Last month, during a private online event with press and content creators, a team at Remedy showed off more of the studio’s upcoming melee-focused semi-open-world action RPG, Control Resonant. The follow-up to Remedy’s excellent Control from 2019 is looking great, and during the event, we learned a few interesting and surprising things about the upcoming sequel. Control Resonant‘s creative director Mikael Kasurinen, lead gameplay designer Sergey Moho, and communications director Thomas Puha talked about how they were inspired by Firewatch, why the game lacks a parry button, what Jesse’s role is in all of this, and more.
Jesse Faden isn’t a playable character
Right at the start of our digital hands-off event, Remedy made something very clear: Jesse Faden, the main protagonist of Control and the sister of Resonant‘s main character Dylan, isn’t playable in this sequel.
“I just wanna get this out of the way because we’ve seen quite a lot of speculation online and, and we usually love seeing that,” said Puha. “But in this instance, I do want to confirm that Jesse Faden is not a playable character in Control Resonant. Jesse plays a significant role in the sequel. I mean, she was in the announcement trailer at [the Game Awards,] so she’s a big part of the game, but she is not playable. This is Dylan’s experience, very much so. So I just wanted to get that out there because we don’t wanna mislead players.”
This is an RPG-ass action RPG
The original Control was a third-person shooter like many of Remedy’s past games; think Alan Wake and Max Payne. Control Resonant is an action-RPG focused entirely on melee combat. And if you were curious just how much of an RPG the upcoming sequel actually is, I can confirm to you that it is indeed very much an RPG. The game features multiple skill trees, and Remedy talked a lot about players being able to create different character builds.
The team also confirmed that you won’t be able to unlock every skill and ability during a playthrough, so you’ll have to be careful and strategic with how you level up and improve Dylan and his transforming super-stick over the course of Control Resonant. That powerful stick, called the Aberrant, features a primary form, secondary form, and combo-ender. And you choose all of that, and which parts to upgrade and modify. And yes, there are plenty of stats to dig into if you care about min/maxing.
This is not a ‘Souls-like’ game and it has no parry
During the post-event Q&A, the very first question the team was asked was if Control Resonant was a Souls-like action game. The short answer is no, and to help prove this, the devs confirmed that while there is a dodge in Resonant, there is no parry.
“No, this is not Souls-like combat,” said Remedy. “This game is very much a push-forward, action-driven, aggressive playstyle game. We don’t have parry in the game [because] we want the player to be in control, on the move, and keep attacking enemies. So the player is very much in charge and not reacting to what the enemies are doing necessarily all the time. The main driver of combat is you.”
Control Resonant won’t be an open-world slog and has a better map than its predecessor
Remedy spent a good chunk of time talking about Resonant’s world and its in-game map, which is thankfully better than Control’s oft-criticized and hard-to-use map. The big thing the devs want to make clear is that Control Resonant‘s setting isn’t a massive open world filled with a list of chores to complete.
“We don’t want the map to stress you out with tons of similar things to grind through,” explained Kasurinen. “But instead, it should convey an exciting selection of distinctive options on how you want to spend your time. In this world, less is more. There are two major categories of quests in the game. We have ‘Dylan’s Journey,’ which is essentially the main campaign. And we have World Quests, which are independent stories that the player can start and finish separately.”
“On top of those, there are a lot of activities featuring action, gameplay, and puzzles. All of them grounded into the larger narrative. Some are bite-sized fun, while others require more time and attention. Or if you’d like, you can explore the world and discover secrets and lore. We want the world to be a place that you want to return to.”
Remedy is targeting 60FPS on all platforms
Just a small bit of info, but yes, Remedy confirmed that Control Resonant is targeting 60FPS across Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.
There’s a dialogue system with choices, but only one ending
As seen in the State of Play trailer last month, Control Resonant features moments in which Dylan can chat with characters, and the player can pick what he says next. But before you get any ideas, Remedy made it clear that there is only one ending in the sequel. You can also move while you talk to people, something Remedy says was directly inspired by Campo Santo’s Firewatch.
“Well, one thing I wanna mention about the dialogue system [is] that it also works on the move. Firewatch was a big inspiration for this,” said Kasurinen. “We like it when people are feeling like they are doing stuff in the world. So [it] was very important that you get to make these types of choices while you do other things at the same time. Yes, as you navigate these conversations, you sometimes make choices, and then yes, there is no way of going back. I do wanna be also clear that we are not doing any multiple different endings or anything like that. We wanna have a cohesive, good story, and Dylan is one type of a character, so there are limits to how he can react to different situations, and so on. They’re all different facets of him at the end of the day.”
You can change Dylan’s clothing and hairstyle
Just like you could swap Jesse’s clothes in Control, Remedy confirmed that Dylan’s outfit and hairstyle can be swapped at any time during Resonant. No need to look drab while fighting back an evil invasion of paranormal monsters in New York City.
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