We’ve now spent many hours playing Control Resonant and our full review is under construction, but until then, we thought we’d share our early impressions about the latest chapter in Remedy’s bonkers but brilliant shared universe. Control Resonant is the sequel to 2019’s Control and is set seven years after that game.
This is important, as it means the events of Alan Wake 2 have happened by this time. As those following the Remedy Connected Universe will know, the Alan Wake series collided with Control in that game’s final DLC. These crossovers continued in Alan Wake 2, with the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC) playing in a key role in Alan’s fight against The Dark Presence.
However, Control Resonant moves the action away from Bright Falls and back to New York where the FBC is still fending off an attack by The Hiss a malevolent entity from another dimension that attacked ours by way of a frequency that turns humans into it’s monstrous foot soldiers. The Hiss has escaped the FBC’s HQ and is now loose in New York while the Bureau scrambles to contain it.
The bad news is that The Hiss is possessing and killing people indiscriminately across the city, but the good news is that’s its being hunted by a new equally terrifying entity that has isolated Manhattan to stop The Hiss From spreading. Unfortunately, this new entity is also turning humans into monsters known as Resonants, so the FBC now has to deal with a smackdown between two interdimensional god-like beings.
Jesse Faden, the protagonist of the first game and new director of the FBC is missing, so players take control of her wayward but similarly superpowered brother Dylan – who’s immune to The Hiss after being freed from it’s influence in the first game. The FBC view Dylan as a pariah due to his complicated and violent history with them, but they also view him as an expendable weapon in the fight against The Hiss. So they decide to unleash their monster on the monsters.
Taking it to the streets
While the original game took place fully in the FBC’s Oldest House HQ, Control Resonant is set in New York’s streets and offers players a lot more freedom than the claustrophobic and drab corridors of the original game. While Resonant feels like an open world experience, it actually isn’t. The world is mostly a set of interconnected maps (not unlike a Soulslike game) where the player needs to open up new routes and fast-travel points as they explore and complete quests.
Anyone expecting Crimson Desert levels of freedom is going to be disappointed, but this new setup really helps Control Resonant feel like a grander experience than the original, as well as reinforcing the idea that The Hiss has escaped into the wider world, which is a terrifying thing to consider. The player also has a lot more choice around where they go and what they do which makes the Hiss infested New York start to feel like your own personal playground after a while.
It’s a nice touch, and one that rewards player exploration and experimentation. Want to go take on some creative and tough boss battles? Go hunt the Resonants and take their powers to get stronger in combat. Want to learn more about Jesse Faden’s mysterious disappearance? You can follow her trail and unlock some cool new traversal abilities that help you reach more areas of the map.
The biggest change though comes in Control Resonant’s combat. Where the previous title, as well as Remedy’s Alan Wake and Quantum Break games, were third-person shooters, Resonant is a hack and slash adventure akin to Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, etc. This was a massive gamble from Remedy, but in our view it’s paid off.
Changing the entire genre of a series with a sequel isn’t totally unheard of in video games, but it’s a rarity, and something that could quite easily have blown up in Remedy’s face. However, it works, and still manages to feel like it shares DNA with the original Control and the wider Remedy universe. Playing Control Resonant reminded us of the Prototype series, and we’re excited to see how this particular power fantasy continues to evolve.
We’ll break down the combat in more detail in our full review, coming soon.