Remedy says Control Resonant's shapeshifting weapon was conceptualized for the first game when it considered enabling Jesse's gun to turn into a sword — 'We really needed to make sure that this is something that works and is fun on a very visceral level' | Tech Radar
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Remedy says Control Resonant's shapeshifting weapon was conceptualized for the first game when it considered enabling Jesse's gun to turn into a sword — 'We really needed to make sure that this is something that works and is fun on a very visceral level'
Remedy expanded Resonant on an "epic scale" to accommodate Dylan's melee-oriented combat
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Remedy says wanted to make sure Control Resonant's melee combat was "fun to play on a very visceral level"
The idea of Dylan's shapeshifting weapon was originally planned for Control
Because Dylan is a melee-oriented brawler, it needed to double down, "because this is the first melee game Remedy has ever done so far"
Control Resonant is the first melee-focused game Remedy has made, and according to art director Elmeri Raitanen, it was vital to make sure it was satisfying to play "on a very visceral level."
Speaking in an interview with Tech Radar Gaming at an event just before this year's Summer Game Fest, Raitanen, alongside lead level designer Anne-Marie Grönroos, discussed how Dylan's fast, melee-oriented combat in Resonant was designed.
Compared to Jesse's fighting style in Control, which is more fluid and tactical with her Service Weapon gun, Remedy knew it needed to make Dylan's combat fast and brawly while traversing the warped world of Manhattan.
"This game specifically has always been about movement," said Raitanen, "and we wanted to make sure that Dylan is a little bit, well, not a little bit, quite a lot faster than Jesse is actually, and jumps higher and has more capabilities of moving around in the environment.
"So, movement definitely has been one of the big things that we looked into, and partly because of the melee, as well — you need to be able to close the distance quickly and [keep the] melee combat fun."
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Grönroos added that the team wanted the scale of the game to be bigger, to have an "epic scale," to accommodate Dylan's melee combat.
"Having a lot of verticality in the levels," the developer explained, was important, "so Dylan needs to be able to stay airborne, fight enemies at all airborne, and he needs to be able to climb back up if he falls down."
Instead of a Service Weapon like Jesse's, Dylan will wield a shapeshifting melee weapon called the Aberrant, offering players more variety in fights to experiment with.
According to Raitanen, this idea was conceptualized during the development of Control, when the team considered letting Jesse's Service Weapon transform into a sword.
"The seed [for] melee combat was already sown during Control," he said. "I think we were looking a little bit into, 'Could Jesse's Service Weapon already turn into a sword in there?' and they were [the combat design team at Remedy] like, 'Hey, that's a super cool idea, but we can't make it work in here with these metrics we haven't parameters at play.'"
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"But it was always in the back of Mixer's [Creative Director, Mikael Kasurinen] head," he continued, "Maybe next time, maybe Dylan fights dirty and [he's a] really melee-oriented brawler, and so this is that something that we needed to double down, because this is the first melee game Remedy has ever done so far.
"So we really needed to make sure that this is something that works and is fun on a very visceral level, when you do it, and [it can be] like popping bubble wrap."
Control Resonant launches on September 24 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.
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Demi is a freelance games journalist who helps cover gaming news at Tech Radar. She's been a games writer for five years and has written for outlets such as Game Spot, NME, and Games Radar, covering news, features, and reviews. Outside of writing, she plays a lot of RPGs and talks far too much about Star Wars on X.
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