Control Resonant review – an ineffective remedy

The creators of Alan Wake return with a sequel to Control, that’s set in the same fictional universe but features a completely different style of combat.

Remedy is a talented developer, but we’ve always felt their strengths lie in a different direction than they seem to assume. All their games have a strong emphasis on narrative and yet their stories often come across as pretentious and shallow, with 2023’s Alan Wake 2 combining all their worst tendencies into a deeply unsatisfying quasi-survival horror, that purposefully undermined their most consistent strength: combat.

Remedy started out with the Max Payne franchise and through games such as the original Alan Wake and Quantum Break, they’ve gained a great aptitude for fast, precise third person gunplay. This often gets forgotten as their stodgy storytelling takes centre stage but it’s why we consider 2019’s Control to be by far their best game – as well as the greatest Star Wars game never made, in terms of its portrayal of what are essentially Force powers.

To their credit, Remedy is not one for lazy sequels and while this is a direct continuation of the original game (and part of the shared universe with Alan Wake) it is very different, with a new lead character and an emphasis on melee rather than range combat. Which is where the problems begin.

Although Remedy’s games have a reputation for strangeness, they’ve not always lived up to that self-perpetuated description, with some very mundane settings and obnoxiously obvious references to everything from Twin Peaks to Annihilation, with Control Resonant riffing on the visuals of two separate Christopher Nolan movies within the first half hour.

The game contains a recap of the original game, but the main gist of the story is relatively easy to grasp. You play as Dylan, who was effectively the antagonist of the previous game and brother to the original’s protagonist, Jesse. Jesse found herself the head of a secret government agency, inspired by the SCP Foundation, that investigates paranormal activity, while Dylan was an unwitting test subject.

Dylan spent the whole of the last game being possessed by the Hiss – an invading extradimensional entity – and as Resonant begins Jesse wakes Dylan up from a coma and then disappears for unknown reasons. The Hiss is beginning to take over New York City, possessing people and turning them into monsters, and Dylan offers to help, despite being deeply distrusted by everyone he meets.

While the original game had elements of Metroidvania style exploration, Resonant has a much simpler structure, based entirely around melee combat. You have a choice of different weapons, that alter the power, speed, and range of your attacks but combos are highly simplistic, lessening the tactical scope and leaving combat feeling unsatisfyingly disjointed.

There is one weapon that allows you to perform an aerial launcher, but the major complication is based around a stagger meter that makes it easier to perform finishing moves. These aren’t essential to defeating an enemy but they do increase your dominance, which makes you more powerful for a short time. This in turn causes other enemies to drop more health if you don’t use the finisher, which creates a neat tactical quandary.

However, there’s no parry or block, just a dodge move that can give you the opportunity for a counter if you time it right. There is a wide range of upgrades and passive and active abilities, but even with things like shields and summons they don’t really change the flow of combat. They feel more like buffs in a game like Diablo, which the game does resemble at times, with it’s pulled-out camera and dozens of enemies running around on-screen.

It’s surprisingly difficult to judge which game out of Resonant and Marvel’s Wolverine has the shallower combat, but we definitely found Wolverine to be the more enjoyable overall experience. Its combat may be simple but at least you can feel and see the impact of the blows, whereas in Resonant the camera is usually too distant and the enemy designs too vaguely defined.

The boss battles are a visual highlight but in terms of design they’re an absolute chore to play through. All of the enemies are damage sponges to some degree, but the bosses just go on forever, long after the point at which you’ve worked out what you have to do to complete them.

It doesn’t help that Resonant is difficult right from the off and once you’ve moved through a few areas, where you’re locked in with a group of enemies and can’t leave until they’re all defeated, everything becomes strangely predictable, despite Remedy’s attempts to dazzle with the level design.

One of our complaints about Control is that it kept talking about how weird it was without actually doing or showing anything all that peculiar. Resonant does better in that regard and while a lot of the visuals are inspired by other sources, the weird kaleidoscopic effects and upside-down worlds can be impressive, especially when the game starts playing around with gravity, in a manner not dissimilar to Gravity Rush.

Resonant is not an open world game but it does have a number of large areas you can investigate for secrets and side quests. This is fun to do thanks to the elevate ability, which allows you to float into the air for several feet and when combined with double jumps and dodges, and the later gravity effects, means you’re able to move far further vertically and horizontally than it first seems.

But without the Metroidvania element there’s less impetuous to explore, in a game that greatly overstays its welcome. Even if you are a Remedy fan, and were looking forward to new revelations about the shared world, the story and characterisation is surprisingly straightforward this time around.

Dylan’s redemption arc could’ve been lifted from any number of similar games and while that could be considered an improvement if, like us, you’ve been unimpressed by Remedy’s previous attempts at storytelling, it’s inarguably less inventive and ambitious. We might not have enjoyed the end result but we’ve always respected Remedy’s attempts to do something different, but Resonant is disappointingly mundane in terms of both the plot and action.

Remedy deserves a lot of credit for not just making a lazy sequel, but Resonant is a considerably less interesting game than its predecessor, that removes or dilutes most of its best elements for very little gain. For a game so obsessed with appearing weird and surreal it’s disappointingly dull for much of its overlong running time, especially once you get over the surprise of its new combat system.

In a less star-studded year it would have seemed less of a failure but there’s just too many other, similar games for this to be worth serious consideration. Alan Wake fans will likely still prefer that, but for us Remedy’s best game remains the original Control.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £49.99
Publisher: Remedy Entertainment
Developer: Remedy Entertainment
Release Date: 24th September 2026
Age Rating: 16

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