I’ve quickly become a fan of Remedy Entertainment over the last several years. While I was familiar with Quantum Break, it wasn’t until Control that I jumped in and experienced one of Remedy’s worlds for the very first time. Admittedly, Control wasn’t a game I loved. I was fascinated by its world and supernatural aspects, but the combat didn’t quite click for me at the level I’d hoped for going in. So, you can imagine why I was a little curious as to how the sequel to Control, now titled Control Resonant, would turn out.
At Summer Game Fest: Play Days 2026, I had the opportunity to go hands-on with the upcoming Control Resonant for around 30 minutes. While I had many questions entering, I left with the game as one of my favorites of the entire show, and I am confident Remedy has made a game that is going to be a blast to play.
Right out of the gate, Control Resonant sets its tone and establishes that while it is a Control game, things are different in Resonant. This time around, you play as Dylan Faden, Jesse’s brother, seven years following the events of Control. While the Hiss were contained back then, The Oldest House has officially fallen, and as a result, the Hiss have spewed into Manhattan and taken it over.
This makes for an incredibly trippy setting that makes it very hard for you not to want to explore every inch of it. People are floating in the air, the city is morphed and flipped horizontally or vertically in some areas, and enemies lie in every corner. I found the FBC Building in Control to be quite the area, but this time around, I’m incredibly excited to see what Remedy has in store for us across the streets of Manhattan. The areas I was able to explore were fascinating and provided scenes unlike anything in the first game, but they all felt distinctly in place with Control. Resonant has plenty of platforming to discover throughout the world, with one area forcing Dylan to utilize a combination of hover, dash, and jump techniques to navigate dream-like sequences filled with yellow foliage.
Beyond Manhattan, the prospect of even playing as Dylan is so neat. Dylan was possessed in the first game and viewed as an enemy, so it’s quite interesting to take over from his perspective and watch him attempt to redeem himself. Even in the short bit I played, Dylan was trying anything he could to bargain with the FBC employee he spoke with to convince her he was not there to hurt anyone but actually help them. I’m very intrigued by his character so far, and it sounds like there is a lot to look forward to in the mystery and story explored with Dylan.
While Dylan and New York City give Control Resonant some familiar Remedy flavor, its biggest departure is the combat system that feels more hack-and-slash than anything before for Remedy. It was hard to get a feel for how exactly this game would play, at least in the initial trailer footage, but any worries I had were set aside after playing. This is a game focused truly on up close and personal action combat. You get right into enemies and attack fast, hitting hard and utilizing a variety of weapons and abilities to do so.
Remedy has built this system around two weapons you can swap between depending on the button you press, essentially a heavy and a light option. Both of these have three weapons each, making for a total of six different weapons to experiment with and utilize across the Hiss-infested Manhattan. Beyond these, you also have access to different abilities you can mix and match on top of the weapon forms. Examples of these abilities include summoning a shield made of rocks, a ground pound, and more.
Mixing and matching weapons and abilities together was a ton of fun, and Remedy encourages it. There are multiple skill trees to fill out and experiment with as well, and you have the option to respec any time you’d like. Enemy design from my initial demo felt appropriate with quite a few forms to duke it out against, and the boss encounter was an absolute treat, requiring me to mix abilities to dodge incoming attacks and projectiles in order to chip away damage.
The dedication to crafting an action RPG with fun, memorable combat has been a core focus for the team. I spoke with Mikael Kasurinen, the Creative Director of Control Resonant, in Los Angeles, and he said the following on the game’s combat direction:
“When we started to think about Control as a franchise, what was important to me was that it was RPG-oriented, kind of a series of games. To make that possible, we shifted our thinking from this kind of character-centric type of thing, like what we did with Alan Wake and Max Payne, where it is only about one character going through a larger story.
We turned it the other way around. Instead, it is a world where we have a lot of different types of characters, and then we get this new perspective into the world through them. They become a lens as a protagonist in that world. With this kind of RPG approach, it also allows us to explore the different ways they can fight, different characters and different personalities, and different approaches to how they deal with different types of situations.”
I came into my appointment for Control Resonant, not exactly sure what to expect. Sure, it’s the latest game from Remedy Entertainment, but what new things would it bring to the table? The answer I found is a complete reinvention of the combat system we all came to know in the original, a deeper leaning toward the RPG genre, and a story that is sure to excite and entertain.
Control Resonant was one of my favorite games I saw at Summer Game Fest. I’m seriously enamored by the scope of Remedy’s ambition here, and by how confidently the studio seems to be combining fresh ideas with lessons learned from its previous games. Considering there are dozens in 2026, you’ve gotta choose your September games carefully, and I can now safely say Control Resonant is at the top of my list.
Control Resonant is set to release on September 24 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
