Back before it was even called Control, Remedy Entertainment’s acclaimed action-adventure was the result of Mikael Kasurinen, now creative director on Control Resonant, wanting to create an RPG franchise. You may have noticed this with the implementation of dialogue choices, mods that could significantly change up playstyles, and even the non-linear exploration.
Speaking to GamesRadar at gamescom latam 2026, Kasurinen said, “When I was thinking about Control, and it wasn’t called Control or anything like that, but I had this kind of thinking in my head that I wanted to create an RPG franchise. ‘How do I get there?’ The question was, ‘What would it be? What’s the Remedy version of that?’ The way to learn is to start by doing, and that’s how Control was born.”
For a developer specialising in mostly linear experiences, especially those that didn’t demand much by way of build-crafting, it was a fresh challenge. “It was the first time we ever did that. There was a main story, but there’s also these other stories as well. You had side quests. We’d never done that before.
“We’d never done dialogue choices before, where you talk to a character [and] you can choose what to say. All that stuff was new … My intent was, ‘I want to find out what is the Remedy version of an RPG experience.’ That’s what Control was,” says Kasurinen.
Control Resonant still taps into the paranatural and otherworldly just like its predecessor, with books like the Southern Reach Trilogy and Roadside Picnic serving as influences alongside The X-Files. But in terms of gameplay, it finally marks the next pivotal step in Remedy’s RPG vision.
“With Resonant, I wanted to stop calling it action adventure. Instead, like, no, it’s an action RPG. This is Remedy’s RPG franchise, and we’re gonna kind of embrace that, fully commit to it, and so on, and go even further into that direction.”
While this would seemingly indicate that future entries will also be role-playing games, you have to wonder if Remedy is also thinking about how expansions could inform the gameplay. Control’s The Foundation added new abilities, while AWE connected to the Alan Wake franchise with new areas and challenges. But if Resonant receives DLC, we could see its systems undergoing major additions that lean further into its action RPG gameplay loop.
Of course, whether that happens and how it will work remains to be seen, especially since it doesn’t even have a release date. Nevertheless, Control Resonant is launching this year for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.
