Six years after Remedy unleashed Control in 2019, the Finnish video game studio is finally ready to give us the sequel.
Control Resonant is now the direct continuation of that first game, which focused on Jesse Faden (Courtney Hope), the newly appointed director of the Federal Bureau of Control, a secret government organization that studies and contains supernatural phenomena.
Armed with fearsome telekinetic powers and a shape-shifting service weapon, Jesse battled her way through the Oldest House, the Bureau’s headquarters that had been taken over by a malevolent force known as the Hiss.
Control Resonant, revealed in a first-look trailer, now takes the POV of Dylan Faden, Jesse’s brother, who was taken by the Bureau at the age of 10, 17 years prior to the main events of the first game. The sequel’s footage shows an entire New York City warped by what is known as an Altered World Event (AWE). The trippy visuals are reminiscent of Doctor Strange’s sorcery of the Marvel movies as birds and buildings multiple and fold in on themselves.
“Pace yourself,” Jesse’s voice says in the preview. “It’s gonna get weirder.”
Thomas Puha, the Remedy Games community manager, joined Mikael Kasurinen, the creative director of the Control games, at a press pre-brief to discuss the title ahead of the Game Awards reveal. The title for the game, originally referred to as Control 2, leaked earlier with the legal team at Remedy filed a trademark. Kasurinen called that leak “frustrating,” but was resigned to the situation and added, “It is what it is.”
“At the heart of Control is a story of two supernaturally gifted siblings who got separated as kids. They lived two very different lives,” Kasurinen said at the briefing. “These two games are about their attempts to reconnect with each other.”
The first Control left Dylan in a coma after Jesse freed him from the influence of the Hiss. In Control Resonant, Dylan wakes up seven years later. Jesse has disappeared mysteriously, and all the paranormal forces within the Oldest House are spilling out into the real world. A new cosmic entity is now reshaping the very fabric of reality; hence, the open-ended psychedelic Manhattan landscape.
The city is walled off by a supernatural force. No one can get in or out, though Dylan isn’t the only one left inside the metropolis. FBC is just one faction trying to take back New York, Kasurinen confirms.
Remedy Entertainment/youtube
While Jesse’s weapon in Control was a paranormal gun, Dylan wields the Aberrant, a melee weapon that brings its own style of combat, though it is malleable like Jesse’s gun and can take different forms as you progress.
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Like the siblings themselves, Kasurinen says the two Control games “stand on their own two feet” and are designed to be played in any order. It’s also connected to Remedy’s larger connected universe, which includes Alan Wake and Alan Wake II. The devs make clear, however, that the story operates independently.
Control Resonant will arrive sometime in 2026 PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, and Mac via Steam and the App Store.
Watch the trailer above.