At Digital Tech Explorer, TechTalesLeo is tracking the latest CONTROL Resonant details from an exclusive PC Gaming Show interview. The PC Gaming Show team traveled to Finland to speak with the creative minds at Remedy about the upcoming ARPG sequel to 2019’s Control. After a June PC Gaming Show snippet, the full video was declassified and is now available in the CONTROL Resonant developer interview.
Story, setting, and the Patterning
CONTROL Resonant follows Dylan Faden, brother of newly appointed FBC director Jesse Faden. Dylan spent much of the original Control locked in a cell because of his dangerously powerful abilities and possession by the Hiss. After waking from a coma, he discovers that the Hiss have escaped the Oldest House and are running rampant across Manhattan, New York.
At the same time, the island is being affected by an otherworldly threat called the Patterning. It is turning people into monsters and distorting the environment itself. Creative director Mikael Kasurinen said, “It’s not simply a matter of ordering things in a predictable way, it’s affecting the people. It affects time, it affects light.”
Gravity, Resonants, and boss fights
With the city turned upside down, Dylan can flip gravity and move across walls and ceilings. The Resonants are people twisted into monstrous bosses. Dylan can defeat them and gain their powers, but players are not forced to fight every one of them, or even specific ones, according to lead level designer Anne-Marie Grönroos.
Because the sequel is a more open experience than its predecessor, it may require players to defeat a certain number of bosses while offering additional optional encounters. Remedy also noted that developers cannot always predict which abilities players will have at any given point in the game.
That variability can produce unpredictable outcomes. Remedy described one playtester who did not gain the gravity-shifting ability until much later than expected. Shared boss details include a lava-spitting giant, a large floating head, and a smaller, more elegant Resonant who was once a dancer performing in Manhattan when the Patterning struck.
Art inspiration, movement, and sound design
Remedy did not rely on other video games for visual inspiration. Instead, the studio drew from the work of M.C. Escher, as well as films such as A Field in England and Paprika. Art director Elmeri Raitanen said, “There’s this tendency of people not taking risks, and games start to resemble each other quite a lot.”
For the dancer Resonant, Remedy worked with real dancers to capture her movements accurately. The score for her fight was also a central part of the design. Composer Petri Alanko said, “I went through quite a lot of my kitchenware and built a rhythm based on Fibonacci numbers.” The musical pattern follows the sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and beyond.
Alanko also explained that, because Dylan is redefining himself without the Hiss possessing him, he is effectively being reborn. “In the beginning, almost all the sounds that are related to him are formed of sine waves, which is basically the simplest form of sound,” Alanko said. “Whenever he’s evolving as a person, or as a weapon, some other frequencies, other nuances, other textures, the tonal effects behind whatever Dylan does, get more complex and more, let’s say, interesting.”
A broader universe and release details
Creative director Mikael Kasurinen said he envisions a wider world filled with different stories and characters, not only the Faden family. He drew inspiration from pen-and-paper roleplaying games and wants to build a universe with clear rules that players can experience from different perspectives.
CONTROL Resonant launches on September 24, 2026. Players can pre-order CONTROL Resonant on Steam. The PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct airs on September 20.
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