It’s official: Control 2 is Control Resonant, a paranatural melee brawler with shapeshifting hittin' sticks

Containment breached

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In another victory for trademark paperwork diggers, weird fiction action-RPG sequel Control 2 is in fact Control Resonsant, as confirmed by an announcement and trailer at The Game Awards 2025. It’s out in 2026 and swaps Control’s telekinesis-aided shooting for melee thwacking. Said thwacking takes place across a Manhattan that’s suffering from more than a dash of catastrophic reality breakdown, as teased - this time intentionally by developers Remedy - in Alan Wake 2 DLC The Lake House.

It's also got a new protagonist in Dylan Faden, twin brother to original lead Jesse, who after seven years of running the Federal Bureau of Control has vanished – just as the FBC’s locked-up menagerie of unnatural horrors has escaped into New York. Dylan, under lock and key himself after completing Brainwashed Baddie duty in the first game, is thusly hired by the FBC’s shadowy Board to find their missing executive and maybe help clean up the mess outside if it’s not too much trouble, thanks.

Judging by the trailer, Control Resonant’s combat is still of the fast-paced, dashing and levitating variety. Dylan’s fighting style, however, appears completely gun-free, instead revolving around the Aberrant: a shimmering metal bar that can transform into various melee weapons. Be they twin swords, a chunky spear, or the most physics-defyingly vast warhammer you’ll see outside of Elden Ring. It’s also, curiously, something that Jesse herself appears to lamp Dylan with before skedaddling. Know the feeling, mate – my sister once threw a cricket stump at my head.

Remedy say that Control Resonant will have a wider variety of moves and powers to learn than in the original, and that it’ll lean further into its RPG side by having you commit to skill builds with fewer opportunities to backtrack. As for who you’ll be biffing, I spy some familiar crimson-skinned Hiss types from Control and FBC: Firebreak, though the big bads are "a new threat that can reshape the very fabric of our reality." I like the idea of going toe-to-magic-stick with a broader range of otherworldly hostiles; glimpsing some of the contained oddities within Control’s Oldest House made for both strong worldbuilding and interesting sidequests, but when violence broke out, it was usually just against red blokes with guns.

I’m less sure of the setting, and of playing as Dylan specifically. Manhattan does seem rich with opportunities to pull it apart in dramatic ways, but then what we’ve seen so far is mostly just Inception high-rise kaleidoscoping, with little of the distinct visual identity that the brutalist Oldest House provided. Dylan, meanwhile, spent most of Control being mindfudged into snarling threats from a box, while the likeably awkward Jesse went off to have fun masonry-throwing fights. Still, maybe Control Resonant can be a redemption arc for the Faden family fuckup.