What can I say about Control Resonant except that it is some of the most fun I’ve had in a video game in a very long time. During my first playthrough of a little over 40 hours, I was in utter disbelief at just how non-stop invested I had been in the third-person-shooter-turned action RPG up until the credits started rolling, and I couldn’t wait to start New Game Plus to get into it again. The original Control was already great, but Control Resonant somehow advances that greatness to a level I didn’t think was possible, especially with it taking the franchise’s formula into a much larger, far more open world. This is a game that pulls out all the stops to keep surprising you at every turn, and I sincerely did not expect to walk away from it with only one complaint—which is massively overshadowed by everything else the game does so well anyway.
Let me emphasize that this isn’t just the first Control with Dylan in Jesse’s place, nor does it feel like Remedy simply took what worked before and expanded it into a bigger game. So much of the foundation has changed, from the move away from gunplay and into melee combat to the much heavier action RPG focus and the freedom that comes with exploring Manhattan instead of spending nearly all your time inside the Oldest House. It’s a pretty dramatic shift from what Control was, but I never once felt like I was playing something that had forgotten where it came from. In fact, I think the biggest compliment I can give Control Resonant is that it feels like Control‘s Mass Effect 2 moment. It has that same sense of a sequel looking at a great first game, figuring out what it really wanted to be, and then going all-in on it, raising the bar in the process.
Control Resonant’s Combat Never Stops Being Fun
I don’t care how many hours I’ve already poured into this game or how many fights I’ve already won, Control Resonant‘s combat never gets old. I personally consider that high praise because, believe me, there is a lot of combat to be had here. Sure, there is plenty of story and exploration to go around as well, but the way the open world is designed to behave, and the expectations it puts on players, ensures you are almost always looking to pick another fight with the Hiss—especially once you’ve landed on a build that makes you feel like an unstoppable powerhouse.
The biggest difference from the first Control is that Dylan doesn’t have Jesse’s Service Weapon, with Control Resonant‘s combat instead revolving around the Aberrant, a shapeshifting melee weapon that can take on several different forms. Rather than simply equipping one of those forms and sticking with it, though, you can assign a Primary Form for your standard attacks, a Secondary Form for special and charged attacks, and a Combo Finisher that ends certain attack strings. Each form has its own range and speed, so Dylan might be swinging a massive two-handed hammer with one part of his moveset before switching to something much faster for another. Those forms can then be upgraded further, with new attacks and modifiers gradually opening up as you progress.
Dylan’s supernatural abilities are worked directly into that melee combat system as well, and the two are constantly feeding into each other during combat. Landing melee attacks restores Power, the resource used for Combat Abilities, while those abilities can stun enemies by inflicting Falter and leave them open to executions. Performing an execution then temporarily increases Dylan’s melee damage, essentially starting the cycle over again once you move onto the next enemy. There are also several different abilities to work into that loop, including projectile attacks and summon-like abilities like the Volatile Anomaly, which can fight alongside Dylan before being thrown and detonated. New Combat Abilities primarily come from defeating Resonants, with some of those encounters giving you a choice between different powers rather than simply handing you everything at once.
Control Resonant’s Buildcrafting Potential Is Off the Charts
And therein lies why Control Resonant‘s combat never stops being fun. The buildcrafting potential in this game is some of the deepest I’ve seen in a modern action RPG, and while I eventually found something I liked and stuck with it, the road I took to get there involved plenty of experimentation. There are three Primary Forms and three Secondary Forms, each with their own upgrade paths, and then six Combo Finishers that also each have their own upgrade paths. There is also a fairly sizable talent tree with 60 unique talents to unlock, and then a generous handful of unique Resonant Combat Abilities that each have a couple of different forms to choose from. There are just so many routes Control Resonant lets you take to personalize your playstyle, and that’s a large part of the reason the combat never stops being fun.
What really sold me on this aspect of Control Resonant‘s combat was how well my build actually interacted with the game’s environments and other mechanics as well, and it was in some of these moments that I began to feel Remedy had truly thought of everything. One of my personal favorite moments happened when I became Infected (Control Resonant‘s poison debuff) and I activated my Ignite ability, which turns Dylan into a walking fireball who can inflict fire damage with every hit. But because the game’s spore clouds, which inflict the Infected debuff, are incredibly flammable, activating Ignite actually removed the Infected debuff from Dylan and triggered an explosion that also severely damaged the enemies around him. At that point, I already knew Control Resonant was special, but that definitely sealed the deal for me.
I don’t care how many hours I’ve already poured into this game or how many fights I’ve already won, Control Resonant‘s combat just never gets old.
But in addition to the amount of freedom it gives you to play the way you want, it’s always incredibly action-packed, fast-paced, and highly involving. Early on, in particular, fights can be immensely challenging and require you to keep an eye on every single thing happening around you. However, after spending plenty of time exploring Control Resonant‘s open world and acquiring a massive pool of skill points to spend on the game’s talent tree, some much-needed upgrades to Power and health, and plenty of crafting materials to upgrade combat Forms, Dylan turns into a force to be reckoned with—and the fun factor still increases by a thousand percent.
Control Resonant Keeps Finding New Ways to Test Your Build
And then there are the Resonants themselves, which are easily some of the biggest spectacles Control Resonant has to offer. Every one of these boss fights feels completely different from the last, not only in terms of their mechanics but also in their art design, with each Resonant looking like something Remedy somehow pulled straight out of a nightmare and then figured out how to make even weirder. Control Resonant‘s boss fights can also be brutally challenging, especially since most of them give you very few opportunities to replenish Dylan’s health once the fight begins, so every mistake can matter quite a bit more than it does during a normal encounter.
Some Resonants had me learning entirely new attack patterns or figuring out how to use the arena itself just to survive, while others forced me to rethink how I was using my abilities altogether. Of course, not every boss is going to put up the same fight if you’ve spent a ton of time exploring Manhattan and making Dylan substantially stronger before you get there, and there were a few I managed to tear through much faster than I expected. Even then, though, the sheer variety between them kept each one from feeling like just another oversized enemy with a bigger health bar.
New Game Plus takes all of that progression even further, and this is one of those rare cases where starting over actually gives you quite a bit more to work toward instead of simply letting you replay the same game with everything you’ve already unlocked. Dylan carries over his Aberrant upgrades, Combat Abilities, Talents, Artifacts, and improvements to his health and Power, but New Game Plus also expands the talent tree with additional nodes, opens up combinations that weren’t possible during the first playthrough, and eventually gives you access to a fourth Artifact slot.
Considering how much room there already is to experiment with builds before the credits roll, having an entirely new layer of progression waiting on the other side gives that second run a much stronger purpose than just seeing the story again with an overpowered Dylan. I was already excited to jump back in after finishing the game once, but realizing I still had more ways to develop my build gave me even more reason to keep going.
Control Resonant’s Open World Is Undeniably Well-Executed
And this is where I think Control Resonant was challenged the most: its open world. I don’t say that because it failed, though—far from it, in fact. I say that because getting an open world right is a very difficult thing to do, not because I have experience in game development, but because I’ve played plenty of open-world games that have you doing nothing but chasing the next objective marker or are simply empty and uninspired. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of map markers in Control Resonant‘s open world, but the amount of discovery there still is beyond what you can clearly see on the map makes every venture off the beaten path more than worth it.
I do find it interesting that Remedy has refrained from explicitly calling Control Resonant an open-world game, because the only loading screens I remember encountering were during fast travel. Sure, there are instances where Dylan will be pulled into another realm, but when it comes to the exploration side of things, it’s entirely open. That might seem like it’s largely beside the point, but the reason I bring it up is to, again, emphasize just how well Remedy has done with Control Resonant‘s world.
There are plenty of map markers in Control Resonant‘s open world, but the amount of discovery there still is beyond what you can clearly see on the map makes every venture off the beaten path more than worth it.
For starters, there is always something to do in the world, and I don’t mean that in a bad way at all. There are plenty of open-world games out there that are bloated with an enormous amount of repetitive content, and after you’ve spent a dozen hours with them, they can leave you feeling like you never want to explore ever again. However, in Control Resonant, not only are the activities varied enough to prevent boredom and burnout, they are exceedingly rewarding and highly important for those wanting an overpowered Dylan, and the environments and traversal alone make moving through the world a non-stop thrill ride.
Control Resonant‘s open-world activities range from its semi-repeatable World Feats, which are essentially the game’s version of something like Destiny 2‘s public events, to a wide variety of side quests (emphasis on “variety”) and a massive number of collectibles that you can’t even see on the map. World Feats are incredibly addictive to complete, and will see players doing anything from defending the FBC during an attack to following a possessed baby carriage in a massive circle until it decides to give up and let you nab it. But what makes these so satisfying to do is just how rewarding they are, as Control Resonant‘s open world is directly tied to its progression, and completing World Feats is one of the most efficient ways to earn skill points early on.
Control Resonant Gives You Plenty of Reasons to Keep Exploring
As you do anything in the game’s open world, from simply finding a random loot box in a laundromat to completing a World Feat or even just clearing out a group of congregated enemies, you earn XP towards the larger area’s Zone Level, which not only contributes toward you acquiring more skill points to spend on your favorite build in Control Resonant, but also improves the zone in many ways with each level up. For example, leveling up a zone to Level 2 can grant a chance for enemies to drop additional resources, while leveling a zone up to Level 10 might increase the World Feat cap in that area—the number of World Feats that will appear there after the next Resonant cycle.
And speaking of Resonant cycles, when you defeat one of Control Resonant‘s namesake bosses, in addition to gaining a new combat ability to use inspired by that particular Resonant, all of the enemies in the world respawn and become stronger, and World Feats reappear as well. In other words, just when you think you’ve saved the world from the threat of the Hiss by clearing out every single enemy you can find, conquering one of its bosses will just bring them back again. But again, it’s not wearisome in the slightest, because Control Resonant does everything in its power to ensure combat is always fun and immensely rewarding.
Circling back to the game’s side quests, I can’t remember a single one that had me bored or just begrudgingly working through the content to reach the conclusion. If they didn’t have a memorable story for me to follow, they at least had me doing something incredibly bizarre and right on brand for Remedy Entertainment. I mean, at one point, I was singing karaoke for a group of possessed dancers, and I was tasked with choosing the next line of the song when it came. If I ever chose the wrong line, however, one of the people in the crowd would die. Morbid, I know, but… it had me smiling? Not because of the NPCs dying, of course. I was just smitten by how far Remedy was willing to go with what most open-world games would consider mindless optional content.
But the thing about Control Resonant‘s open world is that exploration never stops being entertaining, even when you’re not completing an activity or stumbling on a collectible. Simply moving through it is fulfilling enough, and it gets increasingly satisfying with each new traversal ability you unlock. One of my favorite abilities is Gravity Anomaly, which lets you flip gravity and walk right-side up on a surface that you’d otherwise be unable to traverse. That ability by itself allowed Remedy to create some truly unique environments, complete with vertical streets and upside-down buildings.
Even without Dylan’s unique traversal abilities and how they allow me to interact with the world, though, the environments are just awesome to look at. Remedy has always had a knack for environmental design, but expanding Control to this massive, open space allowed them to achieve something they’d never been able to achieve before. The amount of detail packed into every single inch of Control Resonant‘s world is just insane, and I simply can’t find another word for it. Even in the areas where there are no collectibles, no “gamey” reason to be there, Remedy went the extra mile to ensure these areas still felt like they were there because they belonged there. Chef’s kiss.
Control Resonant’s Memorable Story Is Held Back by Its Performances
Despite all the praise that I am more than willing to lob Control Resonant‘s way, it is let down by one unfortunate, very noticeable flaw: its performances. I will say that its story, as bizarre as it is, was more than enough to keep me invested throughout the entire game, regardless of where it took me. I especially adored Dylan and Jesse’s story so much so that it made me shed a tear or two, but the narrative overall is just downright fantastic and delivers on every promise it makes at the beginning of the game. The character development, the tension, the conflict, the resolution… it’s all done exceedingly well. Now, if only the game’s loudest voices could have reinforced that.
Dylan, in particular, was exceptionally difficult to listen to, and what makes it worse is that he, the main character, the one I spent the most time with, probably had the worst line delivery of any character in the game. It’s difficult to explain why, other than it just sounded like he wasn’t legitimately engaging with other characters in the game and his lines were recorded in a booth alone somewhere and then patched in with the others to sound as genuine as possible. I get that a lot of vocal performances are done remotely these days, and I can’t confidently say that’s what happened here. I’m just saying that’s what it sounded like.
The character development, the tension, the conflict, the resolution… it’s all done exceedingly well.
But what I think were the intended emotions behind his dialogue were simply absent, and it reached a point where I actually preferred just reading the subtitles than actually listening to it. I’ll admit it’s not all bad, as there were some instances (like when he was engaging with Jesse), that his delivery made me feel more connected to his character. By and large, though, it was difficult to listen to.
Many of Control Resonant‘s other characters weren’t much better either, except for perhaps Zoe and Jesse, who I feel made up the game’s best performances. However, the majority of the characters in the game, be they side characters or main, had a tendency to pull me out of the experience because I was so distracted by them rather than immersed. That being said, I will once again emphasize that this, to me, is one of those things that can be effortlessly excused, because Control Resonant does everything else so incredibly well.
And speaking of what it does well, the game’s performance on PC was top-notch. Even when Control Resonant‘s combat was splashing a ton of visual effects onto the screen all at once—not a single stutter. Apart from frame rate, though, I did manage to fall through the map once or twice, but fortunately, Control Resonant‘s save system is incredibly well done, so it’s like it never happened. Basically, the game is always in a save state, so it doesn’t require any manual saving, and it gives you such a wide selection of recent auto saves that you can easily reload to if needed. Have I said yet that Remedy thought of everything? I think I did.
Control Resonant Is Remedy’s Finest Moment
By the time the credits rolled on Control Resonant, I honestly struggled to come up with much I didn’t like about it. The performances are absolutely the exception, and I wish they had done more to support a story that deserved better from them, but almost everything surrounding that one issue is operating at such a high level. The combat somehow kept me entertained for more than 40 hours, the freedom I had to shape Dylan into the kind of character I wanted him to be made progression constantly rewarding, and Manhattan never became one of those open worlds I eventually stopped caring about exploring. Even after I had seen most of what it had to offer, I was still wandering off the beaten path, chasing World Feats, looking for collectibles, and picking fights simply because I wanted another excuse to use the build I had spent so much time putting together.
More than anything, though, Control Resonant feels like Remedy refusing to play it safe with a sequel to a game that really didn’t need fixing in the first place. It could have given us another trip through the Oldest House with a few new powers and called it a day, but instead, it changes the way Control plays, the way its world is explored, and even the way progression works without losing what made the first game so memorable. I went into Control Resonant expecting a great sequel to a game I already loved, but I didn’t expect it to end up being one of the best games of 2026.
Control Resonant launches on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on September 24, 2026. GameRant was provided a PC code for the purposes of this review.
