Remedy has been expanding its own unique gaming universe with CONTROL and Alan Wake II, and now, with CONTROL Resonant, things are about to get a whole lot more interesting. Building on what came before, CONTROL Resonant is looking to be a bigger and more accessible entry in the gaming universe, and it is shaping up to be a massive release. Showcased at Summer Game Fest Play Days in Los Angeles, the team at Remedy is ready to lift the curtain on what the game will bring to players and how CONTROL is changing going into this release.
Following Dylan Faden, the brother of the protagonist from CONTROL, this entry is very different from the first, while keeping the core of the experience that had so many people excited when it first launched.
Taking time out of the showcase to talk to us, CONTROL Resonant art director Elmeri Raitanen gladly sat down with CGMagazine to talk about CONTROL Resonant, what has changed during development and why this is the perfect entry for fans, new and old. With a slew of new ideas, bigger worlds and a new protagonist, Remedy is taking on a massive mission diving into this instalment. After talking to Elmeri Raitanen, I am more excited than ever to see what the world of CONTROL has to offer.
CONTROL Resonant looks stunning. How did you and the team come up with the look and concepts behind this game?
Elmeri Raitanen: Well, I mean, the setting of [CONTROL Resonant] is quite different. In the previous game, you stepped into the Oldest House. Now you’re stepping out of the Oldest House. But I think there’s a very similar recipe, though, for how we approach the world that we built.
In CONTROL, for example, it was very important for us to have that sort of grounded and mundane baseline, to have the Oldest House feel like a bureau, like somebody actually works there, that it’s a normal place of work until something crazy or supernatural happens there. So, if everything is already crazy and then something crazy happens on top of that, then everything just feels random and not crazy at all. Regardless of whether we are inside the Oldest House anymore, it’s a very similar recipe that we then used for our paranatural Manhattan.
We went to New York City for a location scouting and reference-gathering trip, and we took thousands of photos and everything. We wanted to make sure that Manhattan feels lived in, like a real place, but we, of course, still did not want to make a Google Maps tourist walking simulator type of thing. It needs to make sense for our game. But that same grounded baseline as with the office setting needs to still be there, and then when we start to overlay all kinds of paranatural threats there, then it hopefully feels unique and ownable enough that it stands out against the competition, because there are so many projects that have done Manhattan really well, even quite recently.
So we don’t want to pick a fight with those behemoth titles. We want to make our own thing.
How long was the process of getting the look of CONTROL Resonant right? Did you go through a lot of iterations before landing on the final version of the game, or how did that process work?
Elmeri Raitanen: I guess with almost every creative and artistic thing, it’s, well, I don’t know if it’s ever ready. At some point, we will have to stop working on it because we need to actually ship the game, and literally until that moment, I think we will just keep polishing it, keep ironing out any visual kinks, and making sure that it serves the exact purposes that it needs.
Looking at the characters and the way CONTROL Resonant differs from past entries in the series, what was the concept you went in with? Did you want it to look similar, but also move in a different direction? How did you land on the look of your main character and the world in general, beyond just the New York setting?
Elmeri Raitanen: Right. While we are changing the art and the undercurrent, the original CONTROL vibes will absolutely be there. So people who played CONTROL and really liked it because of the vibes- the majority of the team who we are working with have worked on the previous one as well. So that original vibe is definitely going to be there. That being said, of course, we want as many people as possible to pick up CONTROL, and while we’re happy with the sales now, it wasn’t immediately a hit. So we have been fairly deliberately trying to think, how can we make this a little bit more approachable and easier to pick up?
Some people, for example, loved the brutalist Oldest House, and some were put off by how oppressive it looks. But now, if you can get out and the city can feel even deceptively pleasant, maybe that’s actually already one thing. If the world invites you to explore it more, and the city itself is not necessarily hostile and out to get you, the paranatural threats are. There are many things we have been looking into to make this feel like a CONTROL game while still being a little more approachable.
Jumping on to the paranatural threats, they are bananas in the demo of CONTROL Resonant we played. How did you come up with some of those concepts for CONTROL Resonant without spoiling anything, but yes,
Elmeri Raitanen: Well, from the jump, from the very get-go of this project, we, of course, have been thinking about that this is a sequel. So what of the award-winning world-building that we have in CONTROL can we keep as is, and what can we keep, but we need to evolve a bit? And then what is something that we need to just drop because it doesn’t make any sense for this game anymore?
And, for example, some of these returning threats are literally the Hiss and the Mold. So Hiss is taking something that is already there and corrupting that. Mold is then back invading spaces with this supernatural growth, and it is, as established in the first game, emitting this sweet, enticing aroma that makes it irresistible for people to eat it. And then they eat it, and then they turn into these Mold hosts, and that’s how the Mold grows.
So some of these things are just a very natural evolution of the stuff that we did in CONTROL. The Hiss corrupted people and things a little bit, and now it corrupts them more. So, for example, these fairly little Hissified guards were still a little bit too humanoid for our game, so we wanted to make sure that the silhouettes are completely different, that the enemies read as black, that the silhouettes are crazy, and that they’re fun to animate this way as well.
And then Mold, for example, is something that we had to evolve a tiny bit, because we did not want our world to feel like it’s in a post-apocalyptic state, or that nature is taking over. There are also other games that have done this really well, right? So we wanted to make sure that our Mold reads as something other than leafy greens and roots and these other things.
We’ve been using a lot more food analogies for the Mold, actually. So it’s quite a lot inspired by sourdough, and then cotton candy, maybe. And even our audio team started to think about how does delicious sound. So, for example, when you walk on the surfaces of the Mold, they have been crumbling like crispy poached something like this. So, yeah, there’s this sort of overarching food analogy there, I think.
I do want to touch on the demo of CONTROL Resonant we saw at Summer Game Fest. There were the memory sequences, the impressive scale of the Oldest House, and then this openness and warped reality of New York. What was the process of making all of those spaces feel natural as they connect from one to the next, while still giving players different biomes and new ideas throughout CONTROL Resonant?
Elmeri Raitanen: We have been talking about the fact that in our paranatural Manhattan, we don’t necessarily want to sprinkle this weirdness a little bit everywhere. But when we do something, we do it wholeheartedly and boldly. For example, with some of the zones, we have to first think about what this part of the city used to be. Was it more like an industrial setting, or was it more like a park setting? And then what could be the time of day, for example, in this area? And then, which paranatural threat has the biggest foothold in here?
So, first of all, we have areas where the FBC is feeling fairly impactful, and those might feel a little bit more safe, pleasant and nice. And then we have areas where the Hiss has just corrupted almost everything, and then we have places where the Mold is basically winning the fight.
You mentioned CONTROL Resonant is a little more approachable than the past title, but it is still a sequel. For people who say, “I did not click with CONTROL,” can they just jump into this game, and if so, would they be missing a lot of the story?
Elmeri Raitanen: Yeah, that’s a good question, and it’s a little bit hard to be completely objective about it. We have very deliberately made the story such that it can be enjoyed as a standalone experience. It is a sequel, a full-blown sequel, and a bigger game, hopefully, than the first one ever was. There are, of course, recurring or returning characters and things that have been established with quite a lot of exposition in the first game. So you most likely, as always, get a little bit more out of this when you have played the previous one, and it’s in a really great sale right now.
But it absolutely can be played and enjoyed as a standalone experience, even without playing the first one. This is actually also one of the reasons why we dropped the number two from the name, so that this is just another story in the CONTROL world and another angle.
I do want to quickly touch on the weapon in CONTROL Resonant, because that was one of the more unique elements. How did the evolution of that come about, and how did it develop into what we see now?
Elmeri Raitanen: Yeah, well, one of the things that we always liked was a supernatural, shape-shifting weapon. Jesse’s Service Weapon in CONTROL was great, but we noticed that it changes shape, but it’s still roughly the same silhouette. In a third-person camera, it’s actually quite far away, and it gets obstructed by Jesse as well, occasionally, and we didn’t get to do any crazy animations with Jesse. It’s basically just shooting your trigger. So there was a little bit of exploration into what if it could turn into a sword as well in CONTROL? But we had to drop it then. But the seed was planted, and then we’re like, okay, in FBC: Firebreak, well, that’s going to be a melee game, and we’re going to do this properly.
So it’s been very exciting to play around with the Aberrant and the silhouette, because now we can really exaggerate the weapon. You can make sure that, okay, the silhouette is completely different. It reads from a distance in a third-person camera. It’s not just the weapon, but the whole silhouette, and how Dylan moves with it is changing, so it’s a lot more readable that way. And we wanted the Aberrant to feel functional, almost like the iron ingot a blacksmith carves, for example. So it’s not that nice, sleek, finished design in the end, but it’s this very functional thing that’s very useful. It does hurt when you hit the guy, but it’s not necessarily sleek.
Do you have a favourite version of the weapon in CONTROL Resonant?
Elmeri Raitanen: Visually, I think the huge hammer, just because its silhouette is nice. We have been using it a lot on the marketing art, for example, because it’s a fairly unique thing. But then, we also have the extended versions, almost like a whip thing that has a bit of a mini game to it. So that’s like a tiny mini game, and when you get it just right, it’s actually really snappy and fun to play
For people coming to this who have played CONTROL before and are really excited for CONTROL Resonant, are there any little secrets they should keep an eye out for? Nothing too spoilery, of course.
Elmeri Raitanen: Well, I feel like people who enjoyed CONTROL most went into the experience by knowing fairly little about it, but then they kept constantly being surprised in positive ways.
So I truly hope that with the sequel, we have been saying that this is not a safe sequel, that we truly hope that we can basically create that same sensation of being positively surprised again.
So for sure, there will be nice secrets and sequences and then “fall” moments, like in our previous games, but I, of course, don’t want to spoil them. People will have to find out, but there will be some pretty transitions.
Awesome. Thank you so much.
CONTROL Resonant releases on September 24, 2026, for Steam and the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and XBOX Series X|S.
