Control Resonant is a fascinating experiment, but not an entirely successful one

When you play as many video games as I do, only a select few really stick in your mind for years after you finish them.

Control , a 2019 action-adventure game, was one of those.

Mashable gave Control its Game of the Year award that year, and for good reason: It's a mind-bending and totally sick shooter that can be cleanly summarized as "you play as a Jedi with a gun in a haunted office building." It was, at the time, the best synthesis of developer Remedy's signature style with actually competent gunplay, something the studio had struggled with at points in the past.

I'd argue it was only surpassed by 2023's Alan Wake II in that regard, but that's like choosing a favorite child.

I wish I was as enthusiastic about Control Resonant , the new follow-up to the 2019 original that I am still working my way through.

But, while Resonant maintains the creepy vibes, non-Euclidean geometry, and action combat that make you feel extremely cool on a regular basis of the original, its new setting of a supernaturally warped Manhattan significantly reduces the charm in both an aesthetic and mechanical sense.

SEE ALSO: 'Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave' is one of the biggest and best Switch 2 exclusives yet I love New York City, but I loved The Oldest House more This stuff can be really cool at times.

Credit: Remedy/Steam Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Control Resonant is that the concepts Remedy chose to play around with are sound, but are kind of bland in practice.

Control was a third-person shooter with psychic powers set inside The Oldest House, an imposing government building in Manhattan with a mind of its own and the ability to shift its innards around at will.

It made for an incredible setting, as protagonist Jesse Faden would frequently find herself fighting horrible monstrosities among office cubicles, which in turn would be mere feet away from terrors that defied conventional description.

The best part is that it was all a relatively mundane part of the job for employees of the Federal Bureau of Control, a fictional government agency dedicated to investigating the supernatural.

Resonant turns all of that on its head by shifting the perspective to Dylan, Jesse's brother, who had been imprisoned as an experimental test subject in The Oldest House.

What was previously contained within the building's walls has spilled out into Manhattan, profoundly transforming the architecture of the city and its inhabitants, and it's up to Dylan to do something about it.

I have not seen much of Jesse so far.