Control Resonant: How to Complete The Central Resonant Quest

The Central Resonant is one of the first boss quests in Control Resonant, and it hides its fight behind a maze of factory tunnels under Manhattan. The objective in the upper-left corner reads Kill the Resonant in the Factory with the location subtext Central, but getting to that furnace means clearing three steam sources, several combat rooms, and a sewer loop that doubles back on itself more than once.

Quick answer: Clear the Patterned Factory, destroy the three heat tumors in the steam rooms, then kill The Deserter in the furnace. Enter the monolith, use the pedestal, and press D-pad Down to close the quest.

What you need before The Central Resonant starts

The quest attaches itself to your log during Welcome to Manhattan, right after you speak with Zoe at the Watchtower. The marker points at the Patterned Factory in Central, but the building is not reachable on a fresh save.

Meet Zoe at the Watchtower during Welcome to Manhattan.
Finish Evacuation Procedures, which also hands you the Level 2 Keycard.
Finish Power Lines so the route into the factory is open.
Bring an upgraded weapon form. The Deserter is a full boss fight, not a mini-encounter.

Clear The Central Resonant before you spend serious time in The Park. The ability it unlocks makes the Mold there far easier to deal with.

Patterned Factory route: the three heat tumors

The first objective sends Dylan after the steam pouring out of the factory. Follow the scorch marks, and the real task becomes destroying three heat tumors growing on the pipes.

Head to the southern edge of the Patterned Factory and kill the enemies guarding it. Once the area is clear, hit the orange switch on the wall to open the door beside it.

Go inside, clear the room, and ride the red elevator at the far end. It drops you into the lower levels of the factory.

Follow the hall to a long staircase and take the right at the top. A door sits next to the pipes on that side and leads into a sewer network.

Inside the sewers, take the first left, then a right, and fight through the red room you arrive in. Leave through the opposite side and turn right to reach a second red room holding an enemy fused to a pipe. Kill that one first, then mop up the rest.

Return to the previous red room and take the left-hand path. It ends at an abandoned tent, and Zoe radios in to tell you to keep looking.

Walk back to the long staircase and use the door on the opposite side. Go straight, take the left at the junction at the end, and you will find a room with an audio log from whoever was living down here.

Head up the stairs into another red combat room. Clear it, then leave through the door on the rafters and take the first right into a chamber full of venting pipes. Kill the enemies, destroy the one planted on the pipe, and the steam objective completes.

Make your way back to the lengthy staircase and ascend it for the final time. At its top, you will find a huge furnace; go inside, then interact with the rear wall to start the cutscene.

How to beat The Deserter in the furnace room

The cutscene drops you in front of The Deserter, a towering fire Resonant that opens by spitting lava across the arena. The safest place in the fight is directly underneath it, so close the gap immediately and stay circling its legs.

Attack	What to do
Lava spit	Sprint to the legs and stay close
Spin to catch you	Back off a short distance
Full-body slam	Dodge, then attack during the recovery
Arena fire	Stay off the grates, hug the edge

The slam is the fight’s main damage window. Once the boss crashes down, you get several free seconds to unload everything you have. Outside of that, chipping away at the legs is enough on its own, so there is no need to chase a weak point elsewhere.

Finish the quest: the monolith, the pedestal, and D-pad Down

Killing the Resonant does not end the quest on its own. The fight takes place beside a tall stone monolith split by glowing white cracks, and you have to go through it before the game will close the objective.

Keep striking the red-glowing Resonant until it vanishes from the arena. Only then does the monolith become usable.

Approach the monolith’s luminous fissure and press L1 to shift into the pocket dimension on its far side. The area beyond is dark and thick with fog, and a stone slab stands near the entrance.

Entering the Monolith — The glowing fissure on the monolith is the entrance to the pocket dimension. Shown at 00:07 in Ditech Gaming’s video. Image: Remedy Entertainment

Run past the slab to the square stone pedestal with motes of light rising off it, and press L1 to activate it. The portal works in both directions until you commit, so you can step back out to check your skill tree or ability wheel first.

Return to the glowing crack on the monolith slab and press L1 again to leave the dark dimension.

Exiting Monolith — The same crack, seen from the inside, is the exit back to the arena. Shown at 00:23 in Ditech Gaming’s video. Image: Remedy Entertainment

Standing back out in the open void, press Down on the D-pad. This is the input people get stuck on, because no marker points to it. It starts the extraction cutscene, with Dylan doubling over as visions of city streets full of red-glowing figures flash past.

You know it worked when the Quest Completed banner appears for The Central Resonant, followed by two tutorial cards titled Resonant Cycle and A World Changed. Dismiss both with Continue, and Dylan radios Zoe from in front of the factory core to report what the person hiding in the tunnels had become.

The Central Resonant rewards

Reward	Amount or detail
Source (quest completion)	+3,000
Source (CENTRAL 5 discovery)	+500
Untapped Lighter	×1
Reset Item	+1
Ability choice	Ignite or Inferno

The Source total comes to 3,500 across the two payouts, since discovering the CENTRAL 5 zone triggers alongside the quest completion. The ability choice is permanent for this Resonant, and either option gives Dylan the fire damage that The Park’s Mold reacts badly to.

If you skip past the two tutorial cards, both can be read again later from the Tutorials tab in the Archives.

After you defeat the Deserter, Manhattan shifts into another Resonant Cycle, meaning foes previously eliminated return with greater strength throughout every zone. The Deserter is one of the two Resonants blocking the story, alongside the Dancer in the West Incursion Zone’s theater. Defeating both allows Enemy of My Enemy to progress.