Control Resonant, the follow-up to Remedy's acclaimed 2019 supernatural shooter, is swapping guns for blades.
Shown at Summer Game Fest this month, the game departs from the original Control's core formula - a service pistol augmented by telekinetic powers - in favor of melee-focused hack-and-slash combat. Hands-on time with an early demo found the concept interesting but the execution unconvincing. The design pivot is real and significant: where the original built its identity around a specific feel of gunplay fused with supernatural abilities, Resonant appears to be building from a different foundation entirely.
That choice carries genuine risk. Control's audience connected with it precisely because of that gun-and-powers feel - iterating on the formula, as Remedy did with Alan Wake 2, is one thing; replacing it wholesale is another. Genre shifts mid-franchise are notoriously hard to land: they can reinvent a series or simply confuse the people who made the original a hit.
Early demos at summer showcases are rough cuts, and games routinely ship better than they play in June. But "interesting concept, not sold yet" is the honest read - and that gap between concept and conviction is exactly what the next year of development has to close.