CONTROL Resonant Switches Protagonist, Brings the Action in ‘Open Ended’ Manhattan in 2026

[UPDATE - March 5, 2026] It has now been confirmed that Jesse Faden won't be playable in CONTROL Resonant. We also learned that Remedy is targeting 60 FPS on all platforms and the gameplay is very fast-paced, a bit like Devil May Cry.

[ORIGINAL STORY] As spotted in late November via the trademark registration, Remedy's Control 2 project is actually called CONTROL Resonant. The game was revealed during The Game Awards 2025, but we previously attended a remote press presentation to get you an overview of what you can expect in this sequel, scheduled to launch in 2026 for PC (via Steam and Epic Games Store), Mac (via Steam and App Store), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S and X.

CONTROL Resonant, as first mentioned around a year ago by the Finnish developer, is going to be a full-fledged action RPG instead of an action adventure game like the previous game. The genre change isn't the only major twist of this new entry, which Remedy itself admitted is not a safe sequel. Players won't be stepping again into the shoes of Jesse Faden, the protagonist of the original. Instead, Remedy has chosen her brother, Dylan. The game takes place seven years after the events of Control, which ended with the Federal Bureau of Control's headquarters, the Oldest House, going into lockdown to prevent the Hiss from escaping. Jesse had just saved Dylan from the influence of the Hiss, but her long-lost brother remained in a coma.

Now, though, Jesse, the new head of the FBC, has mysteriously disappeared; the lockdown has collapsed; and paranatural forces from a new, dangerous enemy (not the Hiss) have spilled into Manhattan, which has been quarantined to keep the invaders from reaching the rest of New York City. Faced with such a cataclysmic event, the FBC awakens Dylan, the only person capable of dealing with the new reality-warping threat and helping contain the disaster. During the presentation, the developers emphasized that the story of Control has always been about two gifted siblings—Jesse and Dylan—and that the two games, together, complete their shared arc as they try to reconnect with each other. Still, each game is written so that it can be played first and understood independently, thus making Resonant more accessible to those who didn't play the previous one.

Resonant moves the action from the Oldest House to an endangered Manhattan that nobody can enter or leave. The Federal Bureau of Control is trying, and often failing, to rescue the trapped civilians and contain the outbreak. Despite taking place in one of the most famous areas on the planet, CONTROL Resonant won't be a sightseeing tour of renowned landmarks; the developers have applied the same treatment to New York's highly recognizable urban spaces as they did to the first game's bureaucratic offices, turning the streets and buildings into warped, narratively dense environments that the developers promise will be visually spectacular and also offer more variety in gameplay. Remedy described Manhattan as a large, open‑ended world, but crucially, not an open world. The inflated term is deliberately avoided because the game won't include bloated features or trivial side quests; instead, it will focus on a curated structure with meaningful side activities. Each district was carefully authored and tied into broader narrative threads and factions, including FBC personnel and other groups vying to control the city.

The presentation positioned Dylan's journey as a mirror to Jesse's in the first Control. After his abduction as a 10-year-old child, he has spent his entire life inside the Oldest House, so stepping through a doorway into Manhattan feels to him like entering an alien dimension, not unlike what Jesse experienced when she first stepped into the Oldest House. His signature weapon, the Aberrant, is a raw, brutal, shapeshifting melee weapon that can transform into several forms on the fly, just like Jesse's Service Weapon gun in the first Control; players will discover multiple configurations as they progress through the game. The brief gameplay scenes showed a massive hammer, which is undoubtedly going to be handy for crowd control, as well as stylish dual blades for fast stabbing action. Aberrant is designed for desperate street fighting, favoring function over elegance. Dylan's combat kit combines the Aberrant with powerful psychic abilities similar to Jesse's but with more variation and depth, allowing players to find power combinations that fit their preferred way to play in classic action RPG style. The studio's goal for the gameplay of CONTROL Resonant is to enrich the foundation of the first game, imbuing it with more player agency, varied approaches to combat, and deeper build crafting.

The sequel will also feature more challenging and unpredictable enemies, who are said to possess agency that matches Dylan's capabilities. This means they can traverse the same environments, jump between platforms or fly, wield devastating paranatural attacks, and come in a wide range of sizes from small, nimble threats to giant monsters. As befitting an action RPG, while the main story remains the core of the experience, Remedy claimed there's a lot players can do outside of that critical path, discovering secrets, stories, and activities.

When the presentation ended, the developers on hand answered a few questions from the gathered press in a roundtable format:

• I asked how important loot would be, given that CONTROL Resonant is an action RPG, and whether crafting would be included in the game. Creative Director Mikael Kasurinen replied that, while they couldn't go into details at this time, this being an action RPG, those things are important and the developers want players to be able to progress in different directions.
• Developing a melee combat system was challenging, but what they ended up with feels unique and satisfying while retaining the fast-paced nature they want Control to have.
• This time, Remedy made sure to add more 'elements of personality' to the new threat, whereas the Hiss felt more like a disease in the first Control.
• The same philosophy that the developers used to build the Oldest House in the previous game still applies here. Despite being a larger, more open-ended world, every space in Manhattan has a story behind it.

Remedy suggested that more information about CONTROL Resonant will be revealed at some point next Spring. As such, unless they are planning a very short lead time for marketing, it makes sense to assume the game will launch either in Q3 or Q4 2026.

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