I very swiftly became a Remedy fan upon my entry into Control, on the recommendation of a friend in early 2023. The timing, as it turned out, was fantastic, as I had plenty of time to first play through Control and its DLCs, then pick up Alan Wake Remastered, and then have Alan Wake II ready to go that October.
Control was a sort of mish-mash of genres. I don't know that I'd truly call it a Metroidvania, as while your progression through various clearance-level keycards does slowly open up the game for you, the only real ability you get that actually unlocks new areas (at least in the base game) is Hover (I guess maybe Launch as well). But it did borrow things from Souls-likes (using the Control Points as your bonfire and losing some of your Source if you died - not quite the same) and naturally built on Remedy's tried-and-true 3rd person shooter bona fides they've been using since Max Payne.
It did also flirt with the idea of being an open-world game, with plenty of side quests and even randomized time-limited events that would pop up - there Bureau Alerts that, frankly, I got tired of pretty quickly and started ignoring. Ironic, of course, that being confined to the Oldest House meant the world was anything but open.
Control Resonant is an open world game by I think any reasonable measure. And I think that it might be somewhat to its detriment.
Let me just back up here and put my comments in context: I am really enjoying the game. I'll have to finish it to decide where it ranks among Remedy's games for me, but I do think that many of its systems are actually big improvements on what we got in Control. And as satisfying as it was to use Launch in combat in the first game, Resonant has really balanced things much better so that you feel like each attack, each weapon, each power, has its own particular uses, and there are far fewer "this thing increases some minor stat by 3%, and there's a higher quality thing that increases it by 5% instead," or what Monty Zander termed "Goot," meaning "garbage loot."
My critiques here are kind of grading on a very unforgiving curve - Remedy has made some of the most amazing gaming experiences I've ever played, and so I hold their games to a very high standard.
And here, I think the issue more about the game getting in its own way.
After the initial prologue in which we exit the Oldest House, partner up with Zoe, and get Pope to agree to let us help out once outfitted with the MCD, we are sent to the Watchtower, where we get to see various points of interest marking most of the zones (or at least the first few) out ahead of us. We then get to go to the Central Zone.
But we don't really have to say there: in fact, we're practically encouraged to go to both the Western Incursion Zone and Evacuation Zone. It's not even really clear that we're meant to even spend much time in Central (though I did) before going off to these other ones.
In other words, about half of the map (I think. I've gotten at least to the intro of what I assume is the game's final zone) unfurls for us right after the game's beginning.
I know that open world games, with the freedom that they afford, have grown a lot more popular over time. Perhaps I'm just turning into the old man yelling at clouds, but I prefer a more curated experience that guides me through an area. When Breath of the Wild came and transformed the Legend of Zelda series, I was one of the very few who seemed to not really like it that much. I did like Tears of the Kingdom better, but I still prefer the model established by Ocarina of Time (or arguably Link to the Past,) where the world was vast, but we only unlocked it by bits and pieces, creating a path that would ultimately guide us through it.
Now, I'd say that Control Resonant is arguably more of a Metroidvania than its predecessor. Levitate, Shift, and even whichever power you get off The Deserter boss, are all necessary powers to reach certain areas (I can't remember if you actually need to get some kind of fire power to reach The Park, but it's sure as hell useful once you get there!)
But I think specifically this moment after you take down The Artist where about three million things become available to you is a place where a firmer hand guiding us down a narrower path could have really helped with the game's pacing.
Indeed, I think a lot of reviewers have talked about how the game gets lost in its Open World conventions, and I think a lot of responses to that have said that the game picks up a lot once you get further into the main story. I agree - I think that our dealings with Arish and our sojourn back into the Oldest House give the game emotional stakes and character development that made me feel far more invested in what I was doing.
The real side-quests have been good for world-building, reminding us and fleshing out the world of the weird that Control is all about (indeed, some of the decisions to bring back familiar foes are a little frustrating to me - I had kind of wanted the Hiss to be over and done with and for the main threat here to be something totally separate) but the way that the game frames things - like counting finding the Faults to commune with Jesse, as well as finding each zone's Resonant boss - as being "main quests" that are... only sort of main quests, confuses things a little.
I don't know. Maybe that part is fine, but I do think it would have been good to have a main story thread that would directly take us from one zone to another, and then let all the side quests and side objectives branch off of that thread.
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