“The sibling has gone rogue/fishing.”
Control 2 is actually Control Resonant, a sequel to Remedy’s incredibly popular shooter (and our very own GOTY 2019) set outside the Oldest House seven years after the events of the original. Ahead of today’s reveal at The Game Awards, Stevivor was able to sit down with Remedy and attend a remote, hands-off showing that detailed Dylan Faden’s new adventure.
“Control Resonant takes place seven years after the first Control game,” Mikael Kasurinen, the creative director of Control Resonant and the co-creative director of Remedy, told us. “Jesse mysteriously disappears, and the lockdown [of the Oldest House] falls apart. All the paranatural forces fill onto the streets of Manhattan. On top of that, a new threat is reshaping our reality and creating new, devastating monsters.
“Dylan wakes up, and this is where the second game starts,” Kasurinen continued. “He’s the only one who can fight back and help contain the disaster.”
Dylan and his Aberrant.
Dylan, of course, was a main focal point of the original Control — Prime Candidate 6, or P6, to the P7 of his sister and protagonist Jesse Faden. Following an Altered World Event in the town of Ordinary, Maine, Dylan was apprehended by the Federal Bureau of Control, where he remained until Jesse entered the Oldest House and discovered him seventeen years later. A further seven years later, in 2026, Dylan is finally free.
“He has lived his whole life inside the Oldest House,” Kasurinen said. “To Dylan, the door leading to the streets of Manhattan might as well be a portal into an alien dimension. This is a discovery of a new reality just like what the Oldest House was to Jesse.”
As such, Control and Control Resonant are remarkably different from each other, with each title representing, “one of the siblings and their respective journeys through this world,” according to Kasurinen.
I don’t remember this in Manhattan…
“You can play both of these games in any order,” Kasurinen asserted. “They stand on their own feet, like two independent siblings. This was always the story of two siblings who [try] to reconnect.”
While Jesse fought back against The Hiss using her own parautilitarian abilities coupled with a ranged pistol in her Service Weapon, Dylan will use his natural abilities alongside a melee-focused sledgehammer called the Aberrant.
“The Aberrant [is a] shapeshifting weapon that changes on the fly in the different forms,” Kasurinen said of Dylan’s companion. “There are several forms for the players to discover.
“Aesthetically, the weapon is raw, crude, and to the point. Function over form; only results matter. It allows you on to pull off superhuman feats, especially when combined with [Dylan’s] powerful abilities.”
Dylan’s great and all… but where’s Jesse?
Just as Dylan’s sledgehammer is anything but a normal one, so too is Resonant’s setting of Manhattan. The mega-city is closed off by an “otherworldly barrier,” according to Kasurinen, and will function as a, “larger, more open-ended world,” as compared to a straight up open world. It’ll also look and function like the ever-changing Oldest House rather than a regular ol’ city, Kasurinen assured us.
Kasurinen continued to say that Resonant’s Manhattan is, “a world filled with secrets, activities, and stories — none of them filler, but carefully designed and integrated into the larger open-ended world.
“A big goal was transitioning the game from action-adventure to action-RPG,” he continued. “We define this as having player-driven, open-ended exploration, more meaningful progression, and real choices. Players can create distinctive builds, complementing their gameplay style. We want to encourage boldness, exploration, and experimentation.”
It’s not just in regard to the setting — opened-ended world rather than open world — in which Remedy is very careful with its words. Though Resonant’s trailer shows Dylan fighting the Hiss, Kasurinen was careful to repeatedly call what Dylan will face in Manhattan “a new threat”. Picking up on that, I asked him to elaborate.
“More will be revealed, but it is a new threat,” Kasurinen told Stevivor. “I want to be clear on that. There is a new antagonist here.
“The Hiss ended up — maybe felt almost — like you were fighting a disease. So, we want to add more elements of personality this time around.”
Control Resonant is planned for a 2026 release on Windows PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, Mac via Steam and the Apple App Store, and consoles including Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PS5.
Stevivor attended a remote, hands-off preview of Control Resonant over Discord, as invited by the publisher.
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