Control Resonant review: Mind-boggling, genre-bending, breathtaking

Remedy Entertainment is a studio that, despite widespread acclaim, still manages to be a somewhat underappreciated developer.

Its games release to critical acclaim, as does its DLC, but that never seems to translate into immediate sales. Instead, word of mouth reclaims that money over time.

From Max Payne, through Alan Wake, Quantum Break and Control, Remedy has slowly but surely been improving bit-by-bit, accruing the capital and capability to match their ambition.

In Control Resonant, we see that studio finally able to flex its muscles, and it is a sight to behold.

Our story picks up seven years on from the events of Control. The Hiss has escaped the Oldest House. Jesse Faden is missing. Manhattan has been twisted into an MC Escher-esque nightmare.

Jesse's brother, Dylan, is given the chance of redemption, putting his paranatural abilities (and expendability) to use in an attempt to make up for the pain he has caused.

Dylan's story is inherently more straightforward than Jesse's. It's an outwardly simple tale of a guilty man seeking salvation. But like Jesse's trek through the Oldest House, Dylan's story plays out in a series of far-from-straightforward events.

Some say that restriction breeds creativity, and the claustrophobic corridors of the Oldest House certainly led Remedy to create their most fascinating and creative world.

In Resonant, a near limitless freedom has not stifled Remedy's creativity, but allowed them to expand it severalfold into perhaps the most remarkable world in modern gaming.

Exploring the floors and walls and upside-down-ness of Remedy's world is frictious at first, providing Dylan with frustratingly common roadblocks to new areas.

But as you unlock your movement abilities – double jumps, levitation, a grapple – those avenues open up, and Manhattan transforms into a playground to explore to your heart's content as if it were a secret Metroidvania.

The map is littered with small objectives to complete, which initially evokes the slew of fodder content in many open world games.

But while it's true that much of this is fodder content, it is never treated as anything more. Much of it exists to be completed or ignored as you're travelling between more interesting missions and activities.

And it is these missions, be it story progression or side quests, that shows Remedy at its best.

As the FBC's most durable and hated freak, Dylan is sent headlong into Mold-infested sewers, sinkholes filled with twisted, overlapping apartments, and interdimensional voids.

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He deals with everything from fighting invisible corruptions of former New Yorkers to a strange dog that seems to wind up everywhere it shouldn't.

At its best, the game's story melds seamlessly with the world. Remedy punctuates Dylan's quest with certain showpiece moments, never failing to swell the heart with booming needle drops and passionate, empowered voice acting.

These are the moments you long for in gaming, going beyond simply holding the controller and playing to instead be absorbed into a world where you experience a piece of art for what it is.

While the story and world are handily among the best that Remedy has ever created, Resonant's combat system is surely its most divisive aspect.

Dylan's own shapeshifting weapon, the Aberrant, represents Remedy's first foray into melee combat, although in most instances, you would not know it.

Combat is fast and fluid. Satisfying hack and slash basics are supplemented by an ever-growing arsenal of paranatural abilities.

Mold-spewing growths, flame-imbued weaponry, floating stone shields and more offer a vastly flexible approach to combat that fully incorporates your approach.

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Perhaps Resonant's biggest flaw is that its bosses, while always stylish and eye-catching as set pieces, are too often overly simple and bordering on dull as combat encounters.

It is not a perfect system by any means. Early combat is often sluggish. Enemies have far too much health and Dylan deals far too little damage.

But as I quickly learned, whenever you are struggling, that's a sign that you need to step away from the combat, and back into the exploration.

Control Resonant does not hold your hand, but rather trusts you to figure things out yourself.

Beyond experiencing the hidden joys and stories that the developers have created, exploration yields new combat and traversal abilities that make the mid-to-late game experience the joy it is, reflective of Dylan's own story arc.

It is a game that starts off unwieldy and unforgiving in its testing of your in-game brawn and real-life brains, but by meeting it halfway and overcoming that early challenge, your reward is something truly special.

As with all of Remedy's projects, Control Resonant is a game that is best experienced blind, which is why I hesitate to say too much, lest I ruin for you what was so wonderful for me.

This is a studio that has shown time and again that it is unafraid to swing for the fences.

Resonant expands their vision from a single building to a whole city without ever losing a hint of the breathtaking surreality that underpins it.

It doesn't always pay off, but the bravery of their approach means that in the many instances where it does, the result is spectacular.

At a time when we rebuke the state of AAA gaming, of the growing trend of safe, cookie cutter blockbuster experiences, Remedy continues its electrifying odyssey into the unknown.

Control Resonant is bold and unflinching. It's revolutionary. It's groundbreaking. Playing through it, one gets the feeling that this is the future of storytelling in games. Of world-building, level design and more.

Few studios are capable of so consistently capturing that feeling of the new and awe-inspiring, and perhaps none can match Remedy's mastery of it. Resonant indeed.

Control Resonant releases on 24 September 2026 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. We reviewed on PS5.

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