It’s been seven years since the acclaimed 2019 sci-fi game Control and Remedy Entertainment is back with the bold sequel Control Resonant. The sequel follows Dylan Faden, brother of the first game’s protagonist Jesse, who discovers an extradimensional entity has escaped from the secret government facility, the Oldest House, and has created a warped vision of Manhattan. After playing an early build of Control Resonant at Summer Game Fest 2026, we sat down with game director Mikael Kasurinen to talk about the upcoming sequel.“I already knew early on that the first two games were going to be about the Faden siblings,” remarks Kasurinen about the sequel changing up protagonists as it continued the story. “It was a very natural thing to have the first one be about Jesse and the second one be about Dylan.”cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});While progressing the narrative, Control Resonant works just as well as a standalone experience and that distinction is clear right from the difference in gameplay and presentation between the two titles. Whereas Jesse relied primarily on firearms in addition to her paranatural powers in Control, Dylan is using melee weapons and his own powers as he explores a nightmarish vision of New York City. For Remedy, the shift in combat mechanics between games reflected its desire, since the first title, to make an action RPG as only the studio could do it.“When you look at the first Control game, it was, in a way, a hack-and-slash, but with guns,” says Kasurinen with a laugh. “It was all about leaping in the middle of enemies, using your guns, but also your abilities and moving quickly. We didn’t want to create a shooter where you’re hiding behind corners and taking potshots at enemies. It was about more than that. It was about using these cool powers that you get in the experience and it sets up a fast-paced nature. That was always part of the Control DNA.”Kasurinen observed that the gunplay in the original Control made players intuitively want to put some distance between themselves and enemies, something that the emphasis on melee combat in Control Resonant reverses. The early build that we played handles that change well, with Dylan darting from target to target and using a variety of attacks to deal damage with his shape-shifting weapon. Mastering these techniques, which didn’t take us long, turns Dylan into a paranatural murder machine, stacking up damage significantly as he flits between monstrous opponents.That movement is bolstered by paranatural abilities that Dylan receives relatively early on in Control Resonant after escaping from the Oldest House. These powers are unlocked by venturing into cracks in reality, known as faults, and we received several new abilities in short order even in our early build. But in contrast to the bright and organized faults that Jesse experienced, Dylan’s faults are shadowy expanses with overgrown urban environments to traverse. This design difference is one that reflects the Faden siblings’ personalities along with Dylan’s underlying attempt to reestablish his humanity and connection after years of solitary confinement.“It’s not an accident that the first game takes place in Oldest House, with a brutalist architectural style that’s all about form, simplicity, and things organized in a deliberate manner,” Kasurinen observes. “In Control Resonant with Dylan, it’s entering a world full of human chaos. Things are there as a consequence of the chaotic environments that we have in our everyday lives.”In the Control Resonant demo, Dylan sets out to find his sister while defending New York from monsters escaping into his world, with his search driving the narrative forward. This follows a tease for the sequel contained in the DLC to Alan Wake 2, underscoring the shared universe elements between the two franchises. But while there is a level of interconnectivity, Kasurinen emphasizes that Control Resonant offers a fun and satisfying standalone experience, even for those who didn’t play the original 2019 game.“We are very aware that we have this large universe but that makes it more important that every game that we do can stand on its own two feet. They each have their own story, premise, and you need to be satisfied with that package once you’re done with it. That’s absolutely necessary,” Kasurinen notes. “From a storytelling side, we don’t want it to feel like a massive puzzle that you can’t fully understand until you play all of the games.”Just as Control rethought what was possible for a third-person shooter, Control Resonant takes those core sensibilities and boldly reinvents them through melee combat and a more expansive environment in a corrupted Manhattan. At the same time, the sequel is still so distinctly a Control game, maintaining the first game’s underlying aesthetic of “the strange colliding with the mundane” as Kasurinen puts it. With that in mind, the trappings are similar and the narrative foundation is present but Control Resonant completely defies expectations for what a direct sequel should be, continuing Remedy’s reputation as one of the most unique studios putting out refreshingly original games today.“We think that it’s important that we stand out from the crowd. We’re a small studio. The worst mistake that we could do would be to just try and copy others,” Kasurinen declares. “At the end of the day, it is an action RPG where you are in New York using melee combat and cool abilities to fight monsters. Everybody will get that and anybody can grab a controller and start playing the game. And it’s a unique and fun game to play!”Developed and published by Remedy Entertainment, Control Resonant releases September 24, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and macOS.The post Control Resonant Rethinks What’s Possible for Remedy’s Acclaimed Franchise appeared first on Den of Geek.