Control: Resonant, Remedy's Return to the Supernatural

It is precisely from this legacy that Control: Resonant, scheduled for September 24, 2026, is born. And if the first chapter told the story of Jesse Faden's entry into the Oldest House, the sequel promises to completely overturn the perspective, placing Dylan Faden at the center and taking the story outside the walls of the Federal Bureau of Control, all the way to a Manhattan distorted by a new paranormal crisis.

To understand why Resonant is a particularly important project, it is necessary to go back to the first Control. Remedy came from a history made up of extremely recognizable productions, from Max Payne to Alan Wake, but with Control it took an additional step. It did not simply try to make another third-person action game: it built a world in which the setting itself became an integral part of the gameplay.

The Oldest House, headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control, was not just the setting for Jesse’s adventures. It was a living, shifting, and apparently impossible place, where offices, corridors, and rooms could change from one moment to the next. The structure allowed Remedy to combine combat, exploration, environmental storytelling, and an almost metroidvania-like component, while Jesse’s paranormal abilities made it possible to interact with the space in ways that went far beyond the traditional shooter.

The result was a game that was difficult to fit into a single category. Control was a shooter, but also a supernatural adventure; it was an action blockbuster, but at the same time a title deeply interested in exploration and in building its own universe.

This identity had a huge impact on the game’s success. Remedy later recalled how Control received more than 20 Game of the Year awards and 11 BAFTA nominations, while sales continued to grow in the years following its release, surpassing 4.5 million copies by the end of 2024.

Critical recognition was also significant. At the 2020 BAFTAs, Control was nominated in the categories Best Game, Game Design, Artistic Achievement, Audio Achievement, Narrative, Original Property, Music, Technical Achievement, and for Courtney Hope's performance as Jesse Faden. Martti Suosalo also won the award for Best Supporting Performance for his role as the enigmatic Ahti.

But perhaps the most important aspect is what Control represented for Remedy itself.

With Control, Remedy had not just created a new intellectual property. It had laid the foundation for a universe in which stories, characters, and seemingly different phenomena could coexist.

The connection with Alan Wake has become increasingly evident through updates and expansions, eventually leading to Alan Wake 2 and its direct references to the Federal Bureau of Control. At the same time, Remedy began to consider Control not as a single game anymore, but as one of the cornerstones of its future output.

A particularly significant step came in 2024, when Remedy acquired from 505 Games all rights related to Control, the multiplayer project then known as Condor, the subsequent Control 2, and future products in the series. The studio explained that the move would allow it to take greater control over creative and business decisions and to focus on the long-term growth of the franchise.

It is therefore difficult to view Resonant as a simple sequel. It is the moment when Remedy returns to one of its most important properties after having verified its ability to sustain a broad audience and a true expansion of the narrative universe.

The choice of Dylan Faden as protagonist is perhaps the clearest sign of this desire to change perspective.

In the first Control, Dylan was above all an unsettling presence, the brother Jesse was looking for and, at the same time, one of the main threats inside the Oldest House. His story was told through documents, dialogue, and fragments of memory, while his fate remained closely tied to that of his sister.

In Resonant the situation is reversed. Dylan becomes the only playable character and finds himself having to face a world he no longer knows after years of confinement. Jesse remains central to the story, but this time it is Dylan who drives the events.

The choice is interesting because it allows Remedy to take a character who in the first chapter represented almost the "face of the enemy" and turn him into the protagonist of a story about redemption and identity.

The starting point is in fact a very simple question: who is Dylan after everything that has happened to him?

If the Oldest House was the heart of Control, Resonant seems to want to turn an entire city into its own paranormal laboratory.

Manhattan has been distorted by a new force capable of altering reality. Buildings can change shape, gravity can behave unpredictably, and the streets have become the territory of creatures generated by the new threat.

However, this is not a traditional open world. Remedy has clarified that Resonant will be organized into large explorable zones, characterized by side activities, optional encounters, and secrets, while maintaining a central narrative structure.

It is an interesting evolution compared to the first chapter. The Oldest House worked precisely because it seemed to have no rules, but it was still a relatively confined space. Bringing that same philosophy into a distorted Manhattan means enormously increasing the scale of the experience without giving up that exploratory component that had helped make Control so distinctive.

Combat also seems to be taking a step forward. Dylan will use the Aberrant, a weapon capable of transforming into different forms, along with an arsenal of supernatural abilities and combinations that can be customized to build different play styles.

To complete the system, there will be the Resonants, powerful enemies tied to the new paranormal threat. Defeating them will allow Dylan to gain new abilities, creating a direct link between exploration, combat, and progression.

The real problem with Control: Resonant, paradoxically, does not seem to be proving that Remedy still knows how to create a great game.

The question will be whether the studio will manage to repeat the effect of the first Control without merely rehashing its formula.

The original chapter had the advantage of a component of surprise that was hard to replicate. Entering the Oldest House for the first time, discovering that its architecture did not obey the normal laws of reality, and gradually learning to harness Jesse’s powers was an integral part of the experience.

Resonant will therefore have to find a new form of strangeness.

The premises seem to be there. Remedy speaks of a more open and dynamic experience, of a Manhattan transformed into a gigantic paranormal setting, and of a story that allows us to explore a completely different side of the Faden family. The studio also considers Resonant the biggest project ever created in-house.

And this is precisely the most interesting part of the wait.

Control was born as a gamble: taking Remedy's most eccentric ideas and turning them into an action game aimed at a much broader audience. The result exceeded expectations to the point of becoming one of the studio's core properties.

Seven years later, Control: Resonant therefore must do more than simply prove itself to be a good sequel. It must show that that universe can grow without losing what made it special.

To do so, Remedy seems to have chosen the most coherent solution possible: change protagonist, change scale, change setting, and push the boundaries of reality even further.

Because, after all, in the world of Control there is only one certainty: nothing ever truly remains under control.