The Oldest House, unleashed

You wake up as Dylan Faden, known to the Federal Bureau of Control as P6, and the imprisoned brother of the Bureau's current Director, Jesse Faden.

If you played Control (2019), Control Resonant will feel as if the Oldest House cracked open and spilled its supernatural contents into the city. The halls and back rooms are mostly gone, replaced by sprawling city streets overrun with baffling entities. Remedy has you running along walls and losing yourself in mazes of cryptic lights and kaleidoscopic nightmares. The contrast between the two games is beautifully handled: where the original dropped us into a mad labyrinth built to contain the Hiss, Dylan steps out of it and into a city with far more verticality, and a lot more weirdness. Your weapon is the Aberrant, a sentient Object of Power that reshapes itself to fit your play style and has a shape-shifting answer for nearly every enemy type. Melee combat is satisfying and fun from the start, with plenty of combinations to experiment with and builds that suit different stretches of the game. You'll also unlock abilities that pair nicely with your preferred brand of Aberrant-fueled destruction and heavy combo finishers. Those abilities come from defeating Resonants, corrupted people who transform into the game's bosses. Each one is wrapped in lore about how they reached their unfortunate state, and with a little investigation you'll piece together who they used to be. Every Resonant you take down also raises the world tier, increasing enemy presence and aggression. Over time, though, the combat started to feel a bit dull, and that's honestly my only real gripe. Even then, it was offset by the stunning world and level design and a genuinely fun traversal loop. As you explore, you unlock new traversal abilities through platforming challenges, framed by story-driven conversations between Dylan and Jesse. These abilities are key to reaching new parts of the world. One of my favorite features is the Hub. Press down on the D-pad anytime out of combat to seamlessly teleport into Dylan's psyche, where you can tweak your loadout, upgrade skills and abilities, or craft artifacts for buffs and stackable damage bonuses. You can even test your build in a training area before blipping back out of your mind and into the fight.

The side quests deserve a mention too. They lean fully into the eerie, offbeat strangeness the series is known for, and they're some of the most fun I had with the game. Each one pulls you a little deeper into the city's weirdness and rewards your curiosity with unsettling stories and memorable moments.

Overall, Control Resonant feels amazing. It looks beautiful, the music syncs perfectly with events in the world, and between the striking city, the traversal, the Hub, and those creepy side quests, it all comes together into a genuinely fun game.