Two particular moments increased my hype and expectations towards Control Resonant to stratospheric heights over the past months: the first one was, obviously, its announcement, but the second one was the result of my interview with the game’s director, Mikael Kasurinen, who explained the game’s new structure, story emphasis, and most importantly, its action-heavy, melee-based gameplay loop. As a lover of hack n’ slash games and more adrenaline-inducing titles, I was eager to find out how they would properly adapt the franchise’s Lynchian tones and bizarre plot into something bigger, more gameplay focused, and more ambitious.

With it finally out, I think that Remedy has succeeded in delivering yet another ultra-high quality thriller, with some unbelievably incredible highs. Though I have to say that, in some other aspects, you simply cannot beat the novelty, innovation and style of the original. Let’s talk about it.

Move around like you’re an amalgamation of Infamous, Mario, and Spider-Man.

Control Resonant is the quintessential sequel that acts as a yang to the original’s yin. Set seven years after the events of the original Control, most of the plot and gameplay elements featured in this sequel are meant to be a direct opposite of the experience we’ve had with its predecessor. Instead of being set inside a dark, brutalist enclosed space, Control Resonant opts for a vastly more open map: the island of Manhattan, completely distorted and altered due to a brand new threat. Instead of playing as Jesse, looking for her brother, you actually play as said brother, Dylan, looking for Jesse, after her mysterious vanishing. Instead of a metroidvania, this is more of a pseudo open world action adventure. And instead of an emphasis on shooting, we are now venturing into melee territory.

Playing as the misunderstood antagonist-but-not-really of the first game is one of the most interesting aspects of Control Resonant. This Dylan is damaged, remorseful, looking for a chance to redeem himself for the damage he has done in the past. He is also someone completely immune to the possession effects of the Hiss, the true antagonists of the first game, though that doesn’t help very much with this game’s new actual villainous entities. He accepts being a pawn for the Federal Bureau of Control, trying to showcase his value to a bunch of people who blame him for all of the events that have happened a few years prior.

Someone must have watched Inception a few times when this game was being designed.

In that regard, the setting felt very interesting. You have no idea why Jesse has vanished, you have no idea of what’s happening in New York; all you know is that you are playing as a murder machine who had previously proven himself to be a superpowered entity, perhaps even more powerful than Jesse herself. Even if he is being controlled by the FBC, with a failsafe connected to his head in case he goes berserk, the handful of allies Dylan meets along the way don’t mind if he uses, uh, “extreme methods” in order to get rid of the many enemies infesting the streets of New York.

And this is where I’d like to talk about the best aspect this game has to offer: its gameplay. Dylan starts off as someone with a lot of strength and mobility, and can inherit more abilities as time goes on. In essence, he can conjure melee-based weapons out of thin air, and move around in a way that somewhat reminded me of the Infamous games, as well as The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Dylan can connect multiple jumps, air dashes, and additional hovers, in order to turn the tall buildings in New York into mere obstacles you can surpass with ease. The platforming in this game is absolutely sensational.

Whip it good.

Then there’s the combat, which is oh so delightful. At first, this feels like your typical melee-based action-adventure: you have a few attack options, and a weak (and optional) ranged attack. The more you play, the more weapons and moves you can unlock, effectively turning what was once a shooter-based metroidvania series into a pseudo open world hack n’ slash: I wouldn’t call this close to Devil May Cry or any Platinum game, but the sheer amount of weapons, powerups and combos you can pull off is outstanding, with no build actually being better than the other. In fact, the game actively wants you to explore new builds and different weapons, as you can spend points in a full loadout reset, if you so choose.

Concrete jungle where dreams are maaaaaaade of…

I have nothing but the utmost respect for Remedy when it comes to designing Control Resonant‘s overall gameplay, and most importantly, the tech powering it. They are one of the few companies still making an engine of their own, and the dedication is palpable. I was playing this game, on pretty high settings, at an average of 100 to 120 frames per second, on an RTX 3060 graphics card. It’s not a weak GPU, sure, but getting such impressive visuals, lighting effects and physics, all while averaging such a ludicrously high framerate, wasn’t something I was expecting from one of the most technically challenging games of the year.

We are talking about much larger environments, both in length and height, full of artifacts, interactive objects, enemies spewing out projectiles and red lights, and so on. Some checkpoint corridors were an obvious indication on where a section of the map was being loaded out and another was being loaded in, but it seemed natural. No tight corridor or QTE shoved into the gameplay in order to hide a loading screen, for instance.

And to believe this is actually the prologue’s boss…

So what we have here is a Control sequel that is much larger in scope and map size, much more technically advanced in terms of the tech powering it, and vastly more action-focused and more aggressive in nature. In short, the kind of game that feels like it was made with my demented tastes in mind. But if that’s the case, why do I still prefer the original Control at the end of the day? The thing is that Control Resonant, as fun as it is in its gameplay side, isn’t as INTERESTING and INTRIGUING as the original game was.

I remember when the first Control came out. Better yet, I remember previewing it at E3, more than a year before it dropped, and feeling completely confused, but intrigued, over the mind-bending crap being presented at me. I had no idea of what the hell the game was hiding, or the premise behind me. But it had my attention from the getgo. The Oldest House was claustrophobic, dangerous, brutalist, but it was begging you to explore it. Jesse, a former everyday girl, was learning about the weirdness of the game’s world alongside the player. Crap was weird, crap was confusing, but crap was innovative. It was novel, thought-provoking, and well-paced.

Control Resonant’s combat is purely sublime.

I’m not trying to say that Control Resonant isn’t interesting, intriguing, or with a good story, but Dylan just isn’t that interesting of a protagonist. Being some sort of deus ex machina doesn’t give him a lot of room to grow in terms of his strength; he’s a destructive machine right from the getgo, which is great for an action game, but it hurts his character development, especially when he acts so passively and remorseful at first. Most of his dialogue exchanges are quite awkward, in fact.

The other main issue is, well, its setting. As previously mentioned, the Oldest House was mysterious and intriguing. It was claustrophobic, but full of side rooms to explore. Of course, Control was a metroidvania, after all. Resonant’s map is still creative, in the sense that is a completely twisted version of Manhattan with lots of Inception-esque effects thrown into it, but it’s still Manhattan, a place you’ve visited a million times before in a video game. This is still a somewhat open world action adventure with crafting, leveling up, numbers being presented onscreen whenever you damage an enemy, radio chat conversations between you and a sidekick, sidequests, hidden collectibles.

To sum it up, Control Resonant feels way too much like most AAA games out there. Sure, a lot more creative, polished and fun to play than most of them, but still way too similar to some very generic games in the market. I really don’t want to be reminded of Insomniac’s Spider-Man game when I’m playing a pananormal thriller inspired by David Lynch, for example.

“Hey buddy, wanna talk?”

There is a lot to like about Control Resonant. I genuinely respect how Remedy opted to make this sequel the yang to Control’s yin. It’s more aggressive, bigger in scope, technically astounding, and features some of the best combat I’ve experienced in years. This isn’t a sequel content with simply replicating its successful predecessor, it wants to push the franchise and its lore into entirely new territory. That said, its open world structure, slightly more generic setting, and less interesting protagonist make it feel less intriguing and innovative than Control. It’s still a magnificent game, and easily one of the most impressive releases of the year, but it occasionally feels too eager to resemble other AAA blockbusters instead of fully embracing what made its predecessor so unique in the first place.

Control Resonant is available now on PS5, Xbox Series S/X and PC.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB.

A copy of Control Resonant was provided by the publisher.