Control Resonant

Remedy’s choice to bet on themselves is another one worth making. CONTROL Resonant is a stellar sequel that risks everything yet succeeds in nearly every area it touches. Certain design choices and a slow start aside, Resonant has the heart of CONTROL inside it with a beautiful story that reaches your soul, vicious combat, and a spectacular world to explore that only they could build. Shaking things up usually works best with Shake 'n Bake, but Remedy cooks with Resonant's shift from the status quo.

CONTROL Resonant had a frustratingly obtuse start and an incredible ending. It is a worthy successor to a similarly flawed but great game. It manages to outpace the original with a far more satisfying story, and some of the best traversal in a long while.

Control Resonant is Remedy’s take on a semi-open-world character-action game, and that might sound like an experience you’ve had before, but at the transdimensional intersection of its impeccable combat design and the studio’s signature strangeness stands something unforgettably unique.

For what it lacks in fleshed-out systems, it makes up in universe building and art direction. I do recommend you play Control first, as some have asked, and I do think that’s a clearly better game, but I imagine Resonant will find an audience as well. As for me, there’s still plenty more to do and see and smash with comically large paranatural hammers.

While I hesitate to call Control Resonant a stunning new direction for Remedy, it offers an exceptionally crafted world, addictive combat (even if it takes time to open up), and phenomenal art direction.

Control Resonant has some of the most mind-blowing level design you will experience in gaming. Its open-world version of New York City gives Remedy the freedom to create reality-bending environments without losing the carefully crafted locations and puzzles that made the first Control so memorable.

Control Resonant is often baffling, and this time for Remedy not in the good way. Repetitive combat is spread thin across a large world that struggles to justify itself, and Dylan Faden isn't done justice replacing Jesse as protagonist. Despite some gorgeous visual flourishes and stunning sequences, this is a muddled investigation and not quite a super natural event.

Control Resonant is killer. Plain and simple. It takes (not always successful) chances with the combat, occasionally stumbles technically, and sometimes makes things easier than they need to be. Yet none of those shortcomings prevented me from disappearing into it for an entire week, exploring Manhattan, and getting more lost than Clark in the basement of his furniture store.