Control Resonant Review: Remedy Loses Control in All the Right Ways

I’m just going to go ahead and start this review off with a bit of an apology. When I realized this was going to be an open-world, melee-focused character action game, not a third-person shooter in a set space, I was a bit skeptical. After all, most of Remedy’s history is chock-full of third-person shooters, with melee being very absent from the equation. Melee-focused action games are a hard genre, an open-world one, double so, but I am so thankful to be here today and humbly eat crow. Control Resonant is easily Remedy’s best game, which builds momentum and ends with an absolute bang.

It Started With A Projector

Jesse Faden may have led the first game, but her brother Dylan always felt like unfinished business. Control Resonant puts him at the center of the story, with Jesse missing and Manhattan having a pretty bad day as the Hiss invades and reality itself seems to collapse.

Dylan is a very different protagonist than his sister, and that’s without factoring in his pure melee-focused abilities and power set. While the story still delivers the documents, strange conversations, unsettling television footage, and unexplained details that made the original so memorable, it delivers them differently. More subtle in some respects, more overt in others, but he is a great character, and the world around him is often pretty amusing, with a healthy offering of black comedy throughout.

The biggest change is the move away from Jesse’s Service Weapon toward Dylan’s shapeshifting melee weapon, the Aberrant. It was a risky decision, but it pays off. Especially since it’s entirely new for the studio, I was skeptical, but I was so relieved to be proven wrong.

Combat is faster and far more physical. Dylan can close the distance almost instantly, launch enemies through the air, and switch the Aberrant between different forms depending on the situation. Abilities can be chained into weapon attacks, creating fights that feel less like traditional cover-based shooting and more like controlled destruction.

The system takes time to click. Early encounters can feel hectic, especially when ranged enemies crowd the battlefield. Once more abilities and upgrades become available, however, combat opens up considerably. The best fights encourage constant movement and quick decisions without making every encounter feel like the same combo repeated against different targets.

Combat Your Way

The best part of the combat, and where it clicks, is the variety and the sheer number of builds that can feel like the “right” way to solve a problem. A buddy of mine used dual weapons and the hammer, while I was dead set on the scythe, drill, and summon minion build when it came to taking out big groups and heavily armored targets. The speed, fluidity, and somewhat 4D, Inception-like nature of the combat arenas come together to create something truly memorable and unique.

I played on PS5 Pro using Balanced Mode, which targets 40 frames per second while retaining ray-traced visual features. It offered the best compromise between image quality and responsiveness. Performance was generally stable, and the PC version deserves praise as it runs fantastically despite how dense the open world can be.

The expanded Assist Mode also deserves praise. Players can adjust incoming damage, energy recovery, enemy behavior, and several other combat variables. These settings can make the experience dramatically easier, essentially functioning like optional cheat codes, but they are entirely voluntary. They also make the game approachable without forcing Remedy to flatten its standard difficulty. After a Day 1 patch made the game a bit easier, I could hop in, turn up the difficulty to suit my preference for a challenge, and it feels like an elegant solution to an inherently inelegant problem.

Conclusion

We have never really seen or played anything quite like Control Resonant. Its combat demands patience, but once everything clicks, it transforms into a thrilling display of imagination, creativity, and controlled chaos. Combined with Remedy’s unmistakable world-building, Dylan’s compelling journey, and a version of Manhattan that does not hold your hand in any way shape or form. Remedy is trusting you to find your way, which results is something genuinely special. Action fans and longtime Remedy followers are in for an incredible experience, but this goes beyond being another excellent sequel. Control Resonant is one of the year’s defining experiences and a genuine Game of the Year contender.

Review copy provided by publisher.