I went into a preview session with Control Resonant at Summer Game Fest 2026 with some trepidation. As a huge fan of the original Control, the idea of a sequel was always going to be exciting, but everything I’d seen of this one so far had been… off-putting. What I love most about Control, and really most of Remedy’s work, is the way the studio has managed to sow a distrust in the mundane, twisting brutalist office buildings and sleepy towns into nightmare spaces where the Quiet and the Loud are unnerving in equal measure.
Control Resonant seems done with that balance, tipping it toward Loud at all times, twisting the familiarity of its setting so profoundly and permanently that the mundane no longer exists. It’s certainly not the direction I would’ve taken things, but luckily that decision is not mine. It only took around an hour of hands-on time with the game to understand that the Remedy magic isn’t lost in this sandbox-adjacent action RPG, it’s just different. And it fucking rips.
Our demo begins in a familiar spot, within the walls of The Oldest House, only it’s clear that things have gone horribly wrong. Previously held in captivity deep within the walls of this facility, Dylan Faden – brother of the first game’s Jesse – finds himself freed in a last-bid effort to quell a paranatural threat that has completely overrun the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC) and spilled out into the streets of Manhattan. Overpowering even the “Hiss” that once stalked The Oldest House’s halls, this new entity has completely twisted the world outside, and as Dylan emerges it’s clear that the FBC, and Jesse, had no choice but to let loose the most terrifying and powerful force they had at their disposal – him.
Before getting into any action, the game grants us a weapon, the Aberrant, and asks us to make a choice about its primary form and function. It’s a bit of Control’s Service Pistol and a bit of Kingdom Hearts’ opening. A shape-shifting Object of Power, the Aberrant can take on the form of distinctly different weapons and these are even further split up by your place in a combo. Your first choice is between a set of twin blades, a scythe-like long blade and an axe, which become your regular attack. I went with the scythe, which felt nice and fast.
First striking out into Manhattan, hoofing it around barefoot and rocking the unfortunate grey sweatsuit he was locked up in, Dylan makes an early ally in another FBC agent, Zoe, who has already been dealing with the Altered World Event (AWE) currently turning the city into a physics-bending hellscape. Dotted around the area, as I delve further in to uncover the source of a particularly strong phenomenon, are groups of the new enemies that Dylan will be facing along the way. These encounters highlight a couple of nuances in Control Resonant’s combat. Firstly, in the presence of larger enemies, the smaller “fodder” ones will respawn infinitely, meaning you need to prioritise the big guys while also keeping on top of the hordes that can overwhelm you.
I wasn’t prepared for how fast-paced and reactive the game’s melee combat is, requiring that you stay vigilant against assaults from all directions, quickly (and quite fluidly) redirecting your own attacks between foes as needed. Your enemies have Falter bars, which are essentially stagger meters, and open them up to quick executions when it fills up. The best way to do that, at this stage, is making use of your secondary weapon, another choice between three that comes up within your first real encounters. Mapped to another button, you’ve got either a large, crushing hammer, a drill-type weapon or a whip with a spiked pole at the end. These have their own distinct quirks and use cases, and combined with a third selection for melee combo finishers, the Aberrant becomes a force to be reckoned with, shape-shifting in the heat of battle as required.
There’s even more to come for Dylan’s move set though, as we stumble upon an anomaly in the form of Jesse coaxing us into an otherworldly location where Dylan must run and jump against ghostly rooftops covered in autumn foliage. This space is designed like a blocky, 2D platformer turned 3D, slowly introducing more traversal abilities like double jumps and air dashes and teasing them out in platforming challenges that do a good job at setting up how traversal around Manhattan’s distorted skyscrapers will go. Everything feels as free-form and fluid as you’d hope, and I’m excited to take these same skills back out into the wider game world and live my modern Infamous or Prototype fantasies.
And I do get to do a little more of that, but it’s not long before Dylan’s pursuit of Jesse leads him to another mysterious occurrence at a gallery, which seems to be at the centre of a mirror image of the city converging in on itself. Through these doors we find our first boss battle, against a giant, floating half-head dubbed a Resonant Entity. This battle brings together everything we’ve learned so far about combat and traversal, encouraging Dylan to get airborne and dodge thrown debris while getting in as many hits as possible. I’ll admit, this fight was tough, especially as you deplete chunks of its health bar and it becomes even more aggressive, but we got there. If I had any complaints about the somewhat indistinguishable standard enemy desings, those went out the window with this visually arresting big bad.
This concludes the main portion of our demo, but with some time to spare we are also allowed to dabble in the Extraction Zone, a dangerous area that acts as a sort of middle ground, hub area with plenty of enemies to fight, gear to gather and side content to check off. I was here primarily to get a taste of some later-game builds for Dylan with the ability to change out my primary and secondary weapons, plus my finishers and extra abilities. Although the nuances are hard to fully explore in a short demo environment, I can already tell there’s a ton of fun to be had with build-crafting in this game, so I’m excited to get more time with the final release.
If one thing’s clear, it’s that Control Resonant is unlike anything Remedy has done before, and yet there seems to be no danger of them not pulling it off. Dylan is a combat and traversal powerhouse even this early on, and although the power fantasy and completely twisted world state are about ten steps further than the moment-to-moment of Control, I’m confident the studio knows what it’s doing and will still have plenty of surprises up its sleeve.
Previewed during Summer Game Fest Play Days | Control Resonant launches on September 24 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.