Control Resonant Is as Beautifully Weird and Innovative as You’d Expect From Remedy

3 hours ago 2

Published Jun 13, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT

Tay Garcia is a Contributor at DualShockers and a Brazilian journalist who has been covering games professionally since 2017. Her work spans news, reviews, previews, lists, guides, and features, with a particular focus on horror, retro games, theories, puzzle games, Metroidvanias, Soulslikes, and story-driven titles.

Before joining DualShockers, Tay worked as an assistant editor and contributed to Jovem Nerd, one of Brazil’s largest pop culture outlets, as well as Editora Europa, a major Brazilian publisher known for gaming and technology magazines. She has also worked as a streamer, YouTube creator, and podcaster. Tay holds a B.A. in Journalism, has postgraduate training in Social Media, and is certified in professional video game journalism. She was also a member of Podcast UP, which won the Cubo de Ouro Award for Best Podcast in Brazil in 2021.

We’ve all grown accustomed to expecting the wonderfully bizarre from the Remedy Entertainment office. And, as a fan of surrealism and games that aren’t afraid to take creative risks, I say that as the highest possible praise. Naturally, Control Resonant, the next chapter in one of the most enigmatic and gripping franchises of recent years, is no exception.

Back in 2019, the original Control made us question the boundaries of reality (and gravity), so we’re all waiting for an even deeper, more mind-bending plunge into The Oldest House – that mysterious, paranormal building in the middle of Manhattan that put Jesse Faden through hell, only for her to end up as the Director of the entire, chaotic operation.

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But if you thought Jesse’s journey left us with more questions than answers, Resonant is actively looking to blow the door wide open.

Now, seven years later, we are finally getting a glimpse at where this supernatural rabbit hole leads – though seen through a radically different lens: Dylan Faden, Jesse’s brother, takes center stage as the protagonist this time around. He has also been through his own literal hell, having spent years imprisoned by the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC) while being forced to embrace the Hiss.

And, as the subtitle “Resonant” implies, Dylan’s fractured connection to this world is setting up a sequel that promises to be louder, bolder, and beautifully chaotic.

Ice Cream/Saxophone/Kittens

It was at Remedy’s invitation that I got to play roughly three hours of Control Resonant. I sat down in a small room lined with game posters displaying Dylan wielding a stylized hammer, booted up a high-end gaming PC, and pressed “start." What followed were some hours where I completely forgot I was in the middle of a press event – only to be rudely reminded when a “Thank You for Playing” screen popped up, bringing my playthrough to an end.

As the subtitle “Resonant” implies, Dylan’s fractured connection to this world is setting up a sequel that promises to be louder, bolder, and beautifully chaotic.

I was able to experience the entire Act 1, where Dylan Faden is suddenly liberated from the glass cage where he has been kept imprisoned by the FBC for God knows how many years. He is immediately thrown into the middle of a Hiss-attacked Manhattan, meaning that the supernatural threat hasn't just manifested inside The Oldest House this time, but it has actively begun spilling out into the city streets.

Everywhere you look, it’s an absolute mess – and the game kicks off just as chaotically as you’d expect a Control title to. Hiss enemies swarm from all sides, and within the first few steps, you can instantly feel how different Dylan plays compared to Jesse. While she was incredibly light and focused on aerial movements, Dylan feels much more grounded and heavy, yet remarkably versatile.

This first act functions as a tutorial on steroids: it is beautifully chaotic, but it gradually introduces the basic commands of the new protagonist. It starts by showcasing his mobility, which consists of a jump, a simple dash, a double dash, a quick sprint, and also a double jump that allows him to levitate for a few brief seconds. They are simple actions on their own, but when combined, they drastically amplify how you traverse the environment.

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Following the basics, we get to the combat commands, which is where the experience becomes truly exhilarating. Instead of using service firearms like his sister, Dylan gets up close and personal with close-range melee weapons. The result is a highly fluid and deeply satisfying hack-and-slash loop – and I say this as someone who isn't typically a huge fan of the genre.

Everything just clicks, and the build variety is immense. It starts with your primary weapon, where you choose between three distinct archetypes (fast, heavy, or mid-range). Next, you equip a secondary weapon, which essentially acts as a passive upgrade tied to your main tool. For instance, if you choose the heavy hammer, you can equip a lovely secondary modifier that triggers a devastating charged attack. And if you go for the mid-range option (which resembles a supernatural whip), you can swing it horizontally to swipe away enemies with sweeping area-of-effect damage.

The icing on the cake is the combat abilities, which are basically Dylan’s telekinetic supernatural attacks. This requires you to charge a specific energy bar using standard melee strikes before executing it like an ultimate ability – though it's frequent enough to be woven naturally into regular combos. This mechanic brings that signature Control flavor to the table, allowing you to summon rocks that automatically hurl themselves at enemies, manifest a stone shield, or literally burn your targets.

My hands-on time was highly focused on gameplay, but you can expect a lot of mystery from the narrative. The core premise we established is that Dylan wants to stop the Hiss (badly, almost blindly), and he clearly doesn't care if he dies in the process. Along the way, he crosses paths with Zoe, a compelling new character tied to the remnants of the FBC. She also wants to stop the Hiss, so they join forces – though not without her harboring deep suspicions about Dylan, knowing he is the brother of the current Director.

The preview also featured some straightforward dialogue choices, which didn't seem to alter the narrative trajectory. Instead, they only served to reinforce Dylan's internal psyche: you can play him as someone obligated to help because he’s the only one with firsthand Hiss experience, or as an expendable tool uniquely fit for the dirty work.

To crown this introductory sequence, Act 1 concludes with a boss fight that forces you to put all that newly acquired mobility into practice! It also serves as a clear warning that we should set our expectations for the art direction and creature design incredibly high. This was easily one of the most bizarre and unsettling creatures I’ve ever seen in a Remedy game, and I loved every second of it. The visual design was completely wild, forcing me to keep my composure while jumping, dashing, and chaining Dylan’s movements together just to make it out alive.

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Inside the Mind’s Playground

As you can tell, the protagonist is capable of doing a lot right out of the gate, and the second portion of the build only solidifies that sentiment.

This next segment introduced me to the Evacuation Zone, a semi-open, Hiss-infested sector of Manhattan that gave me serious vibes of the Dark Place sequences from Alan Wake 2. In this area, I was completely free to explore, roam around fighting the Hiss, and freely experiment with different builds – and it was here that my appreciation for the game’s depth truly expanded.

And Dylan’s gameplay is highly customizable! To tweak your loadout, you can access a “safe room” inside his own mind called The Gap. Here, you can easily respec and swap your abilities (it has a cost, of course) to find the combination that feels best, though it’s worth noting this mental space can only be accessed while exploring these open zones, not during tight story missions.

Also, it is important to highlight that, for this specific section, the build fast-forwarded to about four hours into the game (somewhere around Act 3 or 4, I imagine), granting me access to mid-game abilities. I got to play around with a ground-pound area-of-effect attack and telekinetic bursts to shove enemies away, and by this point, I could equip three different telekinetic skills simultaneously.

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What caught my attention the most, though, was the ability to personalize combos. I put together a combination using the heavy hammer that caused Dylan’s hands to transform into stone gauntlets mid-strike. So, as you can probably tell, I completely lost myself in the options, and because my time was limited, I only managed to scratch the surface of what’s possible. And the sense that these options will scale significantly throughout the full game is pretty exciting! I mean, I even managed to combo aerial attacks together, which is insane considering Dylan doesn't “fly” like Jesse, yet we are still able to pull off some wild, gravity-defying stunts with him.

Additionally, while inside The Gap, you can craft Artifacts to equip for passive bonuses, upgrade your Talents via a traditional stat tree, and even access a firing range area complete with a training dummy to test your builds before heading back to the concrete jungle.

It truly felt like a supernatural playground, though it’s important to mention that the zone was structurally limited for this preview. I only encountered a few “heated zones” where waves of Hiss enemies spawned, requiring me to clear the area to claim Zone XP. However, Remedy confirmed that in the final game, we can expect these areas to be brimming with side-missions, unique quests, and NPCs to interact with.

Gravity is a Matter of Opinion

At the tail end of the Evacuation Zone, we were treated to one last story mission titled The Sinkhole, and it was here that Resonant proved it intends to be just as visually striking and atmospheric as its predecessor. In this mission, Dylan must delve deep into a Hiss-dense fracture to study a new kind of resonance, entering an environment that actively tries to trick your mind.

To navigate this psychological labyrinth, Dylan enters the anomaly physically anchored by a rope controlled by Zoe, who stays outside to ensure he doesn’t get permanently lost. This setup leads to mind-bending 360-degree level design where floors, walls, and ceilings collapse into one another. So spatial perception is key here, and you have to manually “shift” gravity to navigate the correct path through a shifting maze.

And that visual tension builds steadily until it culminates in another major boss fight. While visually distinct from the creature in Act 1, it was every bit as terrifying, showing a clear intention from the developers to lean much harder into pure survival horror elements this time around.

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A Fresh Evolution

It’s fascinating how Control Resonant doesn’t quite feel like the first game, yet it feels exactly like a proper sequel should. It slots perfectly alongside the original in terms of atmosphere, pacing, and lore, while radically shifting the gameplay dynamic with its new hack-and-slash veins.

Oh, and this preview is living proof that Remedy has no intention of staying cozy inside a comfortable creative zone – and thank God for that! They clearly want to keep thinking outside the box, delivering a sequel that feels like a genuine, fresh evolution rather than a safe retread, and that is exactly why so many gamers love their work so much.

It’s fascinating how Control Resonant doesn’t quite feel like the first game, yet it feels exactly like a proper sequel should.

When the press event was over, I walked out of that poster-lined room with the distinct feeling that all sequels should strive to be as bold as Control Resonant, which already says a lot. And September 24 can’t come soon enough, when the full game launches for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.