Casual Gamer Reviews: Control: Resonant

Rating: 9 out of 10

Review based on 12 hours of play on PlayStation 5 version.

Control (2019) was such an amazing game it literally made me launch Houston Press’s annual Games of the Year column just so I could have an excuse to talk about how fantastic it was. Following up such a near-perfect title was always going to be difficult. My hopes were low because developer Remedy is desperately shoe-horning its companion series, Alan Wake, into a giant extended universe on the back of Control‘s success, and the Alan Wake games are, frankly, just not as good.

Resonant thankfully maintains its own identity and manages to expand the Control side of the Remedyvserse, at least in the first quarter of the game I managed to play on deadline. Part of that seems to be taking the creative control away from Sam Lake, Remedy’s would-be David Lynch, and turning the game’s story over to writers Josh Stubbs, Ashley Smith, and game director Mikael Kasurinen. That said, I can already feel the creeping influence of Alan Wake elements in the new threat, the Resonants, so you might see me online in a week screaming a different tune.

Set seven years after Control, the infectious mind-control entity the Hiss has escaped the Federal Bureau of Control’s headquarters in Manhattan and turned the island into a haunted wasteland. Jesse Faden, the psychic hero of the of the first game, has disappeared in search of a way to stop the Hiss for good. Her brother Dylan, previously infected by the Hiss and with the same powers as Jesse, wakes from his coma and starts helping the FBC clear Manhattan.

The biggest mechanical difference between Control and Resonant is Dylan’s fighting style. Jesse used a magic gun; Dylan uses a magic… stick, I think? It’s a melee weapon that changes shape depending on your character build. Whoever designed this new system was obviously a huge Bloodborne fan. Dylan dodges around slashing and switching weapon forms, recovering health by killing enemies and power by paying attention to the way certain enemies take damage. The only thing it’s lacking is a parry, and there are times when that lack is really, really aggravating. The benefits of dodging are great, but I would have loved more of a damage reward for my impeccable timing against the very spongy enemies.

At first, I was against the idea of an open world version of Control. The Oldest House in the first game was a major part of the experience. The strange, brutalist, bureaucratic maze full of whimsically haunted artifacts is one of the most unique settings in gaming history whereas a destroyed New York is still just New York, even if you add bottomless chasms and streets that go straight up.

What Resonant lost in setting it gained in sheer fun. Telekinetically navigating across rooftops is incredible, and it fully utilizes Dylan’s abilities in a way Jesse never could even in the most cavernous parts of the Oldest House. For those jonesing for a new Infamous game, this is probably the closest you’re going to get for awhile.

Another area where Resonant excels is the boss fights. Control’s bosses were the weakest part of the experience, with the first boss, Tommasi, especially being both dull and a brutal skill check. Resonant‘s first boss fight, The Artist, is a disturbing, brilliant, beautiful thing that feels like it crawled right out of The Magnus Archives. Each boss is godlike and strange, which is exactly what Control was missing.

Where the games fails is mostly down to personal preferences. I miss Jesse as a shooter, and Dylan’s melee style feels harder to win with. Enemy waves have an extra level of difficulty in that the smaller mobs keep spawning until larger ones are dealt with. While this does add a level of strategy, mostly you end up being sniped by minions while trying to manage very difficult encounters with minibosses. There is also a confusing set of status conditions to master if you want to fight effectively which has a steep learning curve and requires significant leveling up to be effective. Maybe I’m just forgetting how often I died in Control, but Resonant is very hard.

One last thing to praise the game for is how it’s kind of a much-needed throwback. Most of the hack and slash franchises of the 2010s have long-since graduated to prestige narrative experiences with the camera permanently locked in an over-the-shoulder perspective. Resonant is more like the Greek God of War games or The Surge. Environments get a chance to breathe in wider shots and the game trusts its writing enough to keep the player emotionally invested without crawling into the player character’s lap. Throughout the experience, I kept thinking “They don’t really make games like this anymore, and they should.”

Control: Resonant is available now on PlayStation, XBox, and PC.