CONTROL Resonant

CONTROL Resonant is Remedy Entertainment's sequel to 2019's critically acclaimed Control, and it arrives as one of the most dramatic pivots in the studio's history. Despite Control's strong commercial performance (the game recently surpassed six million units sold and is therefore Remedy's best-selling game to date), rather than a third-person shooter continuing Jesse Faden's story, Resonant hands the reins to her brother, Dylan Faden, and swaps gunplay for fast-paced melee combat. Furthermore, it replaces the trademark claustrophobic corridors of The Oldest House, the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control, with an open-ended, warped reimagining of Manhattan.

The project has had a long road to reveal. Remedy first referenced it under the codename Heron in a May 2022 development roadmap, before confirming in November of that year that it was indeed a Control sequel. In February 2024, Remedy spent €17 million to purchase back the full rights to the Control franchise from its former publisher (505 Games), paving the way for self-publishing the ill-fated FBC: Firebreak and future projects. Later that year, the studio partnered with Annapurna Pictures, which agreed to co-finance 50% of the game's budget in exchange for rights to expand Remedy's franchises into film and television. The game entered full production in February 2025 and was publicly unveiled as CONTROL Resonant at The Game Awards on December 11, 2025.

Creative Director Mikael Kasurinen, who also directed the previous entry, has described the two games as "expressions of the two different siblings" that together complete a shared narrative arc, while stressing that each is designed to be played and understood independently.

Release Date, Platforms, Pricing

Remedy continues its tradition of being an extremely quick developer. Alan Wake 2 launched in October 2023, so when CONTROL Resonant debuts on September 24, 2026, it will have been less than three years since their last game.

The game will be released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store, and GeForce NOW. A Mac version, via Steam and the App Store, will follow later in 2026. CONTROL Resonant supports Xbox Play Anywhere, allowing players who buy it on Xbox consoles or the Windows Store to share progress and purchases across both platforms. You can find the full pre-order sheet below.

Edition	Price (USD)	Notes
Standard Edition	$59.99	Base game + pre-order bonuses
Digital Deluxe Edition	$69.99	Base game + pre-order bonuses + extra digital content
Steelbook Edition (Physical)	$69.99	Base game + physical collectibles only (no pre-order bonuses)

Pre-ordering either the Standard or Digital Deluxe Edition grants three bonus items: the Hiss Corruption Outfit and the Pickpocket's Tool Artifact on every platform, plus the Occult Outfit, which is exclusive to PlayStation 5 pre-orders. The Digital Deluxe Edition additionally includes a digital artbook, the game's soundtrack, a starter resource bundle, and further cosmetic items.

Notably, pre-ordering the Digital Deluxe Edition specifically on PlayStation 5 also grants 48 hours of early access, beginning September 22, 2026, at 14:00 UTC. This head start is weirdly exclusive to PS5; PC and Xbox players will not get early access regardless of which edition they buy.

Rather than a traditional collector's edition, Remedy is instead offering a physical Steelbook Edition at the same $69.99 price point as the Digital Deluxe version. It trades the digital extras for a key art promotional poster and a selection of fine art prints depicting scenes and characters from the story, including a print showing Jesse and Dylan Faden as children. Notably, this edition's official listing does not include the standard pre-order bonus items.

Genre and Setting

CONTROL Resonant marks a genre shift for the franchise: while the original was a third-person shooter, this is an action role-playing game centered on melee combat, described by Remedy as its first-ever game built entirely around close-quarters combat rather than ranged combat.

The story of this sequel picks up roughly seven years after the events of Control. Just days before Manhattan's lockdown began, an uncategorized cosmic anomaly, which the FBC internally refers to as The Pattern, surfaced in the city. The Hiss, the main enemy of the first game, subsequently broke containment from The Oldest House and spilled out into Manhattan itself, compounding a crisis that also includes an invasive microorganism called the Mold and other paranatural threats from Control's "New Weird" universe now spreading unchecked. With the city's exits sealed and the rules of reality itself beginning to break down, the FBC has focused on quarantining survivors rather than actively containing the anomaly.

Players control Dylan Faden, the younger brother of Control's protagonist Jesse Faden, who was held in confinement by the FBC for years due to his own unexplained supernatural abilities. With Jesse now missing (though she remains present in the story as a major, not player-controlled character), Dylan is freed and deployed by the FBC, which frames him as humanity's best chance to contain the unfolding disaster. His journey is also a personal one: alongside fighting off the Hiss and other threats, Dylan is searching for Jesse throughout the campaign.

Guiding him is Zoe De Vera, an FBC field agent serving as Dylan's handler, who is initially unaware of the full events of the first game and has to be brought up to speed by Dylan himself as the story unfolds. Beyond her role of providing direction and threat updates, Zoe has been described by the developers as Dylan's emotional anchor, someone who helps keep him and his volatile powers grounded, while periodically reminding him why cooperating with his former captors still serves his own interests.

Returning characters include Emily Pope, now acting co-director of the FBC in Jesse's absence, and Simon Arish. Ahti, the recurring janitor character connecting Remedy's wider universe with Alan Wake, should also make an appearance, though in a reduced capacity compared to the original Control. According to Kasurinen, the story will additionally weave in further connective elements tied to Alan Wake.

Narratively, the game is divided into Dylan's Journey, the game's main path, and World Quests, self-contained side stories that flesh out the world without diverting from the main plot. A new seamless, on-the-move dialogue system allows conversations with NPCs to unfold naturally while exploring rather than freezing the action for cutscenes, and while some dialogue choices exist, Remedy has stated these are primarily about shaping tone rather than branching the story into different outcomes, since "all boats" are designed to arrive at the same narrative destination.

The game will not include any romance storylines. Kasurinen has also teased that the story saves its biggest twists for the middle chapters and the ending, going as far as to say the game's second half will look nothing like anything shown in marketing so far.

Gameplay Features and Mechanics

The most significant change from the original Control is combat itself. Dylan does not use a firearm at all; instead, his signature weapon is the Aberrant, a supernatural, shapeshifting Object of Power that can morph into a range of melee weapon forms, including twin daggers, a scythe, gauntlets, and a large hammer. Early previews have compared the resulting combat style to Devil May Cry, Nier: Automata, and Final Fantasy 16, a significant departure from the original's more grounded, cover-based shooting.

At the very start of the game, players choose one of three starter weapon forms as a combat tutorial before heading out into the city: Flurry, a fast-attacking pair of daggers with a boosted critical hit chance; Slash, a wide-swiping scythe; and a third option, with more weapon forms unlockable later in the campaign. Rather than committing permanently to a single form, the system lets players assign a primary form for basic attacks, a secondary form for special or charged attacks, and a Combo Ender, a special finishing weapon the Aberrant morphs into at the climax of an attack chain. Some enemies are specifically vulnerable to certain weapon types, encouraging players to mix and match their loadout as needed.

Beyond weapons, Dylan also gains supernatural abilities by defeating Resonants, corrupted former people of power scattered throughout the story. Defeating one unlocks a choice between multiple possible powers, of which only one can be selected per playthrough (examples revealed so far include Barrage, which pulls rocks from the ground to launch at range; Seekers, an auto-firing turret that can also be thrown as an explosive; and Shield, a floating rock barrier that can also be used offensively via a dash attack). Players can have up to three of these abilities equipped simultaneously, giving a combined total of six unique attacks and abilities alongside their weapon loadout at any given time. Dylan also gains traversal-focused powers over the course of the story, including a dash, double jump, and levitation, each introduced via retro-styled in-world consoles followed by dedicated platforming challenges to teach the new skill.

All of this is tied together in The Gap, a metaphysical hub space representing Dylan's own psyche, accessible at any time by holding Down on the d-pad. Inside The Gap, players manage three interconnected progression systems:

• Abilities — the supernatural powers gained from Resonants, upgraded via their own skill trees.
• Weapon Upgrades — dedicated skill trees for each of the Aberrant's forms, unlocking new specialized variants and modifiers.
• Talents — a broader passive skill tree that ties weapon and ability choices together into build-defining synergies.

Players can also craft Artifacts, equippable items that grant additional passive perks (the Pickpocket's Tool Artifact, included as a pre-order bonus, is one example). Choices made across all three systems are meaningfully exclusive: Remedy has confirmed that a single playthrough won't allow players to unlock every ability, weapon upgrade, or talent, pushing toward genuine build variety between different players and encouraging replays. Skill respec is possible using an in-game resource while inside The Gap, but Remedy has confirmed there is no free option, making it a paid mechanic. Once players leave The Gap, their build choices are locked in until their next visit.

Structurally, Remedy has been careful to avoid the term open world, instead describing CONTROL Resonant's version of Manhattan as a large, open-ended space. This is a deliberate distinction: rather than bloated systems or filler side content, the game is built around a curated structure of meaningful side activities, with each district of the city individually authored and tied into the broader narrative. Kasurinen has explained Remedy's overall design philosophy as one of "pulling" players through the world rather than "pushing" them down an invisible corridor the way many linear action games do while disguising that linearity.

Many of the game's bosses, referred to as Resonant Entities, are entirely optional and can be tackled in different orders depending on player choice, reinforcing the game's "open-ended" rather than strictly linear design. A New Game+ mode is also confirmed, letting players revisit the campaign on subsequent playthroughs with the option to pursue abilities and choices they didn't select the first time around.

Tech and Specs

CONTROL Resonant runs on Remedy's proprietary Northlight Engine, the same technology behind Alan Wake 2, Quantum Break, and the original Control, though significantly upgraded for this project. For this game, Remedy is using GPU-driven rendering, mesh shaders, and single-pixel occlusion culling to support longer draw distances, a much higher number of on-screen enemies, and heavier destruction effects, all while still targeting a stable 60fps across every platform.

Remedy has published a partial set of PC requirements so far, covering baseline hardware without confirmed resolution or frame rate targets for each tier; a fuller breakdown, including specific ray tracing and path tracing performance targets, is expected closer to launch. Still, these specs aren't too scary; they track closely with Alan Wake 2's own specs from 2023, with only minor bumps: the minimum CPU moved up slightly from an Intel Core i5-7600K to the i5-8500, and the recommended GPU moved from an RTX 3060/RX 6600 XT to the RTX 3070/RX 6700 XT.

Tier	CPU	GPU	RAM	Storage
Minimum	Intel Core i5-8500 or AMD equivalent	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 / AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT	16GB	100GB SSD
Recommended	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel equivalent	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 / AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT	16GB	100GB SSD

On the high end, CONTROL Resonant is shaping up to be a major showcase for NVIDIA's latest technology, continuing a tradition set by the original Control, which became widely known at launch for its excellent ray tracing implementation. Confirmed at GDC 2026, the game will support path-traced lighting effects, RTX Mega Geometry, DLSS 4.5 with Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, and DLSS Ray Reconstruction, developed in close collaboration with NVIDIA. Of course, reaching native 4K with ray tracing and maxed-out settings will likely require hardware well beyond the currently published recommended tier.

On consoles, Remedy has confirmed a target of 60 frames per second on both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, though a detailed breakdown of any separate Performance/Quality mode split, along with Xbox Series S targets specifically, has not yet been published.