Control Resonant pairs its gravity-shifting action with a deliberately awkward protagonist and a Manhattan designed to make the ordinary feel unstable. In a PlayStation Blog feature, Remedy developers describe Dylan’s powers not as effortless spectacle, but as actions with weight, resistance and disorientation.
The game is available on PS5, according to PlayStation Blog. Eurogamer has separately reported that Remedy is preparing post-launch additions including cosmetics, Photo Mode and New Game Plus Plus.
Power with friction
Art Director Elmeri Raitanen said Remedy wanted Dylan’s movement and combat to retain a sense of groundedness. Lead Gameplay Designer Sergey Mohov said using the Elevate ability takes effort and that changing gravity disorients Dylan.
That approach extends to the environment. Remedy sought to preserve Control’s reactive destruction on a larger stage, so attacks such as ground slams and shockwaves affect the space around Dylan. The stated aim is not simply to make the character powerful, but to frame that power around physical cost and a protagonist seeking human connection.
Strange York as a navigational tool
Control’s enclosed Brutalist spaces give way to a more open, damaged Manhattan in Resonant. Remedy calls its interpretation Strange York: a stylised, retro, movie-like New York rather than a direct recreation.
Lead Level Designer Anne-Marie Grönroos said The Central, the game’s most normal area, sits at the centre of the world to establish a baseline for New York. That contrast gives the more paranatural areas greater impact. Environmental objects also carry practical roles: FBC satellite dishes mark many fast-travel doors, while deflated FBC balloons appear near map towers.
The Sinkhole mission applies the same logic to gravity. Dylan fights across floors, walls and ceilings in a warped apartment building. Remedy established a simple rule during development: anything that looks like a walkable surface should be walkable. Mohov said that decision changed how certain spaces played, concentrating attention on immediate traversal and combat problems.
Bosses built around place and theme
Remedy describes its boss encounters as skill checks. The team gathered ideas, selected them around a desired player experience, prototyped each encounter, then defined the needed arena and behaviour before artists and writers developed its identity.
Raitanen said bosses were constructed around themes, including control inspired by mycelium or hive minds. Medieval iconography and church architecture informed the effort to make them feel imposing. The account suggests that arenas, mechanics and visual design were developed together rather than treated as separate layers.
The larger frame
Mohov said Resonant was designed to be more player-driven in exploration, progression and narrative, alongside bigger draw distances, more physics objects and more enemies on screen. PS5 features also feed into that physical focus: the DualSense controller’s speaker carries radio calls, while adaptive triggers provide resistance for specific abilities.
Eurogamer reports that New Game Plus Plus is planned for a future update, allowing repeated New Game Plus runs without erasing progress. It also reports plans for Photo Mode and additional cosmetics, though those features are separate from the PlayStation Blog’s account of the game’s present design.
The through line is clear: Control Resonant’s larger city, gravity-driven spaces and themed boss encounters are meant to turn scale into something players must navigate, rather than merely look at.