Control Resonant Review: Remedy's Sequel Mostly Sticks the Landing

Control Resonant landed on Steam just four days ago at a full-price $59.99, and early reception is already tilting firmly positive — it's sitting at "Very Positive" with roughly 91% of players recommending it. Rather than repeat the marketing pitch, we read through the ten most recent user reviews to see what's actually driving that number once real players got their hands on Dylan Faden and his growing paranatural powers in a warped version of Manhattan.

Pros

• Remedy's signature writing and worldbuilding carries over cleanly — reviewers keep singling out Dylan's characterization and Zoe as a strong new addition to the FBC mythology.
• Combat customization gets repeated praise: loadouts, ability unlocks, and the option to try new powers before fully committing make it feel flexible without turning into a spreadsheet exercise.
• Sound design comes up unprompted in multiple reviews as a genuine highlight, not just a footnote.
• The open world rewards wandering — several players describe losing hours to side content and environmental detail that "serves no real function but makes the game world feel more alive."
• More than one reviewer calls it launch-day Game of the Year material, including someone who says it's already cracked their all-time top five after a slow start.
• It runs smoothly on PC out of the gate, per direct player reports — several specifically call out zero stuttering or frame drops, which they note is unusual for a day-one release.
• Fans of the original Control specifically call this a worthy, if slightly different, successor rather than a soft reboot — one long-time player rated it 9/10 and said it's "not as good as the first one but still pretty good," which is a common shape of praise across the sample.

Cons

• A few reviewers flag the opening hours as slow or "rocky" before the game finds its footing.
• Combat draws more mixed marks than everything around it — one reviewer who loved the game overall still calls the combat merely "ok" rather than a highlight.
• More than one player mentions the campaign feels shorter than they'd like, even players who loved it enough to fully complete it.
• Photo mode is missing at launch — one reviewer notes it's "coming soon," but it's a real omission for a game this visually driven.
• The sample so far skews heavily toward enthusiastic early adopters, so the loudest complaint right now is wanting more of the game, not less — worth watching as the review pool widens.

Performance & PC

Control Resonant asks for a fairly modern rig: Steam lists Windows 10/11, an Intel i5-8500 or Ryzen 5 3500, 16 GB RAM, and a GTX 1070/RX 5600 XT/Arc A580 for the minimum spec, stepping up to an RTX 3060 Ti/RX 6700 XT/Arc B580 recommended, plus 120 GB of SSD storage. This isn't a game for aging hardware. Encouragingly, the reviews we read back up that spec sheet with real-world results — one player called it "the first game I have played at launch in recent memory that runs completely smoothly, no stuttering, no frame drops." None of the ten reviews we analyzed mentioned crashes, freezes, or Steam Deck/Linux problems, though that's a small sample and Deck compatibility specifically wasn't addressed by name, so it's worth rechecking once more owners weigh in. Given the recommended-spec ask, budget PCs and older laptops should treat the minimum requirements as a floor rather than a comfortable target — this is built to be played on hardware from the last few years, not stretched across a decade of GPUs.

How it compares

It's been a genuinely stacked month for action-RPGs on Steam, so here's where Control Resonant sits next to its closest neighbors. SILENT HILL: Townfall launched just a day earlier and scratches a similar urban-horror itch, though it leans further into survival-horror pacing rather than Control Resonant's action-RPG structure. The Blood of Dawnwalker is this month's other big action-RPG release, trading Control's modern-day paranatural setting for an open-world vampire fantasy with deeper traditional RPG systems and a longer campaign. If it's the "ordinary world cracking open into the supernatural" hook you're after, Cyberpunk 2077 remains the genre's biggest open-world take on reality-bending powers, albeit at a very different scale, tone, and price point four years post-launch.

Summary

Four days in, Control Resonant looks like Remedy sticking close to a proven formula and mostly benefiting from it — strong writing, a world that feels genuinely alive, and, for once, a clean technical launch are carrying the early conversation, while a slow opening stretch, a shorter-than-hoped campaign, and merely-decent combat are the main things holding a handful of reviewers back from full marks. At $59.99 it's not a cheap ask, but the people who've actually finished it seem to think it earned the price. If you liked the original Control, this reads like an easy buy; if you're new to the series, the reviews suggest it's still a solid entry point, just don't expect the first couple of hours to hook you immediately.