Control Resonant is slated for release on September 24, arriving roughly seven years after the original 2019 title Control. The sequel brings several notable shifts: the lead character changes from Jesse Faden to her brother Dylan Faden, the combat system introduces melee mechanics for the first time in a Remedy game, and the claustrophobic interiors of the Oldest House give way to an expansive, city‑wide Manhattan.
These transformations forced Remedy to rethink its design methodology, explains senior level designer Arhi Makkonen to GamesIndustry.biz. Makkonen, who joined Remedy in 2018 during the final stretch of the first Control’s development, describes his role as beginning with the "block‑out" phase – establishing the overall layout, pacing, and content flow of each level before any detailed work begins. "I start by figuring out how the world should be structured, what experiences we want to deliver, and how the player will move from one point to the next until the conclusion of the game," he says. Designing Control Resonant, however, demanded a completely different mindset because the sequel abandons the interior‑only focus of its predecessor.
"In the first game everything took place inside," Makkonen notes. "We had the levitation ability, which was fantastic and everyone loved it – me included. Inside, there’s always a ceiling to keep you grounded." "Now, in Control Resonant, we’re set in a version of Manhattan where we can exploit vertical space as much as we want. That freedom is central to the experience.
Dylan shares many of Jesse’s powers, but he moves even faster and can traverse walls, ceilings and rooftops with ease." Makkonen describes the Manhattan of Control Resonant as "the biggest world we have ever built," brimming with collectibles, hidden lore, and diverse environments. Yet that scale introduces a classic open‑world dilemma: how to give players direction without feeling constrained.
"Whenever you try to provide a guided experience in an open‑ended space, it becomes a challenge because players can head anywhere they like," he admits. A concrete example is a scripted sequence where designers want Dylan to follow a street corridor and then ascend to the rooftops.
Because the character can cling to any surface, keeping him from prematurely scaling a wall or taking a shortcut is tricky. "It’s very hard to keep him out of the rooftops in the first place," Makkonen says. Despite these obstacles, the team’s guiding principle was to preserve as much player agency as possible. "If there’s an opportunity to let the player go wherever they want, we take it," he explains.
"We aim for freedom wherever we can afford it." To subtly steer players without overt hand‑holding, Remedy relies on visual cues such as distinctive landmarks, colour palettes, and environmental composition. When a player steps into a new district, the most striking point of interest – the primary location of that zone – is placed prominently in view, surrounded by a variety of secondary objectives. "You see the most interesting thing right away, and then a host of other possibilities around it," Makkonen says.
The intended result is a loosely guided exploration loop: "You probably want to head there, but you’re free to wander elsewhere if you feel like it." Achieving that balance required extensive playtesting and iteration to ensure the geography felt intuitive. "In an ideal world a player wouldn’t even need a map to understand where they are," Makkonen muses, "but in reality the map is a huge help." After the opening hours, the game unlocks the full breadth of Manhattan for the player to roam. To aid orientation, each district is painted with a unique colour scheme. "We use strong, saturated colours so that if you see a screenshot of a zone you instantly recognise whether it’s a park, an evacuation area, or the city centre," he explains.
"Each area has its own story, mood, and gameplay feel." Makkonen also emphasizes that the player can tackle the zones in any order. "I’m excited to see which district players choose first," he says. "In tests we’ve seen some players dive straight into the main narrative, while others spend fifteen hours on side content, discovering hidden stories and getting completely hooked before they even start the primary quest." Dylan’s gravity‑defying abilities added another layer of complexity to level design. While the mechanic opened up fresh gameplay possibilities, it also posed a design nightmare.
"We wanted gravity to be manipulable in many places, not just in set‑piece moments," Makkonen notes. "That required a lot of prototyping and iteration because it wasn’t always obvious which surfaces were walkable." In certain sections Dylan can flip gravity to walk up walls, but initially the team struggled to signal those walkable surfaces to the player.
The solution was a pragmatic rule: "If it looks walkable, it is walkable." This approach, however, introduced its own challenges. Players could discover a spot that allowed them to launch out of a level entirely, so the art and design teams had to collaborate closely to fine‑tune element heights and surface placements. "It took a lot of iteration, but in the end it feels natural," Makkonen says.
Beyond the open‑world overhaul, Control Resonant marks Remedy’s first foray into melee‑centric combat. Dylan wields the Aberrant, a shape‑shifting weapon that can transform between a hammer, blades, and other forms, delivering a faster, more aggressive feel than Jesse’s arsenal. "Dylan needs to feel fresh but still familiar to the Control franchise," Makkonen explains.
"The combat felt good early in development and that excitement spread across the whole team." Control Resonant has been a long‑awaited project. In the intervening years Remedy released Alan Wake 2 and the ill‑fated multiplayer title FBC: Firebreak, which received its final content update earlier this year.
Nevertheless, Control remains the studio’s biggest hit, with roughly 7.6 million copies sold worldwide, dwarfing Alan Wake 2’s three‑million‑unit lifetime sales. Makkonen expresses pride in finally unveiling the world he helped shape. "I’m really proud of how the world turned out," he concludes. Overall, the development of Control Resonant showcases how a team can blend massive vertical freedom, subtle visual guidance, and new combat systems to craft an open‑world experience that feels both expansive and intentionally directed, all while preserving the distinctive, uncanny atmosphere that defines the Control series.