{"id":359852,"date":"2026-09-29T15:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T15:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/359852\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T15:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T15:54:09","slug":"how-control-resonants-art-design-and-tech-shaped-its-bosses-paranaturally-twisted-manhattan-and-more-playstation-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/359852\/","title":{"rendered":"How Control Resonant\u2019s art design and tech shaped its bosses, paranaturally-twisted Manhattan and more \u2013 PlayStation.Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"

With its gravity-defying set pieces, memorable boss fights, and decidedly different take on Manhattan, Control Resonant<\/a>, released last week, is staking its claim to be one of 2026\u2019s big hitters on PlayStation 5. I had the chance to talk to Lead Level Designer Anne-Marie Gr\u00f6nroos, Art Director Elmeri Raitanen, and Lead Gameplay Designer Sergey Mohov to dig into the inspiration behind the striking art direction and design of the sequel\u2019s characters and environments.<\/p>\n

Designing Dylan<\/p>\n

Games featuring super-heroic protagonists are all about fulfilling the \u2018power fantasy\u2019 of transporting us away from our day-to-day lives. But this is the world of Control. And sure, Dylan lets us rise \u2013 quite literally \u2013 above the norm, but there\u2019s a reason why Remedy often illustrates his very human clumsiness. \u201cThere is a deliberate groundedness in how Dylan moves and fights,\u201d explains Elmeri. \u201cWe wanted to show that everything has a cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he uses Reach, he\u2019s just kind of swept off his feet\u201d \u2013 Sergey<\/p>\n

Sergey expanded: \u201cDylan\u2019s animations demonstrate that everything he does is difficult. It takes effort to use the Elevate ability, and shifting gravity is disorienting to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

So while we don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to run at super speed or levitate, we do know what it\u2019s like to stumble or fall over, and when Dylan does this, we empathise and connect with him. \u201cThat\u2019s a big part of one of the themes of the game,\u201d says Sergey. \u201cSomebody can be really powerful, but at the same time yearning for human connection and trying to learn how to interact with others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mapping out \u2018Strange York\u2019<\/p>\n

Similar to how Dylan\u2019s animations and design affects how the player feels controlling him, Dylan\u2019s actions topple, break, and buckle the expansive world around him for a reason. \u201cIn Control, dynamic destruction and reactive environments played a huge part of the second-to-second gameplay loop, making combat feel visceral and rewarding,\u201d explains Elmeri. \u201cIn Resonant we wanted to retain that even on a larger stage, so when you slam the ground or create a shockwave, leaves kick up from the street, fire hydrants start spraying water, and trashcans spew litter.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the larger environment to play in, Remedy had the challenge of matching the expectations set by Control\u2019s confined, Brutalist inspired design with the openness of a brutalised Manhattan, offering a contrast between familiarity and freedom. \u201cA new paranatural threat in the Patterning gave us the opportunity for unexpected and crazy visuals,\u201d says Elmeri. \u201cThe Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), at face value, looks like a believable office space. Then when something otherworldly happens, it feels impactful because we had first established a baseline for the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more mundane areas can also act as a palate cleanser,\u201d says Anne-Marie. \u201cThey keep the more paranatural areas surprising. It\u2019s also why we placed the most normal zone, The Central, in the middle of the game world where it creates a baseline of the normal New York. Familiarity with the real-world environments creates contrast, and makes the paranatural stand out even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was also a challenge to use a real world location,\u201d explains Sergey. \u201cFor example, in the real New York the last phone booth was removed around 2022. But we have them in the Remedy universe New York. It\u2019s not meant to be a one to one representation of real life. It is what we call \u2018Strange York\u2019, an iconic movie-like retro version.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it came to other items placed in \u2018Strange York\u2019, Remedy followed a particular design ethos. \u201cMost concepts for objects around the environment started with an intended gameplay purpose and an idea of what that object is used for diegetically,\u201d says Anne-Marie. \u201cOr it could also be used to draw the player\u2019s attention, like the FBC satellite dishes around many of the Fast Travel doors, or the deflated FBC balloons near the map towers \u2013 in which case it can be up to the concept artist to come up with a reasonable in-world function and backstory. The gameplay function can also evolve based on the concept, and sometimes things need to be added to the concept to address player feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n

Designing the Gap<\/p>\n

One of the greatest contrasts comes from The Gap, a stark, grey and otherworldly representation of Dylan\u2019s psyche. \u201cThere was a lot of exploration about how to convey the Gap,\u201d says Sergey. \u201cWe took inspiration from film and iconic locations, even something like The Truman Show where Truman reaches the end of the world and there\u2019s just a door in the sky. Dylan has spent all this time in a concrete building, locked up and experimented on, and that\u2019s what is most familiar to him. Which is why the Gap visually represents that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a>The Gap is the raw, honest concrete Dylan has felt under his bare feet during captivity.\u201d \u2013 Elmeri<\/p>\n

Diving into the Sinkhole<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Another striking visual part of Control Resonant comes from its Sinkhole mission, where Dylan fights enemies across floors, walls, and ceilings in a gravity warped apartment building. \u201cIt started as a prototype to test how it would feel underneath the city through increasingly strange, twisted environments,\u201d says Anne-Marie. \u201cDeep sea exploration and cave diving were some of the inspirations, along with different underground themes, like subway tunnels. Some of those ideas ended up being used in The Subway Fault instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hadn\u2019t yet nailed down the rules of the gravity shifting back then, and didn\u2019t know how big of a part that would play later, but when we set the rule that everything that looks like a walkable surface should be a walkable surface, gravity shifting completely changed how certain areas were played.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was quite disorienting to work on,\u201d reveals Sergey. \u201cBut it allowed us to focus the player on what was in front of them and create some really cool combat encounters and traversal challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

The origin of the Resonants<\/p>\n

When it came to boss fights, Remedy intended them to be \u2018skill checks\u2019 for the player \u2013 but their overall creation was a complex alchemy of development talent. \u201cWe asked the full team to send their ideas for bosses to us,\u201d reveals Sergey. \u201cWe then picked what would best fit the specific kind of player experience that we wanted from a specific boss, and developed it further.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a>\u201cThe Deserter boss is in a transformed factory environment specifically built to house it.\u201d \u2013 Sergey<\/p>\n

\u201cWe then built the prototype for each, and assessed the size and shape of the space that this creature needed to be in. Then we would describe its behavior in a technical specification document. The iterated version would go to the concept artists who would work with the writers to figure out the visuals and space; how they fit the environment, the theme of the zone, and their identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEach Resonant boss was built on a theme, like controlling people inspired by mycelium or a hive mind,\u201d says Elmeri. \u201cWe wanted to evoke awe in the player and create a sense of the majestic or divine. So we referenced a lot of medieval iconography and church architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harnessing the power of PS5<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the very beginning of development we wanted to evolve the game to be more player-driven in terms of exploration, progression, and narrative,\u201d explains Sergey. \u201cIt definitely helps to have a powerful system because even though people loved the relatively confined spaces of Control, we wanted to open it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted bigger draw distances, more physics objects, and more enemies on screen. It\u2019s definitely Remedy\u2019s biggest game \u2013 I think one zone in Resonance is larger than any of the other zones in our previous games.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opportunities afforded by PS5 also extended to Control Resonant\u2019s extensive use of the DualSense Controller\u2019s features, such as listening to radio calls via its built-in speaker, and getting feedback from specific abilities on the Adaptive Triggers. \u201cGetting that feeling of resistance and an extra click contributes a great deal to making the abilities feel more powerful,\u201d explains Sergey. \u201cAnd that\u2019s important in things like combat, so you don\u2019t have to look at Dylan\u2019s interface; you can just feel your way through instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want to see all of this hard work in its final form, and experience it for yourself? Control Resonant is available now on PS5.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With its gravity-defying set pieces, memorable boss fights, and decidedly different take on Manhattan, Control Resonant, released last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-359852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}