5 Reasons Why Control Resonant Is Better Than the Original

Control Resonant takes Remedy Entertainment’s strangest action game and pushes several of its ideas much further. Our new protagonist, Dylan Faden, has a very different toolkit than her older sister Jesse; the paranormal crisis has spilled into Manhattan, and the game gives you far more freedom in how you move through both the world and its combat.

Of course, this is not to say that the sequel suddenly makes the original Control outdated. The first game still has an atmosphere and setting that are difficult to replicate. But when you compare what each game asks you to do, Resonant has these five clear upgrades.

1 The Combat Gives You More Ways to Play

The biggest mechanical change is Dylan’s Aberrant, a shapeshifting melee weapon that gives his fights a different rhythm from Jesse’s Service Weapon. His supernatural abilities also work alongside it, while Talents and Artifacts let you shape a build around the way you actually like fighting.

The result is a more personal progression system. You can tweak Dylan toward particular abilities and your own combat preferences, then test those choices in the Gap. The original also had meaningful upgrades, yes, but Resonant gives those upgrades a much larger role in deciding how your character feels.

2 Movement Has Become Part of the Reward

Jesse’s levitation was already one of Control’s best powers, but Dylan’s movement kit gets broader and broader as you progress through the game. Double jumps, hovering, and air dashes let you cover ground quickly and reach spaces that would have been completely impractical in the first game.

That extra freedom also fits the setting better. Manhattan has Gravity Anomalies and other places where the rules of movement get thrown out the window, so new abilities can completely change how you approach an area. Exploration itself should feel tied much more closely to character progression.

3 Manhattan Gives Remedy More Room to Get Weird

The Oldest House remains an incredible setting, but its magic came partly from how tightly the entire experience was built around one impossible building. Resonant takes that design philosophy into a corrupted Manhattan divided into large, distinct Zones filled with optional encounters and hidden discoveries.

This setting has given Remedy more room to vary the kinds of places you see and the strange situations you stumble into. A supernatural crisis affecting an entire city simply offers more opportunities for reality to go completely off the rails, and the sequel takes advantage of that freedom in kind.

4 Dylan Gives the Story a More Personal Center

Jesse’s search for Dylan was at the heart of the first game, giving the story a personal reason to keep moving forward. Resonant flips that dynamic by putting Dylan in the lead as he sets out to find his missing sister and deal with everything that happened to him during his years in confinement.

That shift also gives the devs more room to dig into the Faden family and Dylan’s past. The paranormal mystery remains a big part of the story, but Dylan’s connection with Jesse (a character you’ve already played as in the first game) gives the sequel a stronger personal thread that carries through everything happening around him.

5 New Game+ Actually Gives You Something to Work Toward

Control Resonant is more clearly built with replayability in mind (though you don’t need to, even for 100%’ing it) than the original. The New Game Plus mode in the sequel carries over your Aberrant upgrades, health improvements, combat ability resources, supernatural combat abilities, Talents, and Artifacts, letting you take an established build into another run.

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That fits the game’s progression systems particularly well, as during your second playthrough, you can focus on combinations you could not fully develop the first time. With tougher challenges and more room to experiment, replaying has a purpose beyond simply seeing the same story again.

Does Control Resonant’s bigger RPG focus make it a better game for you, or do you still prefer the tighter design of Control? Which upgrade do you think will make the biggest difference to your experience? Let us know in the comments below!