I had not realised how much I missed the world of Control until about five seconds into Control Resonant.
A return to the Oldest House, the imposing and impossible headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control, immediately brought back memories of playing Remedy Entertainment’s 2019 original. Control was the sort of game that encouraged return visits, with its corridors packed with documents, recordings and strange details that made its world feel deeper with every playthrough.
Just a few seconds in, however, and Resonant made something crystal clear: this is a very different world.
The Oldest House is abandoned. The Hiss, the otherworldly force that served as the primary threat in Control, has escaped its confines and spread to New York City.
And Jesse Faden is no longer the character at the centre of it all.
Instead, players take control of Dylan Faden, Jesse’s brother, who was introduced in the first game and now finds himself venturing into a city where the boundaries of reality have seemingly collapsed.
My first 40 minutes with Control Resonant at Tokyo Game Show offered little explanation for how things reached this point. Dylan knows about as much as the player does, and that uncertainty works in the game’s favour. Players are stepping into a familiar universe, but one that no longer seems to follow the rules.
Visually, it is immediately impressive.
Remedy demonstrated, along with Alan Wake 2, how far its technology has come, particularly when it comes to lighting, animation and creating environments that could shift between the real and surreal. Resonant continues in that direction, with movement and animation feeling remarkably smooth even as the world around Dylan becomes increasingly chaotic.
The bigger change is in combat.
Whereas Control was built heavily around Jesse’s Service Weapon and supernatural abilities, Resonant pushes Dylan towards close-quarters encounters. Yet it did not take long to settle into its rhythm.
Returning players should quickly recognise the importance of movement, positioning and reaction to enemies, even if the tools are different, while newcomers are introduced to its systems without being overwhelmed by everything this universe has accumulated since 2019.
What has definitely survived is the weirdness.
If anything, Remedy appears determined to make things stranger.
The Hiss has warped New York to the point that the city itself is beginning to fracture. Streets fold over one another and buildings appear to defy normal geometry, creating images reminiscent of the collapsing cityscapes of films such as Inception and Doctor Strange.
But Resonant finds beauty inside that chaos.
Colours, shapes and patterns emerge from the distorted environment until parts of New York begin to resemble abstract paintings. There were moments during the demo when I wanted to stop moving simply to take in what Remedy had created, even as enemies were waiting nearby.
That combination of violence and visual experimentation is perhaps best demonstrated by the first boss encounter.
Known as The Artist, the creature is discovered inside an art gallery corrupted by the Hiss. The works around it have seemingly merged into a single nightmarish entity, transforming the gallery into both a battlefield and a piece of grotesque installation art.
It is a suitably unsettling introduction to the creatures Dylan may encounter and one that feels distinctly Remedy. There are echoes of cosmic and Lovecraftian horror, but filtered through the studio’s fascination with architecture, art and the absurd.
More important, the encounter suggests that Resonant understands one of the things that made the original Control so memorable.
Its appeal was never simply about fighting enemies with supernatural powers. It was about wondering what was behind the next door, reading one more document or finding something inexplicable tucked away in a forgotten corner of the Oldest House.
Taking the action outside that building could have risked losing some of that atmosphere. Based on the opening, Remedy instead seems to have taken the strangeness contained within the Oldest House and unleashed it across an entire city.
After 40 minutes, Resonant had already done enough to whet my appetite. I want to see just how far Remedy can push this fractured version of New York when the full game arrives, at least until Grand Theft Auto 6 consumes much of the gaming world’s attention.
Control Resonant is being released on September 24 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC
