Remedy Nearly Put Melee in Control. Now It's the Whole Game.

A melee form for the Service Weapon was on the table during development of the original Control. Remedy pulled it. Now, seven years later, that shelved idea is the backbone of Control Resonant.

Lead Gameplay Designer Sergey Mohov, who served as Senior Gameplay Designer on the 2019 original, confirmed the detail in interviews during hands-on previews of the sequel. "We had to figure out: 'What does it mean to make a Control game?'" Mohov said, noting that Remedy came close to shipping a melee weapon form in the first game but ultimately decided "it would be too different of a game." For Control Resonant, the studio committed fully, building the entire combat system around melee-first action RPG design rather than the telekinetic gunplay that defined its predecessor.

That reframing matters, because the shift from ranged combat to hack-and-slash has been the single most debated aspect of Control Resonant since its reveal. Knowing it wasn't a trend-chasing pivot but something Remedy wanted to do from the start changes the conversation. This wasn't a boardroom decision to chase the Devil May Cry audience; it was a creative itch the team had been sitting on since 2019. I'm more interested in the game knowing that.

Mohov stressed that the team never set out to replicate any specific action RPG, and previews from multiple outlets back that up, describing combat that feels like a melee-driven Control rather than an existing genre template with a Remedy skin. Dylan Faden's Aberrant weapon starts as a basic blade before evolving into alternate forms like a giant hammer, and supernatural abilities layer on top: gravity flipping, explosive bursts, ground slams. The dynamic interplay between weapons and powers that defined Jesse's toolkit is still the design philosophy; it's just expressed through fists and blades instead of a shape-shifting gun.

Control Resonant launches September 24th on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.