Control’s New Manhattan Setting Feels Like a Slog After the First Game’s Tight Office Building

Remedy’s Control Resonant is a game that spends its first half making you wish you were back in the original’s office building. The review argues that the game’s new, glitched-out version of Manhattan is a pale imitation of the original’s brutalist headquarters, and it takes a long time to earn its keep.

The Oldest House Set The Bar

The original Control is set in The Oldest House, a brutalist office building that was the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control, a fictional secret government agency handling strange phenomena. The building itself is the star. It’s a generic, oppressive, late-20th-century skyscraper, the kind you might find in downtown Atlanta or Washington, D.C.

The weirdness starts small. Workers float mid-air, their bodies slumped twenty feet off the ground. Red light twists the halls. Rooms fold in on themselves. The mundane office setting makes the surreal elements land harder, a trick the review calls a “rigorous lack of weirdness” that amplifies any deviation.

Manhattan Feels Familiar But Generic

Control Resonant picks up seven years later, but its setting is a version of Manhattan that feels more like a generic open-world city than a real place. The streets repeat their signs, the stores recur every other block, and the buildings look alike.

The review compares it to a TV show that couldn’t afford to shoot in Manhattan and used some other city instead. That comparison raises an interesting question: what city is it supposed to be? The review admits it hasn’t been to Toronto enough to tell, but the point stands — the city is a stand-in, not a destination.

The Backrooms Comparison Holds Up

The review draws a parallel between The Oldest House and the creepypasta known as the Backrooms. Both are liminal spaces, overused terms that describe places that sit between categories. The Backrooms started as a 4chan thread a few months before Control released, and the YouTube videos that made it a box-office hit came later, in 2022.

Both share a dreadfully mundane quality. In the Backrooms, the lack of weirdness makes any oddity stand out. In Control, the drab office setting makes the surreal moments hit harder. The review argues that the same logic applies to The Oldest House, where the contrast between the everyday and the escalating weirdness creates a singular experience.

Slogging Through The Same Streets

The problem is that Control Resonant’s Manhattan doesn’t offer that same escalation. The streets blend together, the objectives feel empty, and the city drains the charm of the original. The review describes standing atop cookie-cutter buildings, looking down at streets that blur into one another, surveying a city that feels lifeless.

The review suggests this might be intentional, as a commentary on quiet city streets during the pandemic. But the result is the same either way: a slog through a world that lacks the identity of its predecessor.

What Remedy Needs To Do Next

The review points out that Remedy’s games usually have a strong, quickly established identity. The studio leans heavily on its inspirations, but it does so openly, and that’s rare in a medium full of copycats. Control Resonant doesn’t have that identity at first, and it takes a long time to get to the good stuff.

The review frames the game’s journey as a climb: you spend hours on busywork, surveying empty streets, before reaching something worth remembering. Whether that climb is worth making is the central question. The review argues that the heights might be as special as the original, but the labor to get there feels like the busywork of a rote open-world game.

The Verdict On The Slog

The review’s conclusion is blunt: Control Resonant’s Manhattan is a slog compared to the unforgettable office building of the original. The game’s best moments are as special as the original, but the path to them is far longer and far less rewarding.

Here’s how the review breaks down the stakes:

1. The original Control sets a high bar with The Oldest House.
2. Control Resonant’s Manhattan fails to match that bar.
3. The game spends too long in its weakest stretch.
4. The city’s generic, repeating streets drain the charm of the original.
5. The heights might be as special, but the labor to reach them isn’t worth the climb.

The review makes a clear case for the game’s failure to live up to its predecessor. It’s a judgment, and it’s one that anyone who loved the original will want to hear.

Ultimately, the review argues that Control Resonant is a game whose second half is as memorable as the original, but the journey to it is far longer and far less rewarding.

Source material: “Control Resonant’s City Is A Slog Compared To The First Game’s Unforgettable Office Building,” Kotaku.

Control Resonant · game review · Manhattan · open-world · Remedy