Remedy Entertainment’s Control Resonant arrives September 24, 2026, and if the name alone has you confused about what connects to what, you are not alone. The short version: this is the sequel to 2019’s Control, and it plugs into a universe Remedy has been quietly building for more than a decade. Here are the 15 things worth knowing before you boot it up, ordered from the basics down to the deep cuts.
1) It is the sequel to Control, just not called Control 2
Remedy spent years calling this Control 2. The studio rebranded it Control Resonant ahead of launch, but the lineage is unchanged: this is the direct follow-up to the original, out September 24, 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (Steam and Epic), with Mac coming later in the year. The number got dropped, but the storyline did not.
2) You are not playing Jesse Faden this time
The first game starred Jesse Faden, who walked into a haunted government skyscraper and walked out running it. Resonant hands you her estranged brother, Dylan Faden, who has powers of his own and is hunting for her. Remedy has confirmed Jesse is not playable, though it insists she is still “a big part of the game.”
3) The action leaves the Oldest House for Manhattan
Control kept you trapped inside one shapeshifting building for the entire game. Resonant breaks out onto the streets of downtown Manhattan, trading brutalist corridors for large open zones full of side activities and hidden encounters. If the original felt claustrophobic by design, this is the deliberate opposite.
4) Combat has gone full ‘Devil May Cry’
The original was a third-person shooter with telekinesis. Resonant flips the emphasis to melee, with Remedy openly leaning on a Devil May Cry-style influence. Dylan’s signature weapon, the Aberrant, shapeshifts between forms (dagger, hammer, staff and more) rather than morphing like the first game’s Service Weapon gun.
5) “Control” is really about a secret agency and a haunted skyscraper
Here is the franchise’s whole premise in one breath. The Federal Bureau of Control (FBC) is a secret US agency that studies and contains paranatural phenomena, and its headquarters is the Oldest House, a New York building that is bigger on the inside and rearranges itself when you look away. That building is the heart of everything Remedy has built here.
6) The enemy is “the Hiss,” and it is already inside the walls
Control’s central threat is the Hiss, a hostile invasive force (picture a chanting red corruption) that overruns the FBC and turns its own staff into floating enemies. It is the through-line villain of the modern Control games, and the title “Resonant” reads as a deliberate nod to it.
7) Learn one piece of jargon: AWE
You will see the term AWE everywhere. It stands for Altered World Event: a paranatural event that warps reality in a specific place. AWEs are the connective tissue of this entire universe, and that acronym is about to matter a lot.
8) It is part of the “Remedy Connected Universe”
This is the big one. Around 2019, creative director Sam Lake confirmed Remedy’s games share a single setting, the Remedy Connected Universe, that he had been chasing for over ten years. Control is its hub, and Resonant is the next chapter.
9) Control already crossed over with Alan Wake
If you remember only one connection, make it this. Control’s 2020 AWE expansion was an explicit Alan Wake crossover, the first official link in the shared universe, confirming that Remedy’s horror-writer hero and its secret agency live in the same reality.
10) Alan Wake 2 pulled the two series tightly together
2023’s Alan Wake 2 was no side note for Control fans. Jesse Faden and FBC scientist Casper Darling both turn up, the Bureau drives a chunk of the plot, and its Lake House DLC even slipped in a tease for Resonant itself.
11) There is a co-op spinoff you may have missed: FBC: Firebreak
In June 2025 Remedy released FBC: Firebreak, a three-player co-op shooter set inside the Oldest House six years into the Hiss crisis, casting you as a volunteer first responder. It is the fifth entry in the universe and the most skippable for story purposes, which leads straight to the next point.
12) Quantum Break and Max Payne are NOT part of this
Remedy also made Quantum Break and the Max Payne games, and fans keep folding them into the lore. Neither of these games is part of the Remedy Connected Universe… for now. The upcoming Max Payne remake that has been in development for some time might change that.
13) You really only need to play one game to be ready
Despite six entries, the homework is light. Play Control, full stop. Alan Wake 2 is a rich bonus if you want the complete crossover picture, but it is not required, and you can comfortably skip FBC: Firebreak beforehand. Better still, Firebreak and much of the back catalog have spent time on Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, so catching up does not have to mean four full-price purchases.
14) There is an ownership shake-up
The studio bought the full Control rights back from former publisher 505 Games in February 2024 for €17 million and is self-publishing for the first time, with Annapurna Pictures co-financing half of the roughly €50 million budget. Remedy reportedly needs 3 to 4 million copies just to break even, and that pressure is sharper because Firebreak underperformed badly enough to trigger a profit warning and a €14.9 million writedown in 2025.
15) The one date that matters: September 24, 2026
Resonant is the first Control game Remedy fully owns and the studio’s swing at a wider audience than the cult original ever reached, rebuilt around melee combat and an open Manhattan. Whether the gamble pays off comes down to a single day on the calendar, and now you will walk in knowing exactly what you are looking at.
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