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Remedy is "staying weird" – how Control Resonant's world evolved beyond the Oldest House
"If we don't surprise ourselves and the fans, then we haven't been doing our job."
Remedy Entertainment
- Alex Raisbeck
Published: Tuesday, 30 June 2026 at 2:00 pm
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In the seven years since Control first released, developer Remedy Entertainment has gone from strength to strength.
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Already a lauded studio in its own right, Remedy now represents a kind of auteurship that is growing ever rarer in gaming, led by the inimitable Sam Lake.
Control was a hit, and Alan Wake 2 took the studio to even greater heights. As Control Resonant looks to continue that trajectory, I asked art director Elmeri Raitanen what lessons were learned from the first game.
"Well, a lot of things, of course," he began. "We were thinking a lot about what, from the award-winning worldbuilding and art, we can keep as is, but we need to evolve a bit. And then, what we need to drop because it doesn't make sense in the context of the game anymore.
"But some of the bigger learnings are in these very subjective things, like art; there's not necessarily a right or wrong answer, there's just our gut feeling of how to approach things.
"People did seem to like the original Control, and how it looked and felt, so [we are] naturally just trusting our gut feeling and staying weird."
Control Resonant. Remedy Entertainment
Unlike the comparatively mundane setting of Alan Wake's Bright Falls, in Control's otherworldly paranormality anything feels possible. With seemingly no ceiling, where does one start to design, and perhaps more importantly, where does one know where to end?
"With the concept artists, when we have been figuring out what is right and wrong for Control Resonant, we have been talking about something that we call 'weird on weird crime'," Raitanen explained.
"If you create something strange, but everything is already strange, and you put more strange things on top of it, nothing actually feels strange anymore. So, we still need that very grounded and mundane baseline.
"There needs to be something like in the original Control, for example. When you entered the Oldest House, it felt like an actual place of work. This is the headquarters of the bureau, and there's very mundane and grounded office spaces there.
"And then, when supernatural things happen on top of that baseline, they actually feel weird. So even if the sky is the limit in a Control world, in Resonant, we want to make sure that Manhattan feels lived in and like an actual place.
"In order for the Hiss and Mold and these new threats to actually feel weird, we need to first establish some sort of baseline."
The fear evoked by the Oldest House in Control is an unsettling one. As Raitanen noted, this is in part due to its mundanity – it is, in many ways, sterile to the point of hostility.
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It is a kind of fear that feels impossible to achieve in the open air of a city like Manhattan, requiring a change of tact from the Remedy team to create a new kind of fear.
"One thing that we absolutely did not want to do is have the city somehow immediately be in a post-apocalyptic state, like nature has taken over or it's a warn-torn piece of rubble. It's almost more like a sort of 'alone in the world' fantasy, like everybody has been vanished or evacuated.
"There's still electricity there, and some of the cityscapes might actually feel fairly pleasant and even beautiful – something that invites you to explore.
"And the city underneath is not necessarily hostile to you and out to get you, but it's something that always exists, that still exists. Electricity is there, you can explore things, but then naturally, supernatural horrors await."
This worldbuilding is, again, key to what makes Control so enthralling. I comment on one particular section from my preview in which Dylan is forced to navigate a disorienting, seemingly endless labyrinth of MC Escher-esque rooms.
Control Resonant. Remedy Entertainment
I asked Raitanen about the approach to designing such a set piece to be as mind-boggling as it is, but without being a pain to experience.
"That specific story mission is something that is a little bit maze-like on purpose, and the whole idea is that it's a little bit disorienting. The same apartment is replicating there infinitely, and basically, to find your way out you need some external help.
"We did notice, however, that with these completely transformed or patterned environments in the cityscapes, it's very easy to lose your bearings as a player, and it's actually quite disorienting occasionally, so we have been looking into sort of nice, diegetic in-world ways to remind the player which way is up and which way is down.
"You might be fighting enemies in a completely different orientation for so long that you actually forget which way is down, so if you happen to kick a bucket or a ladder and it falls into a direction that you didn't expect, that's a nice little way to remind [players] which way is actually down.
"One thing that we noticed that really helps with this is having some sort of a visual landmark always be visible, like the sun. And one thing that seems to work really nicely, as well, is systemic rain. Even if you keep changing direction, it always rains the same way, and that's a really nice, grounded, in-world indicator."
Dylan Faden looking towards an area covered by the Mold, appearing as bluish fungal spores in Control Resonant. Remedy Entertainment
The influence of analogue horror is worn openly on Remedy's sleeve, with a particular reverence for the SCP Foundation – Raitanen even hopes that "our game has even inspired some of these other media" in turn – but the list of Control's inspirations runs far deeper.
"[There are] some clear references that we have been kicking over when working on this game, for example, some cinematic shots and things. How we approach the visualisations of how somebody is feeling in a shot.
"Some Akira Kurosawa movies have been something that we have been watching a lot with our game director (Mikael Kasurinen). Satoshi Kon's Paprika comes up a lot because he has a great way of doing these dreamlike transitions that we also are looking into making."
He gives the example of the Gap, a vast, liminal space representative of Dylan's psyche.
"When you enter the Gap, there's this sort of match cut where we completely change the environment in one frame.
"Another, a little bit more obscure movie reference has been a movie called The Field in England, which has this hallucinogenic editing that we are all also inspired by."
To conclude, I ask Raitanen about working at Remedy. As someone who has been at the studio for many years, what about Remedy has helped it stand out in such a crowded industry?
"It's hard to say, myself," he explained. "I guess we have always had a very unique, creative voice, and we are really proud to stand out, actually, and try to do things a little bit differently, and maybe gain an edge that way.
"I guess at this point, that sort of weirdness is expected from us by fans as well. So, if we don't surprise ourselves and the fans, then we haven't been doing our job."
Control Resonant releases on 24 September 2026 for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
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Authors
Alex RaisbeckGaming writer
Alex Raisbeck is a Gaming Writer at Radio Times, covering everything from AAA giants to indie gems. Alex has written for VideoGamer, GamesRadar+, PC Gamer, PCGamesN and more.
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