Control Resonant Violates the Number One Commandment of Video Game Lore
Control Resonant expands the paranatural shooter’s lore into Manhattan’s streets but overwhelms players with excessive notes and audio logs, disrupting pacing and immersion.
Control Resonant continues the story of Dylan Faden in a Hiss-infected Manhattan, where players uncover notes and audio logs left behind after an apocalyptic event. The sequel shifts focus from the Federal Bureau of Control’s office politics to a sibling narrative, yet Remedy Entertainment’s signature lore remains abundant. While the writing quality is praised, the sheer volume of logs disrupts the game’s pacing, particularly in dense environments like underground labs filled with scattered documents.
The game’s audio logs, designed to play automatically, often interrupt themselves when story-related audio triggers occur nearby. This forces players to stand still or repeatedly access menus to resume playback, undermining the intended fluid movement of an action-heavy title. The autoplay feature, while convenient in theory, clashes with the game’s dynamic pacing and dialogue-driven sequences.
Remedy’s reliance on lore-heavy storytelling in Resonant feels less cohesive than in the original Control, where office settings naturally justified scattered paperwork. The shift to an open cityscape dilutes the narrative focus, making the abundance of logs feel less narratively harmonious. The game’s heart lies in its sibling story, yet the lore overload distracts from this core theme.
Lore-heavy design is a common trend across games, from compact titles like Pragmata to expansive open-world titles. While it can enrich worldbuilding, it risks becoming a momentum killer in action games. The critique highlights a broader industry tendency to prioritize exposition over environmental storytelling, leaving players to question whether less could be more.