Control Resonant sees developer Remedy Entertainment take one step further into the world of RPGs, following its first experiments with the original Control. But this isn\u2019t a studio that likes to follow conventions. Rather than rewarding you with XP for finishing missions, taking down bosses, and completing side activities as most games in the genre would, Resonant hands upgrades to the world around you. The open zones of this corrupted Manhattan react to you defeating the big threats infecting it, growing much more dangerous with each new zone conquered. We\u2019ve already taken a look at how this sequel\u2019s combat has evolved, but now it\u2019s time to see how the threats you\u2019ll be taking down have changed in turn.<\/p>\n
As Control\u2019s story expands beyond the shifting walls of The Oldest House, so too have the otherworldly entities that once called it home. Much like how the Bureau\u2019s headquarters was made up of a series of unique areas infested by the Hiss and the Mold, each of Manhattan\u2019s zones finds itself swarmed with these familiar forces, albeit not quite how you remember them. Chief among them are the eerie, red-hued Hiss, the paranatural parasite that corrupted Resonant\u2019s protagonist, Dylan, in the original Control.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see the Hiss in this simpler form in the first game,\u201d says Mikael Kasurinen, director of both Control games. \u201cBut as it’s getting out into the outside world, its turbulence and corruption go to the next level, and it gets way more violent and uncomplicated. It starts to even affect the environment as well, not just human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n
I can attest to this. Having played a few hours of Resonant now, I\u2019ve been forced to fight all manner of possessed entities \u2013 ranging from gangly eldritch monsters and giants with two-tonne sacs of glowing red goo for heads (with which they attempt to flatten you like a mallet), to an upturned bus emanating haunting passenger groans as it spun above me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had fun thinking about [the enemy designs],\u201d art director Elmeri Raitanen tells me. \u201cThe Hiss has been cooking and getting stronger, and it can corrupt more things and bigger things. And naturally now, even outside of The Oldest House, we have more opportunities to play around with things, like this design for a large enemy that is a spawner type. So we were thinking, \u2018How can we actually do something like this in the world of Control?\u2019 So a \u2018Hissified\u2019 bus made most sense. And then the fact that the poor passengers inside then became these \u2018Hissified\u2019 spawned enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also returning is the Mold, the bacterial threat found in the depths of The Oldest House in the original Control. These fuzzy fungal fiends have carved out their own pocket of New York, caking subway walls in blue and yellow mycelium and armoring themselves in layers designed to challenge Dylan\u2019s melee-centered skillset.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Mold has evolved as well,\u201d reveals Sergey Mohov, Control Resonant\u2019s lead gameplay designer. \u201cThe majority of enemies are Hiss in Manhattan, but Mold are a more isolated faction. There’s still quite a lot of Mold enemies, but we were able to give them some special properties as a faction. They are soft and made out of this spongy mold material. Because of that, they are naturally resistant to blunt damage. On the other hand, some of that material has calcified on them, and you can break it with blunt damage. So you need to try to pay attention to, like, \u2018Okay, this enemy has armor from the front. Maybe I go behind, and I hit it. Or maybe I pull out my big hammer and smash its armor, and then I can attack it afterwards\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fighting the Mold leads to combat dances performed to a different beat than those with the Hiss. They\u2019re often more considered encounters, framed around knowing which enemies to target first, and taking in your surroundings so as not to get caught up in the traps they\u2019ve set.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey don’t necessarily attack you until you actually engage them or until you get really close,\u201d Mohov explains. \u201cSo there’s a little bit of, I don’t want to say stealth, but they’re not actually necessarily actively caring about attacking Dylan. They’re just kind of there, and their job is to just infect everything with Mold, including you. They’re covering the encounter area with the Mold damage zones that create these spore clouds that inflict status effects. There are mines in the air and on the ground that you have to avoid. There are also these mold alarms which trigger nearby encounters if you get too close to one. And burning all of that stuff is really fun because mold is afraid of fire.\u201d<\/p>\n You\u2019ll get the ability to burst into flames and fry up some mushrooms as you progress through Control Resonant\u2019s story. Progression doesn\u2019t quite work how you might expect for an action RPG, though, with traditional character leveling systems discarded in favour of one that connects you to the world in a uniquely Remedy way.<\/p>\n \u201cSo Dylan doesn’t get XP, but zones do,\u201d states Mohov. \u201cEvery time you do an activity in the zone, you get some XP for that zone. And every time the zone levels up, you get the zone improvement, [which are] things that increase, for instance, health drops while you are doing activities in that zone. Or they can reveal loot chests on the map, or open up arcade cabinets, which are these challenge missions that you can do later in the game once you’re more powerful.\u201d <\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say there\u2019s no progression system for your protagonist, though. \u201cEvery time you level up a zone, you get a talent point,\u201d Mohov explains. \u201cAnd that’s more kind of classic RPG progression where you level up, and you get an extra ability point.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s only one set difficulty level in Control Resonant, as the team believes that they are making a \u201cwell-balanced, yet challenging experience\u201d, Mohov tells me. Though assist modes will be available to help out those struggling, he encourages everyone to try to play Resonant how it has been intentionally designed before tweaking it themselves. And even if you do ultimately dial in some assists, it\u2019s worth experiencing one of Remedy\u2019s methods for that fine-tuned balancing act: an enemy scaling system that sees the whole of Manhattan react when you take down one of its big bosses, The Resonants.<\/p>\n \u201cEnemies do have levels in the game, and they do get harder as you get into further zones,\u201d Mohov explains. \u201cEvery time you kill a Resonant, which is one of these tentpole fights, you get an ability. But [The Hiss] also fights back, and it fights back by creating more threats for you in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cSo once you defeat a Resonant, combat encounters throughout the world, not just in the zone where you fought the boss, will respond,\u201d Mohov continues. \u201cNew enemies are going to appear that weren’t there before, and a lot of the encounters are going to level up. So you need to be strategic about when you want to do that. Because you are going to grow in power a lot once you kill a Resonant, but also the world is going to get quite a lot of new threats, and there’s going to be new challenges for you to overcome.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve only played through a couple of the Resonant boss fights during my hands-on time, but from these brief encounters it\u2019s clear to see that Remedy has placed a lot more thought into boss design this time around. Not only that, but they feel better woven into the central set of missions than they did in the original Control, where they were frequently positioned as optional adversaries.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nControl Resonant – June 2026 Screenshots<\/h3>\n