I first played Control Resonant back in June, having made my way through the same couple of hours as my colleague, Mitchell Saltzman, detailed in IGN’s first preview. Much like him, I had a great time getting to grips with the series’ newfound melee systems, hacking and slashing away at the Hiss threats that have broken out into the sequel’s open Manhattan. But I’ll admit that introduction did leave me a little wary of whether the dial may have been turned a little too much to the action side of things, and wondering if its open-world playground was merely there to serve as a place to grind XP and hone combat skills. As the studio steps further into the world of the action RPG, is it necessary to tread ground that won’t click with me in the same way Remedy’s previous games did?
So, I stepped into my exclusive two-hour-long demo of Control Resonant hoping to see more of what I love so much about Remedy’s output — unrivalled world-building, consistently surprising level design, and simply being shown things I haven’t seen before. Thankfully, I was not disappointed.
Do not fear, there’s plenty of weirdness here. Even the fast travel points are mysteriously placed doors that conjure looping snapshots of the surrounding scene within their frames when opened. This is a New York of Remedy’s design, one that takes familiar art deco architecture and bends it into the studio’s own image. Yes, there are flashes of other science fiction worlds here — one note I read even playfully references Inception and its folding city — but the Finnish developer firmly puts its singular stamp down wherever it can.
I felt it most keenly in the first of two brand new missions I got to play, which took me deep into the Big Apple’s subway system in search of the Reach ability, Resonant’s grapple hook equivalent. The Metro Vault is one of many “dungeons” where traversal abilities are learned, but they also push the story forward in interesting ways — often showing glimpses into protagonist Dylan’s relationship with his sister, Jesse, and their intertwining tales that have led to this moment. They’re a prime example of Remedy’s well-honed ability to layer each of its levels with both narrative and gameplay purpose, all while putting things on your TV that you’ve not quite seen before.
Here, in the middle of Metro Madness, trains hurtle across the screen from every direction, showing no respect for the laws of physics. Dylan is able to shift the gravitational pull of the tunnels at will; With the press of a button, he can make the ceiling his floor in order to better navigate the screeching obstacles that rattle along each perilous passage. It’s a neat bit of puzzle platforming that makes you question each and every leap of faith. When faced with a gaping drop into the unknown, in most games the wrong call would be to fall all the way down. But Control Resonant doesn’t like to play by the rules, with the void acting as the critical path. Curiosity is rewarded in both its linear and open areas.
These winding corridors are also full of Mold enemies, a returning faction you can read all about in my deep dive into Resonant’s enemies. They pose a different threat to the much more common Hiss, proving much harder to directly damage due to their armored casings. But while you need to find and exploit their weakness, I appreciate that there’s no single solution to effectively taking down an enemy. While the fire-sparking Heat Wave and Heat Aura abilities can melt through the Mold’s armour plating, if you haven’t equipped either, you can do exactly what I did and use your shape-shifting weapon, The Aberrant, to conjure a giant hammer and bash their hardened outer layer off, then shift to a blade form to slice up their fungal insides. This flexible approach to combat means minimal time is spent in menus crafting builds, and more time toe-to-toe with the threats you’ll be taking down with them.
Speaking of which, the second mission I was dropped into featured the Central Resonant, one of the sequel’s big bosses. But before I could battle it, I first had to find its lair. Working out the building it called home was simple enough — a towering smokestack stretching improbably high into the sky revealed a factory as such a place — but getting in there and finding its exact location within those walls was another challenge altogether. To do so, I had to fend off a few bothersome Hiss, which I did so using the satisfying tactic of bulldozing into larger enemies with my trusty rock shield, which builds up enough of their stun meter to allow me to deliver a slick finisher with The Aberrant’s dual-blade form.
Over the course of my few hours with Resonant, I can’t say I ever felt anything approaching boredom with its combat, which consistently delivers a feel-good power trip in each encounter. Key to this is Remedy’s decision to kill off all minor grunts in an area after you’ve defeated the larger enemies within a horde. It helps keep the game’s momentum going, without bogging you down in battles that could otherwise outstay their welcome.
Once the streets were clear, I could get on with solving the puzzle needed in order to open the factory’s doors. This involved stabbing a nearby electrical power source with Dylan’s blade, which can hold a charge for a limited time, and scuttling as quickly as I could to an unpowered cube in need of energy. I’d previously engaged with a more complex version of this puzzle, which had me transporting power across roads and rooftops between multiple generators, which put my traversal skills to the test. It’s encouraging to see that Control Resonant’s open world challenges won’t be limited solely to combat, but also test your mental muscles, too.
A prime example of this was when I came into contact with an Altered Item — everyday objects that have developed paranatural properties in the Control Universe. In this case, it was a Polaroid camera that disappeared with a flash and snap every time I approached it. In order to get close to it, I needed to find an alternative way into the room and sneak up on it from behind. Doing so made it vanish again, but this time kicking off a whole new side questline that seemed to insinuate I’d be meeting this camera many more times on my travels across New York. It’s these sorts of strange sojourns that allayed any fears I had that Remedy was going too action-heavy in this sequel. Rest assured, there’s still plenty of that weirdness and puzzle-solving that the original featured so heavily.
But back to the mission at hand. Upon entering the factory, I ventured down into its depths only to be met with a series of steaming hot pipes blocking my progress. So, into its intertwining tunnels I went in search of a way to clear a path. This led to a cluster of intense battles, side paths full of upgrade materials, and plenty of lore pertaining to horrors that took place here – horrors that resulted in a sixty-foot-tall magma monster living in the factory’s bowels. It’s the backstory I found here that made this whole area come to life for me, as some of that trademark Remedy dark humour pierced through an otherwise desperate situation.
The boss at the end of this tale would be the biggest challenge I would face in my time with Control Resonant. A giant volcanic-rock-covered man, it struck a powerful, tortured form, with pipes protruding from its back like steaming spikes and a screaming maw that constantly spewed molten lava. It took me a couple of attempts to take it down, once I’d found out the key was to literally never stay still. This is a mantra carried across all of Control Resonant, but this boss fight really hits that point home. As much as half of the arena’s floor can be covered in highly damaging lava at any time, so dashing, hovering, or using the aforementioned shield is necessary in order to get in close. Once within striking distance, you’ll want to get stuck in (without being greedy) before your foe starts splurging all over again. The pace never lets off, so it’s a good sign that Remedy appears to have judged each boss fight’s duration well – none of my encounters ever felt that they lasted too long.
That relatively fleeting fight time means there’s no checkpointing. Instead, a slight reprieve is offered by a burst of healing, triggered by reducing a boss’s health bar down to a couple of predetermined points, each marked by a blue dot. It’s a really smart way of further encouraging that “attack is the best form of defense” mindset that runs through Resonant’s design, and a clever method of not flooding boss arenas with annoying smaller enemies who are there purely for you to farm health from. From my limited experience of the sequel’s biggest encounters, it really seems a step forward in terms of boss design for Remedy this time around.
But, as I said, despite being heavily influenced by action RPGs, there’s so much more to Control Resonant than combat. During my brief poke around New York, I stumbled across little puzzles to complete, scanning devices to turn on in order to reveal locations of other activities, and many, many pieces of world-building lore. That storytelling was most keenly felt in a visit to the city’s central FBC Field Office. Here I bumped into familiar faces from the first game, read classified documents relating to corrupting forces plaguing Manhattan, and even took part in the first few steps of a side mission relating to a corpse whose head had mysteriously exploded — just another day in the Federal Bureau of Control.
It all makes for a very exciting mix. Even if the edge-of-your-seat combat is often the star of the show, slick platforming, clever puzzles, and best-in-class worldbuilding each have their space to shine. Control Resonant is not quite Remedy going full open-world, but it certainly looks set to be an impressive expansion of all of the ideas that made the original so engaging, with none of what makes the studio’s games so memorable lost in the upsizing. Simply put, my initial fears have all but been extinguished, and now I can’t wait for September 24.
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.
