Video Game / Control Resonant

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Spoilers from all previous games in the Remedy Connected Universe are unmarked!

Control Resonant is a New Weird Action-Adventure open-world video game and sequel to Control, developed by Remedy Entertainment for Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. It is set for release on September 24, 2026 as the sixth entry in the Remedy Connected Universe.

As a child in his hometown, Ordinary, Dylan Faden and his sister, Jesse, were caught up in a strange and terrifying event that shattered their world, separated the siblings, and brought Dylan into the custody of a mysterious government organization; the Federal Bureau of Control. After years of grooming to become their next Director, Dylan snapped and was locked away within their headquarters, the Oldest House. Seventeen years later, a hostile resonance known as the Hiss wormed into his head and promised to help him fulfill his dream of destroying the Bureau from within. Fortunately, Jesse, led to the Oldest House, took on the mantle of Director, fought off the Hiss and purged it from her brother's tormented mind. He fell into a coma for years, until finally regaining consciousness.

Unfortunately, his timing couldn't be worse.

The Bureau, still desperately fighting off the Hiss, is under attack by a new cosmic entity. Jesse is missing, and worse still, many of the reality-ending entities contained by the FBC have escaped into a now twisted and strange Manhattan. Appointed the new agent of the Board, Dylan is sent into the city to restabilize the world as he delves deeper into his own troubled psyche and the fractured remains of the Bureau.

If Dylan hopes to survive, find Jesse, and finally get some closure for his past, he'll need to do the one thing he was never able to do. He'll need to take control, of both his life and the mysterious power within him.

PREVIEWS: Announcement Trailer, Gameplay Reveal, IGN Exclusive First-Look Preview, Beyond the Oldest House, Evolving the Gameplay Experience, A Paranaturally Warped Manhattan, Story Trailer, Paranatural Manhattan Trailer, Take CONTROL Trailer, Stepping into a New World, IGN First - Exclusive Metro Fault Mission Gameplay

Tropes featured in Control Resonant include:

• Angelic Abomination: The trailer has a scene where the intrusive pattern morphs a pigeon into a symmetrical mass of wings resembling a biblically accurate angel.
• Alien Geometries: While the previous game's non-Euclidean spaces were limited to The Oldest House, this game shows them in Manhattan, with the announcement trailer showing a neighbourhood having folded in various directions. The seeming threat of the game is represented as a circular, kaleidoscope-like duplication of objects, lifeforms, and even light, compared to the swirling triangles of Polaris and the bubbling chaotic red of the Hiss.
  • One mission has Dylan accompany a diving bell like device down a sinkhole, after getting to the bottom and climbing back up the hole, which was previously just a shaft leading down, it turns into a maze with the diving bell cable winding all over the place, furthermore the radio transmissions from the FBC reveal that to them its been long enough to declare Dylan MIA despite it only being a few minutes for him.
• Antagonist Title: The Gameplay Reveal trailer states that Resonants are "the dominant threat" in the game.
• Attack of the Killer Whatever: In a throwback to previous games the Hiss has started using levitating objects for defense and offense, now Hiss Barriers are changed from blocky red cubes to walls of red mist and levitating objects, and one boss is a Hiss-possessed bus that uses the former passengers turned Hiss Agents as makeshift limbs to attack.
• Beware the Superman: A downplayed example. Normally parautilitarians are no more likely than muggles to be evil, but the intrusive pattern hitting Manhattan (as related by an event attendee) has warped a lot of them into monsters.
• Body Horror: The reveal trailer and specific screenshots show the Hiss have continued to mutate in disturbing ways, many having warped and stretched limbs and body parts similar to the Third Thing, and a particularly large one is shown in a screenshot to have a hideously stretched grin and more than two eyes.
  • During the second phase of the Dance Battler fight it turns out to be several alternate versions of itself occupying the same space when the damage makes them lose coordination, such as moving all their arms independently so they can hit you multiple times.
• Breaking Old Trends: As shown in the reveal trailer, this would be the first Remedy game in the studio's twenty-year history in which the protagonist primarily uses melee weapons. All previous protagonists, dating back to Death Rally, rely on firearms, and their melee attacks (if they have any) typically involve hitting enemies with their guns (Max Payne ^note he could use baseball bats and lead pipes in the first game, but they weren't ideal due to enemies' high damage) or using their powers (Jesse Faden and Jack Joyce).
• Call-Back: The previous game opens with Jesse warning viewers how the story is going to be "weirder than usual." The Announcement trailer for Resonant ends with her giving a similar warning.
• Continuity Nod: In the reveal trailer, the intrusive pattern sprouts in a cup of coffee. A story in the Bonus Material Night Springs centered around evil coffee. invoked
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Mechanically, at least. Unlike Jesse, who is a ranged fighter, Dylan fights at much closer range. While The Service Weapon would transform into various forms analogous to firearm archetypes, the Aberrant, as seen in the announcement trailer, transforms into various melee weapons, including dual blades, a scythe, and a giant hammer. One shot even shows him stabbing a giant monster while on its back.
• Counterpart Artifacts: Trailers and prerelease info introduce Dylan's weapon, the Aberrant. It seems to be a mirror to the Service Weapon, both being made of Astral Plane material and shifting into different configurations. However, the Aberrant shapeshifts far more dramatically.
• Dance Battler: Towards the end of the gameplay trailer, we see a masked entity wielding two weapons and pirouetting across the arena as it fights Dylan.
• Death from Above: One of Dylan's abilities let him use his gravity manipulation to "fall toward" an enemy for massive damage, he can even chain his attacks that way.
• Deus Exit Machina: Jesse, being a Reasonable Authority Figure with immense personal and political power, disappears to, a) create a plot (in this case about finding her) and, b) enable the writers' desired level of conflict between characters. Even then, the announcement trailer shows that she gave Dylan a very nice weapon before she left.
• Dimensional Traveler:
  • The narrator of a Poe piece later confirmed to be related to Control: Resonant is apparently disappearing to "a universe with its own laws". The process isn't painful, but it involves her physical body fading away slowly and losing all emotions while she's "in transit".
  • Jesse’s plan to fix things involves using the Slide Projector and a ritual to go…somewhere. She believes that she will forget her own brother in the process (whether temporarily or permanently isn’t stated), but considers that an acceptable price to save the world.
• Driving Question: According to a promotional file, Dylan's goal is to find out where his sister is.
• Elemental Motifs: Earth. As seen in the IGN First-Look Preview, Dylan fights with a shapeshifting chunk of raw metal, upgrades his abilities at floating rocks, and gains a power that effectively makes wherever he wants become 'the ground'. Naturally, his fighting style focuses on getting up close to enemies and hitting them with maximum force (unlike his sister, whose strategy is fluid and evasive.)
• Evil Evolves: The Hiss has changed since the events of Control; among the new forms shown in the previews, Dylan has to fight off a huge flying specimen that spews lasers and bombs unlike anything seen in the previous game.
  • Some of the Hiss seem to be copying Dylan's weapon configurations like bipedal Hiss with a blocklike upper body they slam into the ground, copying Dylan's warhammer weapon.
• Exact Words: In the Summer Game Fest demo, Dylan may respond to one of Zoe's sentences (not the entire thing she said) in a way that is literally true but elides important context- namely, the parts where he was kidnapped and killed a lot of people.
  Zoe: Your sister's the Director of the FBC? What, so nepotism? You must've landed a nice gig.
  Dylan: Almost. Didn't work out.
• Festering Fungus: The trailers show the Mold is back, and it has managed to propagate beyond the walls of the Oldest House. A sign at an impromptu barricade blocking a large clump urges people to fight their desire to eat the substance.
• Flying Face: One of the monsters in the trailer shown attacking Dylan takes the form of a large hovering woman's face. Her mouth cracks and her lower face melts into a strange golden substance, and she controls the gravity of the debris surrounding her, throwing large pieces of stone at Dylan.
• Follow Your Nose: An in-universe poster released to advertise the game shows a victim of the Mold (which emits an illusory scent of the victim's favorite food) floating towards it as he smiles dopily. The poster's text exhorts readers not to act like him.
• Friendship Trinket: Emily wears a long green earring in her right ear. The other earring is attached to the travel pack of Jesse, her leader and friend, as shown in the Summer Game Fest demo.
• Happy Ending Override: Downplayed. Control ended with a Bittersweet Ending; the primary source of the Hiss invasion was neutralized, and though Jesse had her issues with the Board, for the most part the situation was at least contained. As the reveal trailer shows, not only has the Hiss broken containment, something even worse is starting to cause reality to break down, and Jesse has seemingly gone rogue.
• Humongous-Headed Hammer: The reveal trailer shows that one of the forms of Dylan's main weapon, the Aberrant, is a massive hammer. He needs to hold it with both hands, and the head is about as big as he is.
• Inspiration Nod: The street signs in the announcement trailer are of Thomas Street. The AT&T Long Lines building was one of the major sources of inspiration for the Oldest House, being a windowless concrete Brutalist skyscraper, and is located at 33 Thomas St.
• It's Probably Nothing: While on a quasi-ethereal journey, Jesse has an odd encounter in which her brother (who was in a coma the last time she saw him) finds her, says her name, and teleports around as if he were a computer glitch. She assumes this is just her remembering him. It’s not.
• Mind Over Matter: Dylan's version of telekinesis- seen in the gameplay reveal video- thrusts monsters and people away from him. Its distinctive style confirms that it was Dylan who pushed Kiran out of the Panopticon in a previous game.
• Mood Whiplash: The "Welcome Dylan" video at the end of the Story Trailer cuts from Dr. Darling cheerfully welcoming Dylan to the FBC, to Darling looking in horror through a blood-streaked window, back to him blowing a noisemaker.
• Morph Weapon: The reveal trailer introduces a new weapon, the Aberrant. It looks like a rod of hexagonal metal, but can become various weapons by generating new mass, changing shape, and even splitting apart to be dual-wielded.
• Rogue Protagonist: In the reveal trailer, the Board refers to Jesse having "gone rogue / fishing" and she is shown seemingly impaling the comatose Dylan with the Aberrant. Given her and the Board's growing animosity by the end of the last game, there is almost certainly more at play than the Board wants Dylan to know about.
  • The Board certainly thinks Jesse's gone rogue:
  The Board: (after Dylan sees a Hotline vision of Jesse) < The Director/Entity/Final Boss is operating outside jurisdiction/local spacetime >
• Sequel Escalation: The first game made a point of being completely confined within the Oldest House, which as massive as it is (inside and out), is a single building in New York meant to contain the threats faced within. Now, the reveal trailer reveals the various paranatural phenomena have broken out and completely warped the entirety of Manhattan, where the game takes place.
• Sickbed Slaying: One shot in the announcement trailer shows Jesse approaching Dylan while he is in his coma and seemingly driving the Aberrant into his chest.
• Street Samurai: The announcement trailer depicts Dylan with the look of a modern samurai or rōnin—his long hair is partially tied up in a style evoking a topknot, the Aberrant is initially shown taking the form of a pair of single-edged katana-esque swords, and the FBC-issue smock/poncho-like garment that he's wearing evokes a samurai's cuirass and pauldrons in its basic shape. The "FBC" emblazoned on the back of the garment is also scratched out in an apparent show of rejection of his captors, adding to the rōnin mimicry.
• Swap Teleportation: A review clip shows that the Faden siblings are struggling with an involuntary version of this. It's as if the universe can't decide which of them should be where.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: Apparently, time in the Post AWE Manhattan passes much slower than either inside the Oldest House or outside Manhattan. Both inside the Oldest House and at Bright Falls the lockdown has lasted about seven years, while from Zoe's perspective she was investigating an AWE in Manhattan while Director Trench was still in office, next thing she knows the lockdown on the Oldest House is broken and a massive AWE hits Manhattan.
• Victor Gains Loser's Powers: According to an event attendee, the game's protagonist gains new abilities by defeating the Resonants who have them. Each death unlocks several possible abilities, of which only one can be picked. Though the creators mentioned a New Game Plus mode which will allow picking up other powers on subsequent playthroughs.
• Wuxia: Previews show that several locations have a wuxia aesthetic, such as the Zen garden in which Dylan upgrades his abilities and the Astral Plane, which is blanketed with deciduous leaves ^note unlike in the previous game, when it was just bare rock flecked with gold.