Control Resonant reviews: an 84 Metascore and a melee split

Control Resonant reviews are strong: Remedy's sequel holds an 84 Metascore from 69 critic reviews as of September 23, 2026, a day before it launches on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Critics broadly agree that its warped Manhattan is a visual high point for the studio. Where they split is the switch from the first game's gunplay to melee action RPG combat. This is a roundup of published reviews; The Ruling Desk has not played the game. Update, September 25: Remedy shipped a launch-day hotfix that cuts enemy health, so the reviews below judged the combat before that change. Update, September 27: it is also Remedy's biggest Steam launch by player count, and most Steam players recommend it.

Key takeaways

• As of September 23, 2026, Metacritic lists an 84 ("generally favorable") from 69 critic reviews: 63 positive, 5 mixed and 1 negative. The number can still move as more reviews arrive.
• Praise for the art direction and the city is close to unanimous among the reviews we read, from GameSpot to PC Gamer.
• The melee combat is the dividing line. GameSpot and Kotaku call it deep and responsive; PC Gamer (76/100) calls it middling, and ComicBook (2 out of 5) calls it repetitive and shallow.
• Update, September 25, 2026: Remedy's launch-day hotfix 1.3.3 lowers enemy health and the hits needed to stun, raises Dylan's damage caps and makes respecs cheaper. Every review in the 84 was published before it, and it targets the enemy-health complaint, not the melee design itself.
• Update, September 27, 2026: on Steam, Control Resonant is Remedy's biggest launch by concurrent players, with a launch-day peak of 34,345 by SteamDB's count, against about 9,100 for the original Control's all-time Steam peak. Steam's own review data shows 88% of 5,832 user reviews positive. Player counts are not sales, and Remedy has published no sales figures.
• Remedy confirms a September 24 launch on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, with a Mac version later in 2026. Steam's US store lists it at $59.99.
• If you liked the first Control for its mystery and its shooting, the reviews suggest you check how you feel about melee first. If you want an action RPG with a strange world to explore, most critics say it delivers.

Control Resonant reviews: the score as of September 23

The Control Resonant Metascore is 84 on Metacritic's Control Resonant page, which labels it "generally favorable" and counts 69 critic reviews as of September 23, 2026. Of those, 63 are positive, 5 mixed and 1 negative. By platform, the same page shows 84 on PS5, 83 on PC and 81 on Xbox Series X, though the Xbox figure rests on far fewer reviews.

The spread is wide for a game this well liked. Metacritic lists several perfect scores, including VGC, Radio Times, IGN Benelux and Vice. At the other end sits one negative review, ComicBook's, which Metacritic records as a 40.

An aggregate is a summary of other people's judgments, not a verdict, and this one will shift after launch as late reviews come in. The more useful question is what the Control Resonant reviews actually say, and on that the critics are split along one clear line.

Where critics agree: a warped Manhattan

The game follows Dylan Faden, the brother of the first game's hero, Jesse. In Remedy's launch announcement, Jesse has gone missing, and Dylan has to face the Hiss, the Mold and "a mysterious cosmic force" that is reshaping Manhattan. It is a sequel, but GameSpot's Mark Delaney says it opens with a recap of the first game for newcomers.

On the setting, the reviews line up:

• GameSpot says the art and level design are unlike anything its reviewer had seen, and lists the city's side missions among the game's strengths. Its one listed complaint is that the map makes it hard to find your way.
• Kotaku's Cole Kronman praises the level design for working for both traversal and combat, and calls the kaleidoscopic effects of the antagonist, the Pattern, a highlight that also changes how fights play.
• RPG Site's Hayes Madsen, who gave it 9 out of 10 on PS5, singles out the gravity-shifting traversal and the warped look of the city.
• Even PC Gamer's Lincoln Carpenter, one of the cooler reviews, calls it a welcome return to Remedy's "magnificent hellscapes".

The writing gets more mixed notes. GameSpot calls Dylan's story Remedy's first tear-jerker, while Kotaku finds the dialogue leaning on too-clever banter and some themes overdone.

Where they split: the move to melee combat

The first Control was a third-person shooter. Control Resonant drops guns for the Aberrant, a weapon Dylan can reshape into different melee tools, and adds skill trees and builds. Kotaku describes the result as a fast melee action RPG in the vein of Devil May Cry and Sekiro, and both Kotaku and GameSpot note there is no parry: the combat is built around aggression, dodging and timing.

For the fans of the change, it is the best part of the game. GameSpot calls Control Resonant Remedy's best gameplay experience ever and says its build system rewards experimenting. Its reviewer reports playing for 45 hours on PC with an RTX 4070 without a single hitch. Kotaku calls the combat responsive and the enemy encounters inventive.

For the critics, the same system is the problem:

• PC Gamer (76/100, played on PC) says melee is not one of Remedy's strengths, and that the game's open areas ask you to fight a lot. Its verdict pairs the praise for the world with "too many hours of middling combat."
• ComicBook's Michael Leri (2 out of 5, PS5) calls the combat shallow and repetitive. He says each weapon has a single attack string, enemies have inflated health and the camera sits too far back.
• RPG Site, despite its 9, warns that the opening hours teach the systems poorly and can feel punishing, and that some fights run past five minutes.

So the split over Control Resonant combat is less about quality in general and more about taste. If you like learning a combat system and building around it, most reviewers say it pays off. If you came to Control for the shooting and the puzzle-box story, the reviews that liked it least are worth reading first.

What hotfix 1.3.3 changes in combat

Remedy shipped a launch-day hotfix, version 1.3.3, on September 24, and its patch notes aim at the same combat complaints the critics raised. Remedy says it read "all the reviews" and early player data, and concluded that enemy health pools felt too high, enemies took too many hits to Falter (stun) for an execution, and Dylan felt too weak early on. The patch is build 01.300.300 on PS5, 1.3.3.0 on Xbox Series X|S and 1.3.3 on PC. What it changes, in Remedy's list:

• Less enemy health: lower base health and a lower Falter threshold for most enemies, and for the Dancer and Deserter bosses.
• A stronger Dylan: higher maximum Aberrant Strength and Ability Strength. The increases follow a curve, so the more upgrades you have, the more damage you deal.
• Cheaper respecs: a permanent cut to the cost of resetting your build, more "Reset Items" at every vendor, and two of them instead of one from the first Resonant boss, The Artist.
• Clearer labels: in English for now, Aberrant Strength reads "Damage and Falter X%" instead of "Multiplier X%", and the Build Power description now lists what counts toward it.

Remedy also points players to Assist Mode, whose sliders change enemy aggression, incoming damage and how fast Dylan's abilities recover. The notes give no percentages, so how much shorter fights get is not something any source we read has measured yet.

Does the patch answer what reviewers disliked?

Partly, on paper. ComicBook's complaint about inflated enemy health and RPG Site's note about fights running past five minutes are exactly what the health and Falter changes target, and Game Informer reads the patch the same way: a response to criticism that enemies take too long to kill and Dylan feels too weak. The notes do not touch ComicBook's other points (one attack string per weapon, a distant camera) or PC Gamer's broader view that melee is not Remedy's strength.

That matters for the scores. All 69 reviews Metacritic counted on September 23 were published before the hotfix; Kotaku's ran on September 18, six days earlier. So the 84 rates the pre-patch game. Early player reaction to the change is mostly positive, Kotaku reports, with many players saying enemy health was their biggest problem with the game.

PC players had to download the game again

The same Kotaku report says some Steam players were upset that the hotfix forced them to reinstall a game they had preloaded. According to GosuGamers, players reported downloading the full 92 GB again, and Remedy said the hotfix "triggered certain platform mechanisms on PC", calling it "an oversight on our part" and apologizing. The reports we read describe the problem on Steam; none mention consoles.

How Control Resonant is selling on Steam

Going by concurrent players, Control Resonant had the biggest Steam launch of any Remedy game. SteamDB recorded a launch-day peak of 34,345 players on September 24, Prima Games reports, and the count kept climbing into the weekend: SteamCharts, which reads Steam's own player-count feed, shows an all-time peak of 40,737 as of September 27, 2026.

The comparison with the first game needs a caveat. Control launched on PC in August 2019 as a year-long Epic Games Store exclusive, so it only reached Steam on August 27, 2020, as Control Ultimate Edition. That edition's all-time Steam peak is 9,193 by SteamDB's count, per Prima, or 9,078 on SteamCharts, which samples less often. Resonant's launch day alone was about 3.7 times that, and its peak so far about 4.5 times, but it compares a day-one release with a year-old game's arrival on a second store. Remedy's co-op shooter FBC: Firebreak peaked at 1,992 on Steam, Prima reports.

Prima also reports that Control Resonant was No. 1 on Steam's US Top Sellers list, which ranks games by revenue, on September 25. When we checked the same list on September 27, it was No. 4. The list reorders all day, so treat either position as a snapshot.

Player counts are not sales

A concurrent player count is the number of people in the game on Steam at the same moment, and nothing more. It leaves out the Epic Games Store, PS5 and Xbox, none of which publish comparable live counts, and it says nothing about how many copies sold. Remedy's launch post gives no sales or player numbers, and as of September 27 we found no launch figures in its investor releases either. Until Remedy reports them, "biggest Steam launch" is the strongest claim the public data supports.

What Steam players say about the combat

Steam players rate the game warmly. As of September 27, 2026, Steam's own review data shows 88% of 5,832 user reviews in all languages positive (5,157 to 675), which the Steam store page labels "Very Positive". Among English-language reviews the share is 90%. On September 25 it stood at 85% of about 2,000 reviews, Prima reports. A Steam review is a yes or a no, so 88% is a share of players who recommend it, not a score out of 100, and it does not compare directly with the 84 Metascore.

Does the critics' melee split show up? In the minority who don't recommend it, yes. We read the 40 negative English reviews Steam ranked most helpful on September 27. More than half fault the combat as repetitive, bland or button-mashing, the same case PC Gamer and ComicBook made. More than a third cite technical problems instead, such as audio desync, stutter and crashes, and two object to the game's license agreement. That is a small sample, not a survey. Steam reviews only opened with the September 24 launch, the day hotfix 1.3.3 shipped, so unlike the critics, these players are mostly judging the patched combat.

Control Resonant release time, price and platforms

Remedy confirms a worldwide launch on September 24, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store. The Mac version, on Steam and the App Store, follows later in 2026.

Detail	What we found	Source
Launch	September 24, 2026	Remedy
Platforms	PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC (Steam, Epic); Mac later in 2026	Remedy
Unlock time	7 a.m. PT, 10 a.m. ET, 2 p.m. GMT (8 a.m. in Mexico City)	Remedy's post, as reported by Game Rant
US price	$59.99 standard, $69.99 Digital Deluxe	Steam US store, checked September 23, 2026
Early access	48 hours, from September 22, PS5 Digital Deluxe only	Remedy's post, as reported by Game Rant

The table's Control Resonant price comes from the Steam listing in US dollars; other stores and regions may differ. The unlock time comes from a Remedy post reported by Game Rant, which also notes that the Deluxe edition's two days of early access apply only on PS5. On Xbox or PC, the extra $10 does not buy an earlier start.

What it means for you

Here is who the Control Resonant reviews point toward, based on what the critics above report:

• Play it at launch if you want an action RPG with a strange, dense world and a combat system to master. That is the case GameSpot, Kotaku and RPG Site make.
• Wait for more impressions if melee combat is not your thing, or if the first game's shooting was what hooked you. PC Gamer and ComicBook both say the fighting wears thin over a long game. Hotfix 1.3.3 shortens fights but does not change how melee works, so impressions from after the patch are the ones to watch.
• New to Control? GameSpot says the game recaps the first one, and puts the main story at 30 to 40 hours.

For more on the games we're following, see our video games coverage.

Bottom line

Control Resonant arrives with an 84 on Metacritic as of September 23, 2026, broad praise for its Manhattan and a real split over its melee combat. Those judgments belong to the critics named here; we haven't played it. Remedy's launch-day hotfix, which cuts enemy health and raises Dylan's damage, answers the most specific combat complaint but not the whole melee debate, and every score in the 84 predates it. If the move from shooter to action RPG sounds exciting, the reviews give you good reason to play on September 24. If it sounds like a loss, read PC Gamer's and ComicBook's reviews before you spend $59.99. Update, September 27: on Steam it had Remedy's biggest launch by player count and an 88% positive user rating, with combat the most common complaint among the players who don't recommend it. Player counts are not sales, and Remedy has not published any sales figures.

FAQ

What is Control Resonant's Metascore?

As of September 23, 2026, it is 84, "generally favorable", from 69 critic reviews: 63 positive, 5 mixed and 1 negative. By platform, Metacritic shows 84 on PS5, 83 on PC and 81 on Xbox Series X. Scores usually move after launch as more reviews are added.

What time does Control Resonant come out?

It unlocks on September 24, 2026 at 7 a.m. PT, 10 a.m. ET or 2 p.m. GMT, according to Remedy's post as reported by Game Rant. That is 8 a.m. in Mexico City. PS5 owners of the Digital Deluxe edition could start 48 hours early, on September 22.

Do you need to play Control first?

Not according to GameSpot, which says the game opens with a recap of the first Control for newcomers. The story continues from the first game, so playing Control first adds context.

How long is Control Resonant?

GameSpot puts the story at 30 to 40 hours, and its reviewer played for 45 hours in total. RPG Site notes that some individual fights last more than five minutes.