Remedy Entertainment did not make Control 2. Control Resonant is a sequel that swaps Jesse Faden’s service weapon for her brother’s fists, hammers, scythes, and drills. You play as Dylan Faden, released from the Oldest House into a Manhattan that the Hiss and a new Pattern threat have folded, inverted, and infected. The genre shift is complete. This is a melee action RPG with a semi-open city, not a third-person shooter Metroidvania.
Combat and the Aberrant
Combat is built on aggression. There is no block and no traditional parry. You dodge, preferably on a tight timing window that can reward a counter or extra buff, then you keep hitting. Dylan’s weapon is the Aberrant, a paranatural shaft implanted in his chest that reforms on command. You choose a primary form, a secondary form, and a combo finisher from separate pools. Early options include fast twin blades with crit chance, a wide scythe for groups, an axe that rewards flanking, a slow crushing mallet, a whip-like extender, and a drill that chews through poise. Mix them. A fast primary plus a heavy secondary plus a flashy finisher becomes your kit. Later you unlock more variants and can respec.
Each form uses simple three-hit strings on its own button. The system gets interesting when you add combat abilities earned from bosses called Resonants. You can equip several at once: rock barrages, seeking turrets you can throw, floating stone shields you can dash through enemies, burning strikes, summons, and more. Successful strings fill a falter or stagger meter. Land a finisher and you enter Dominance, a short window of extra damage that also changes how health drops work. Executing instead of just killing trades immediate heals for a snowball. The loop rewards players who stay in the enemy’s face, dash to flying targets, and swap forms mid-fight rather than mash one button.
Movement and Manhattan
Movement is half the combat. Double jump, air dash, hover, and later gravity shifts let you treat walls and inverted rooftops as floors. Arenas often become vertical messes of debris and warped geometry. The same tools that let you leap between folded skyscrapers also let you stay airborne for long aerial strings. Traversal and fighting share the same muscle memory.
The city is split into zones that level as you complete objectives inside them. Leveling a zone improves local drops, vendor stock, and map markers, and it grants Dylan talent points. Defeating a Resonant boss can reset parts of an area with tougher enemies and new side activities. Side content leans into Remedy’s house style: ritual karaoke with terrified dancers, Altered Items that need soothing, rooftop chases, and other small odd jobs. The map is frequently unhelpful. Getting lost in the folded architecture is common.
Bosses, Builds, and Balance
Bosses are the showcase. Many are less about learning a tight pattern and more about spectacle and space: a dancer who mostly ignores you while performing, a pipe-skewered giant in a steam plant, a fungal mass in a chasm where up and down keep swapping. They drop new abilities that meaningfully change your loadout. Some later fights lean on large health pools. Encounter variety among regular enemies is decent, but spongey crowds appear often enough that certain builds feel mandatory until you upgrade.
Progression has moderate depth. Skill trees for weapons and Dylan, artifacts with trade-offs, and zone-based talent points give you room to specialize without locking you into one path. Early hours can feel restricted until the ability list opens. Default difficulty is demanding because health management and falter timing matter; an assist mode exists.
Verdict
The gameplay bet mostly works. Remedy’s best combat in years sits inside a city that is more interesting to move through than most open worlds. The shapeshifting weapon and ability mixing keep fights from going fully stale across a 30-plus hour campaign. The costs are familiar open-world ones: occasional repetition, navigation friction, and some bosses that wow more than they challenge. If you wanted another hour of floating and shooting in brutalist hallways, this is not that game. If you wanted Control’s weirdness attached to weighty, customizable melee and gravity-defying traversal, Resonant delivers.