Review Roundup: Control Resonant Scores Higher Than the Original
Remedy's sequel holds an 84 on Metacritic with 92 percent positive reviews, beating 2019's Control outright — though PC Gamer flags too much middling combat.
A note before we begin: HotGameNews staff have not played Control Resonant. This is a roundup of published reviews and aggregate scores, not our own hands-on review. The game launched worldwide on September 24, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, with a physical console release following on October 15.
The scores. Control Resonant sits at 84 on Metacritic from reviews that split 92 percent positive, 6 percent mixed, and 2 percent negative. That’s a clear step up from the original Control, which landed at 82 back in 2019 — making this one of the rarer cases of a sequel out-scoring a well-regarded original on the same aggregator.
What critics love. VGC awarded a full 5 out of 5, praising the genre shift, the performances, the art direction, and the soundtrack. Reviewers broadly single out Remedy’s take on a surreal New York as the game’s strongest asset, alongside the writing and presentation that the studio has built a reputation on since Control and Alan Wake 2.
The complaints. Not every outlet is fully on board. PC Gamer scored it lower than the pack at 76, arguing that despite loving the environments, the game asks players to sit through too many hours of “middling combat” to get to the parts that work. It’s the clearest dissent in an otherwise strongly positive field.
How to read it. A 92 percent positive split with only a couple of outliers is a strong consensus by most standards, and the original-beating-sequel angle is the most unusual, repeatable fact here. The PC Gamer review is worth reading in full if combat-heavy pacing is a dealbreaker for you — it’s a specific, bounded complaint rather than a broad critique of the game’s writing or art.
The bottom line. An 84 Metascore and a 92 percent positive critic split puts Control Resonant ahead of its own predecessor and squarely in “buy with confidence” territory for fans of Remedy’s narrative-first style, with the caveat that the action itself drew the only real pushback.
Scores reflect Metacritic and reviewer outlets at time of writing and may shift as more reviews are added.