itself, they used hollow steel panels and advanced welding techniques to recreate the Aberrant. It’s not hard to see why, because having a solid chunk of metal the size of an armchair would make it challenging to work with, let alone wield.
Even with the finished hammer employing a few techniques to keep its overall weight under control, it was still too heavy for even the burliest blacksmith to pick up or even swing around for a few test smashes. For now, it’s the world’s coolest-looking paperweight.
Launching on September 24–or September 22 if you spring for the PS5 Deluxe Edition–Control Resonant is already earning high reviews. On GameSpot’s sister site, Metacritic, the PS5 version of the game currently has a metascore of 84 from 48 reviews, making it one of the best games of 2026 according to critical consensus. One of its big draws is that it successfully blends the signature weirdness of Remedy’s growing universe of interconnected titles with highly engaging gameplay.
“Alongside the stellar art direction and a surprisingly touching story, Control Resonant’s gameplay loop feels more mainstream than anything this team has made since Max Payne,” Mark Delaney wrote in GameSpot’s Control Resonant review.