Control Resonant Complete

 I have beaten Control Resonant.

As one might expect given the first game, there's a post-game state in which you can get a bit of denouement and see where the state of things lands. I'll go light on details until we get past the spoiler cut, but I will say that I'm... not crazy about the final boss fight, to be honest. Again, details to follow, but in a game with some genuinely stellar bosses, the grand finale feels a bit like, well, the sort of underwhelming bosses that Remedy has often been criticized for in the past.

There is a New Game Plus mode that becomes available, though I'm probably not going to jump into that until I've really cleared out nearly everything, and given that I don't think there's any Final Draft-like "true ending" to it, I'm not really champing at the bit for it.

I liked the game, obviously, though I don't know where it really ranks. I think on paper, it's probably a better game overall than the first Control, but it's also less revelatory in that we already know this world (it's fitting that Dylan already knows a bunch about the FBC and its terminology, as we don't really need to go over everything again). The combat is better-balanced (Control's combat was great but you hit a point where using the Service Weapon was really just what you did while you waited for your power to recharge to do Launch again) and there's more of it.

Ok, let's actually talk about how it ends:

Our final boss fight is against the Hedron - which is meant to be a separate instance of the Hedron species that Polaris was. While Jesse had this deep abiding trust in Polaris, Dylan never really did. The Hedron/Hiss conflict, thus, seems less one of good versus evil than of order versus chaos. Hedrons pursue order to its extreme, while the Hiss embody chaos, and thus the Faden siblings act collectively as a balance between those two extremes.

The fight itself is... you basically just fight a bunch of Hedron monsters you've been fighting in the streets all along, and each one killed (at least each Heavy one killed) reduces the Hedron's HP until Dylan can pull off an execution. This happens three times, but then Hedron invades Dylan's mind, appearing in The Gap. Our final fight sees Dylan confront this ethereal Hedron within his own mind, but to do so, he confronts the representative containment unit, where he sees a specter of his Hiss-infected, hairless old self. Embracing that chaos, he draws upon the Hiss' power and our final fight sees us assisted by a group of allied Hiss fighting against the Hedron constructs.

But Dylan hasn't lost control: he's taken it, and now seems to be able to wield the Hiss (we get a new talent for post-game only that allows us to get a stacking damage buff as we quickly kill foes, which I didn't have the points for - it requires 2 - but it seems pretty useful).

Dylan kills the Hedron, but in doing so, he's left to fall hundreds of feet to the stony floor of The Gap.

(Oh, and the Board complains the whole time and is starting to feel like it's just fucking useless, which is kind of funny.)

Landing on the floor, Dylan appears dead, but then Jesse appears, and seems to harness their sibling powers to trade places with him. While I was shocked and horrified to think that Jesse was dead, it turns out that while Dylan probably was, Jesse has gone into a coma.

Thus, in the true sibling-mirroring fashion, it's now Dylan who stands vigil over his sister, hoping she will wake up. Joining her is Emily Pope, acting Director of the FBC, who confesses her feelings toward Jesse (got to wake that girl out of her coma so that Poden... Fadope... Emilesse... whatever can be a thing!)

Dylan, though, has a life ahead of himself: while new bestie (I think just bestie, but we'll see) Zoe points out that he has no credit rating, no resume, and a 5th grade education, and thus probably will have to stick with his current job of "FBC Contractor" for the time being, he is no longer a prisoner. Dylan rips the MCD off of his head while facing off against the Hedron, and he can now trust himself to maintain control of his own life.

The Pattern Barrier, according to Pope, will eventually diminish, which means I sure as hell hope they have some plans to keep the Hiss and Mold contained. While the Hiss doesn't seem as infectious as it was in the first game, we did see what happened at the Evac building. (I'd love for a third Control game to move on past the Hiss, though.) Thus, Manhattan will eventually be reunited with the rest of the world (though the slowness of this process justifies the post-game. Not an indefinite lockdown this time!)

Dylan's independence is marked by getting his own apartment within the Unknown (we point out the spot prior to the game's end). It's a bit isolated, and I think the average person would have a hell of a hard time reaching it, but he's got his own space and his pet dog (the one we found across the world all game) as well as his own SHÜM cabinet. He's got a studio for his drawings as well, and we even get some casual clothes (I picked a Threshold Kids t-shirt.)

We also get one last video message from Dr. Darling. If you were hoping that there would be some kind of redemption for him... Darling remains kind of a piece of shit. At best, he seems to recognize that he was a piece of shit toward Dylan, but as he records the message prior to his Dave Bowman moment, any gesture toward apology gets swept under by his attempts to justify what he did. I might have mentioned this before, but it's interesting how Darling felt like the good counterpart to Trench's evil corruption in the first game, much like Hedron did to the Hiss, but we're shown that the world isn't that simple.

Anyway, I don't know if Remedy has said anything about DLC for the game - I actually think Alan Wake was released with a promise of its two DLCs, but I don't recall seeing anything for Resonant. That said, Alan Wake, Control, and Alan Wake II all had two DLCs, so it feels like it would be surprising not to get them.