Control: Resonant [Review]
Remedy’s melee-focused sequel turns a warped Manhattan into a playground.
Remedy Entertainment has never been a studio content to play it safe. Max Payne brought bullet time and graphic-novel cutscenes to the shooter, Alan Wake turned a novelist's bad vacation into a flashlight-versus-darkness thriller, and 2019's Control took all of the studio's strangeness and locked it inside the Oldest House, a brutalist federal building that rearranges itself when nobody's looking. Alan Wake 2 followed in 2023 and tied those threads together into a shared universe fans have been happily picking apart ever since. Along the way Remedy has earned a reputation for using games to tell stories nobody else would think to tell, and built a passionate fanbase in the process, one I'll freely admit I'm a part of.
The road to a Control sequel was a long one. Remedy confirmed it was in the works back in 2022, revealed in late 2024 that it would be an action-RPG, and partnered with Annapurna to co-fund half the budget. Full production kicked off in early 2025, the game got its proper name and reveal at The Game Awards that December, and it landed on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC this past September. It also follows FBC: Firebreak, the co-op spinoff that didn't connect with players the way Remedy hoped, so there was some pressure riding on this one. Creative director Mikael Kasurinen, back from the first game, has described Resonant as the result of nearly seven years of work. I'm happy to report it shows. Control Resonant is one of, if not the best game of 2026 so far.
A quick heads-up before we go further: this review spoils the original Control, but I'll keep Resonant's big moments under wraps.
When we last saw the Faden siblings, Jesse had become Director of the Federal Bureau of Control and pulled her brother Dylan out of the deepest levels of the Oldest House, breaking the hold the Hiss had on him. Resonant picks up years later. A new threat has escaped the Oldest House and is wreaking interdimensional havoc on Manhattan, and with Jesse off beyond our reality holding back threats between dimensions, Dylan is the Bureau's best shot at surviving it. That's a tough sell for the FBC. Dylan killed a lot of agents back when the Hiss had its hooks in him, and their trust is going to be hard-earned. His only ally at the start is Agent Zoe De Vera, who he connects with by accident after picking up a radio while the Oldest House is under attack. She becomes his handler and, before long, his advocate.
From there, Dylan takes on the jobs only he can handle while searching for answers about what happened to his sister. The story puts his past front and center, from the rough home life he and Jesse shared as kids to the years he spent as a test subject for Dr. Casper Darling and the Bureau. Meanwhile, remnants of the Hiss are still tucked away somewhere in his subconscious. Between the Bureau's suspicion and whatever's lurking in his head, there's a steady current of tension under the whole adventure, and that's as far as I'll go on the plot.
Once you're out exploring Manhattan properly, the loop is to help the FBC clear out clusters of Hiss and investigate the source of the otherworldly "patterning" spreading through the city. Early on you learn that entities called Resonants are driving it, and they serve as both the game's core bosses and its big story milestones. Each time you take one down, enemies across the city respawn a little stronger, which gives you a fresh reason to sweep back through, farm Source and components, and gear up for the next chapter.
Right off the bat, Remedy's art direction does a lot of heavy lifting. This inverted Manhattan, with its gravity-defying landscapes, stark colors and the occasional kaleidoscope of mysterious shapes, feels completely out of step with reality. Remedy also isn't shy with its music, and there are sequences where a key track drops or builds to a crescendo that remind you what video games can do as a storytelling medium. More than once I just stared at the screen for a minute to soak in what was happening. The "Into the Sinkhole" mission in particular has one of the most iconic moments Remedy has ever put together, between the song selection, the voice acting and where the story is at that point. It's a beautiful stretch of game that has to be played to be believed.
The narrative is tight and well executed. Belonging is the thread I kept coming back to, whether a man the Bureau treated as a specimen for most of his life can earn a place inside it, and what family looks like after it's been pulled apart. IGN called this one of Remedy's more conventional stories while still crediting its twists for lifting the characters above the paranormal chaos around them, and Game Informer pointed to the storytelling and bizarre side quests as what kept it eager to explore. If it's been a while since you played Control, there's a handy recap in the main menu that hits the major beats while still leaving the first game worth playing for the full experience.
As good as all of that is, the real standout here is the gameplay, starting with traversal. Dylan has a double jump almost from the beginning, plus Elevate, a float that stretches his jump out significantly. Early on you'll look at a gap and think "no way," only to find that yes, you can make that jump. String together a jump, Elevate, a second jump and an air dash (with a second air dash available through talent points) and you can cover a lot of ground, and it becomes second nature in time. You also unlock a gravity-twisting ability fairly early that lets you reorient certain walls and ceilings as you approach them. It's trippy and hard to wrap your head around at first, but once it clicks it's one more thing that makes Dylan feel like the powerhouse he becomes. Exploration takes an Assassin's Creed-style approach, complete with map towers, side quests and secrets, but don't expect any yellow paint pointing the way. Resonant leans on a helpful quest log that tells you where to go and what to do, plus smart environmental cues like lights angled toward your destination.
The moment-to-moment combat is fun and addictive. Whether you want to get up close with the gauntlet-style primary form or keep some distance with the Scythe, the mix of secondary weapons and six additional skill slots makes for a smorgasbord of approaches, and I was still finding new ways to dispatch Hiss eight to ten hours in. Enemies carry a stagger meter that fills through the falter mechanic, and maxing it out lets you perform an execution. That kicks you into Dominance, heralded by a guttural drone from the mysterious Board, which greatly boosts your attack power. No matter how many times I triggered it, I was hyped every time. GameSpot, which also landed at a 9, praised the combat design as impeccable, and Kotaku came away convinced Remedy still has plenty of original tricks up its sleeve. One tip the game only mentions in passing: don't be afraid to level up weapon variations you don't plan to use. They all feed your overall Aberrant Power, which raises your falter and attack power.
I do have a couple of gripes. The talent tree runs out of interesting picks in the last third of the game, with a lot of the upper nodes tied to commanding enemies and other skills I hadn't invested in earlier. A few more power or falter boosts up there would have gone a long way. Enemy variety is the bigger one. There are named apex enemies scattered around and a couple of oversized types you see less often, but for the most part you're fighting the same three to five enemies the whole way through. Having them evolve in look and moveset as the world respawns, or adding a few new types, would have let the combat system stretch its legs even more. Other outlets noticed similar wear, with IGN noting the combat's sharp edge dulls in later hours and Game Informer flagging fumbles in difficulty balancing, and reception wasn't unanimous, as Polygon and Eurogamer were noticeably cooler on it.
For me, though, Remedy has done it again. Control Resonant is a gorgeous game at just the right length, with striking visuals and a soundtrack and story that land hard, all wrapped around an engaging city to explore and some of the most addictive combat I've played this year. Beyond a talent tree that could use some tuning and a wider enemy roster, it's hard to fault. It's in the running for my personal Game of the Year, and either way, September and October have been excellent months to be a gamer. If you're a fan of action games, or of Remedy's particular brand of weird, pick this one up.
Control Resonant
Remedy trades the Service Weapon for a melee-focused action-RPG and nails it, with addictive combat, jaw-dropping traversal and Dylan Faden’s story of belonging making Control Resonant one of the best games of 2026 so far.
