Control Resonant is the latest release in the Remedy Connected Universe, as revealed during The Game Awards this evening. It switches gears significantly from the first Control, though, featuring third-person action RPG gameplay with an open-ended version of Manhattan as its playable environment.
The Best War Games was able to get an early look at Control Resonant ahead of its Game Awards reveal, where we learned more about the game’s approach to combat, build-crafting, and its place within Control lore. To that point, it’s important to point out that Control Resonant is a sequel to the first Control, but it is not required to play Jesse Faden’s adventure to enjoy Resonant.
Control Resonant Picks Up A Few Years After First Control
The Sequel Features The Story Of Jesse's brother, Dylan
That being said, Control Resonant does build on some narrative threads from Control, specifically the Faden siblings. Control Resonant stars Dylan Faden, Jesse’s brother, and is set 7 years after the events of the first game. After awakening from a coma, Dylan finds that Jesse is gone and the supernatural entities (the Hiss) have broken out of the Federal Bureau of Control building and flooded the streets of Manhattan.
Enemies in Resonant have evolved from the Hiss seen in Control and will match the player's agency and depth in the game, posing a serious threat to Dylan. We can see a few of these new foes in the trailer, but Remedy teased that they can fly and will be relentless.
To fight these supernatural enemies, Dylan needs a weapon, which is where the Aberrant comes into play. The Aberrant is a shapeshifting weapon that can switch to different forms that players will discover throughout Control Resonant. With this new game being an action RPG, the expectation is that the Aberrant will take on mostly melee forms, but that’s yet to be fully revealed.
The melee action is arguably the biggest departure for Control Resonant, which follows the gunplay-focused Control and Alan Wake 2. With Resonant once again using the Northlight Engine, one can only imagine the type of experimentation Remedy had to do to support a new gameplay style. From what little can be seen of Control Resonant’s gameplay in the trailer, it looks to be fast-paced and frenetic.
Remedy calls Control Resonant bigger and more expansive than anything the studio has done before, but it is not an open-world game. They used the term “open-ended” when describing it to us, and suggested that there would be plenty of opportunities to explore the distorted version of Manhattan in the game.
Manhattan has been closed off from the outside world, so there will presumably be a large footprint of the city to see, but Remedy is not looking to take you on a landmark tour. It wants to leverage its distinct visual style and the unique artistic qualities of the RCU, first introduced in Control, to give players something they’ve never seen before.
Player agency is also a big thing for Control Resonan t – Remedy wants gamers to find their own playstyle through buildcrafting. With the combination of the Aberrant and its different forms as well as supernatural abilities, your version of Dylan can play very differently from someone else’s. At the same time, Remedy won't lock players into one specific approach, and is offering freedom to experiment within Control Resonant’s combat framework.
While Resonant is indeed a direct sequel, Remedy has ensured that new players can enjoy it without having played Control or Alan Wake.
Although Remedy highlighted that Control Resonant is not a “safe sequel,” the developers don’t want those who didn’t play Control or Alan Wake to feel like they are getting a lesser experience. Resonant is connected, but it is an independent story. If you know the events of Control and the Faden siblings’ lore then you will have a richer experience, but because the gameplay is different, the protagonist is different, and the story picks up 7 years after the first game, you can jump into Resonant without any prior knowledge of the Remedy Connected Universe.
Creative Director Mikael Kasurinen cited Neon Genesis Evangelion as an inspiration for Control Resonant, but didn’t elaborate further than that. Based on this first trailer, it seems that Remedy is taking a big swing and is not “playing it safe.” While there may eventually be a proper follow-up where you play as Jesse Faden, Resonant looks bigger and bolder, but also very different. With Dylan Faden as the main character and an action RPG focus, it seems like Remedy wants to give new players an entry point into its universe, in the hopes that when they finish Resonant, they might go back and check out Control.
As a huge fan of Control, I’m curious to see how this new melee combat, combined with supernatural abilitie,s switches things up, but most of all I’m excited by the prospect of Remedy using its knack for mind-bending visuals to create a version of Manhattan we’ve never seen before. Oh, and if you’re wondering if there might be musical numbers, Remedy didn’t say there wouldn’t be? So...