By a wide margin, my most anticipated game of 2026 is Control Resonant. Its antecedent, Control, seized me in 2023 and made me a Remedy Entertainment obsessive (the timing was great, because it got me to play Alan Wake Remastered right in time for the release of Alan Wake II). Basically, I am expecting to be obsessed and posting lore theories about it on this blog for years, so get ready.
For now, though, we are only getting some glimpses at the game, and I think the previews are focusing a lot more on the gameplay than the narrative, which makes sense - not only do they want (need) to sell it to a larger audience who might not yet be initiated into the mystery cult, but they also don't want to spoil too much of the big twists and reveals of the game.
Given how satisfying it was to control Jesse Faden in the first game, it's a real gamble to both swap protagonists and also change from a 3rd person shooter to a melee brawler. I have faith in Remedy, though - not that the gameplay will necessarily be the best, but that the gameplay will be good enough that it won't get in the way of enjoying the story. (While Alan Wake II was a huge achievement, I don't think anyone adored its take on survival horror combat. It was my first survival horror game, but I then went on to play the Silent Hill 2, Resident Evil 4, and Resident Evil 2 remakes, and... well, I think those were a bit more polished).
I did play Devil May Cry 3 way back in college, though I had to set it to the easy difficulty (which you only unlock after dying several times). I often find that action games can sometimes feel a bit weightless when you have to hit an enemy ten times or more to actually kill them, contrasted with something like Dark Souls where every strike feels impactful (and it's just a matter of actually finding the opportunity to get that hit in). But what I've seen of Control Resonant's combat seems like it's trying to give the impact of your attacks a satisfying, chunky feel. We'll see once I get it in my hands.
Anyway, IGN posted a video of some previously-unseen mission, which takes you into a spatially-warped train station. Somewhat less combat-focused (though there appear to be some Mold enemies - I don't know if we're mostly going to be just dealing with the Hiss and the Mold outside of the Resonant bosses, though Remedy games tend not to have an enormous amount of enemy variety, so I'm going to assume those will be the main ones,) the bigger challenge seems to be navigating the environment while trains shoot past at strange angles, forcing you to dodge out of the way.
It does really look like levels will make ample use of the gravity-shifting capabilities that Dylan has - I'll be very curious to see how difficult it is to remain oriented as you explore these warped spaces. In an earlier preview, as you passed through some series of replications of the same apartment, there was guiding colored light and music that helped you get out of it, and I expect the level design team will have some clear visual cues to help you understand what the path forward is.
One thing I noticed is that the strange doorways we saw in the Paranatural Manhattan trailer appear to be our fast-travel nodes. Given the game is going to have a pretty huge world, it looks like, you had to expect that there would be something like this, basically equivalent to the Resonant Points in the first game.
In terms of story, it appears that Dylan does actually have some way to communicate with Jesse while in The Gap (the weird extradimensional mental space, not the clothing store). Jesse claims that she woke him up to give him the opportunity to run, not for him to help.
I'm really curious to see how this sibling dynamic plays out. Jesse is the older sister, of course, and while there's obviously the whole "ex-Hiss" part of Dylan's backstory to process, I also think it'd be interesting to see where the points of tension in their relationship were before the Ordinary AWE. After all, even siblings who are close still have issues (my older sister and I are close, but we have our conflicts now and again).
Jesse's protectiveness is admirable, but I can also imagine that Dylan might have been sort of underestimated. I mean, after almost 20 years being raised by the FBC, he's sure to be all kinds of messed up in a lot of ways. I can imagine that Dylan might struggle with the fact that Jesse formed an image in her head of what he might have been, and not necessarily what he really was like. Dylan probably isn't really sure who he is, especially after the trauma of being part of the Hiss.
It also probably doesn't help that the FBC has affixed a device to the back of his skull with an explosive in case he becomes a danger to them.
One of the complaints I've heard about Control is that Jesse's characterization is a little inconsistent - she expresses a kind of impatience and indifference to the FBC at some points but then also seems to be fascinated by the strange paranatural world that it represents. Monty Zander, a YouTuber whose critiques I enjoy a lot, felt that "The Sibling" in Alan Wake II's Night Springs DLC, which is a kind of version of Jesse, felt more lived-in and compelling as a character.
What's going to be really interesting about Control Resonant is that, even if Dylan was a major character in Control, his role in that was primarily to be a mouthpiece for the Hiss. We didn't really get much of the "real" Dylan there.
That brings up an interesting question though: When people are changed by diseases and other things that happen to them, are they not just as much the "real" versions of themselves? I really wonder how Dylan is going to reckon with what it felt like to be part of the Hiss, and also what it feels like to no longer be connected to it. Like, I imagine that the terrifying thing about it was that it probably felt really good, even if he understands on another level that it was warping his body and bringing about apocalyptic terror.
I want to say it's like 46 days until the release?
No comments:
Post a Comment