Remedy Entertainment, the Finland-based game developer behind critically acclaimed titles like Max Payne and Alan Wake, has revealed new details about its upcoming third-person action-adventure game, CONTROL Resonant. The sequel to 2019’s award-winning CONTROL, Resonant is scheduled to release later this year across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series consoles.
Only days before the studio announced that they had a “profitable first quarter”, as reported on by GamesIndustry.biz, the developers shared some more details about CONTROL Resonant in the lead up to the game’s launch. The information in question pertains to the game’s setting of Manhattan, as well as post-game content players can look forward to experiencing after finishing the main story.
CONTROL Resonant’s Post-Game
“Returning to the game allows you to build on that foundation, try different approaches, and take on new challenges with a more complete toolkit.”
The first volley came via a post published on the official PlayStation Blog, giving us our first look at CONTROL Resonant’s New Game Plus. Once players have finished the game’s main story, they will unlock the option to start a fresh playthrough, carrying most of what they have earned. Unlocked supernatural combat abilities, talents, artifacts, Aberrant upgrades, as well as health and combat ability resource improvements will make the transfer, but traversal abilities will not, as they are tied to sory progression.
As with most New Game Plus modes, Resonant’s is intended to give the player a chance to become stronger as well as fine-tune their playstyle even further. One way this is achieved is that in New Game Plus, you’ll be able to equip multiple different combat abilities from the same boss, “opening up new combinations and synergies that change how encounters play out,” explains Sergey Mohov, Lead Gameplay Designer at Remedy. Another way this is done is through the Artifacts, equippable items that bestow modifiers that can affect survivability, combat performance, exploration, or the resource economy, with some coming with conditions or trade-offs. In your first playthrough, Dylan Faden, the game’s protagonist, has three slots to equip Artifacts; in New Game Plus, a fourth is added for further adaptation.
To keep up with the player’s growing strength, enemies will become harder, and once familiar fights will be altered, with even certain bosses changing their behaviours. New Game Plus continues that escalation. As Sergey puts it, “While you return with more tools and knowledge, the world keeps pushing back – reshaping encounters and raising the stakes as you move forward… It’s not just about becoming more powerful. It’s about adapting to a world that refuses to stay the same.”
Of course, finding collectibles you missed on your first playthrough or seeing alternative outcomes to side quests and interactions are some of the best reasons to head back into this version of Manhattan. All of CONTROL Resonant’s content cannot be experienced in a single playthrough, so players hoping to see everything will definitely want to make the most of the game’s New Game Plus mode.
A Paranaturally Warped Manhattan
“We want to burst that bubble.”
CONTROL was mostly confined to interior spaces, with Jesse Faden’s journey to find her brother taking her through the shifting Brutalist architecture of the FBC’s (Federal Bureau of Control) headquarters, the Oldest House. Resonant takes the action out into a surreal Manhattan that has been twisted by the various forces that have escaped the weakening confines of the FBC’s operations.
When it came to Resonant’s world design, the team had to create environments that, as the game’s Art Director, Elmeri Raitanen, puts it, felt “mundane, grounded, believable, and lived in baseline in the world, in order for the paranatural to really shine.” Instead of other video games, Remedy has stuck to using other sources for artistic inspiration for Resonant’s design, from art exhibitions, TV and film, as well as travelling to Manhattan, as seen in the Development Diary the devs posted only a few days ago.
Described in previous material as an “open-zone” game, Resonant’s Manhattan will feature several of these zones, some of which are under the control of one of the game’s various factions. Alongside the FBC, The Hiss, and The Mold from CONTROL, Remedy has teased that new factions are being introduced, along with all of the narrative and gameplay beats that entail.
More types of collectibles will also feature in CONTROL Resonant, no doubt alongside many a redacted document for players to find. Audio logs can be played while traversing or during combat, and Dylan has a radio so he can speak to his FBC handler, Zoe.
Lastly, the devs were quick to highlight that Resonant would feature a far greater number of enemy types, something of a sticking point for CONTROL, mentioning that they even have a corrupted bus enemy for Dylan to deal with.
Everything we’ve seen and heard of CONTROL Resonant has us excited, and Remedy Entertainment has done a great job of marketing the game without giving too much away. Instead, they have chosen to tackle fan concerns head-on by addressing things like their shift to melee combat or replayability. It shows a confidence that is mirrored in Creative Director Mikael Kasurinen’s closing statement on the gameplay experience, but we imagine describes the development of CONTROL Resonant just as well: “It’s a fun layering of familiar things, but definitely facing new challenges.”
Control Resonant is scheduled to release later this year on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
Are you excited by the prospect of New Game Plus in CONTROL Resonant? What do you think of the game’s “open-zone” Manhattan setting? Let us know in the comments below, and join the Gamer Social Club Discord to chat about your favourite games, play in community game nights, take part in giveaways, and more!
