Control Resonant opens on a glass containment chamber sitting alone in a dark room, and it does not stay quiet for long. The prologue hands you Dylan Faden, a sibling who has been locked inside the Oldest House for years, and gives him exactly one input before the game turns into a game. Everything else is Jesse Faden making a decision she does not explain.
Quick answer: The prologue runs about four minutes. Jesse impales Dylan with the Service Weapon, the Board recruits him in the Astral Plane, and you choose an Aberrant form before pulling the rod out of his chest.
The opening cutscene, beat by beat
The sequence is one continuous piece of directing, broken only twice by a button prompt. It starts with a kaleidoscopic wash, pushes into the lit containment cell, and ends with a quest banner. Here is the running order.
Roughly three minutes of that is non-interactive. The playable portion is the form wheel and the single press that removes the weapon, which is the game’s way of teaching you that your loadout and your body are the same object.
Jesse’s goodbye and the Service Weapon
Before anything happens to Dylan, the camera spends time on Jesse sitting outside his containment unit. A low table in front of her is covered with redacted case files, sketches, and childhood photographs of the two of them. She looks down at the paperwork and says, “I have to go now. I’m sorry, Dylan,” then picks up a rectangular metal rod lying across the desk.
She walks into the medical chamber, rests a hand on him, apologizes, and drives the weapon straight into his chest. Dylan’s eyes snap open in an extreme close-up. That single act is the entire setup for the game, and Jesse is gone by the time he can do anything about it.
What the Board says in the Astral Plane
Dylan comes to against a wall in a bleak chamber while the Board transmits its usual fractured subtitles. The chamber doors open onto fog, and he crawls out into the Astral Plane wearing a gray two-piece jumpsuit marked P6. The lines that appear during the walk are the closest the prologue gets to an explanation.
- < Testing testing testing >
- Ice Cream/Saxophone/Kittens
- < The Director/Sibling/Favorite has gone AWOL/Fishing/??? >
- An emergency job interview, a reboot, and a hostile takeover
- < Your turn, Fallback/Mistake >
- < You/We wield Us/You >
He runs across the misty expanse toward a towering inverted monolith, stumbles, collapses, then gets up and steps underneath it. Putting his hand on the stone triggers a red flash and the Board’s instructions on wielding power, and the screen goes white as it designates him the fallback.
The Board is not offering Dylan a choice here. The phrasing throughout is recruitment language for a role Jesse vacated, which is why the interview and takeover jokes keep repeating.
Choosing your Aberrant form
Dylan wakes gasping on the medical bed with the black rod still sticking out of his chest, and an interactive menu titled “Choose your Aberrant form” opens over him. The wheel lists each form with its own stats, and you confirm with the Cross button on PlayStation. Playthroughs have shown the primary wheel with Strike and Cleave, and with Glaive available as a third option.
| Aberrant form | Slot |
|---|---|
| Strike | Primary melee |
| Cleave | Primary melee |
| Glaive | Primary melee |
| Drill | Secondary melee |
| Crush | Secondary melee |
| Extend | Secondary melee |
Only the primary form is picked during the prologue. The secondary choice comes later, out in the city, after an alley fight against Hiss drones and an armored brute. Extend is the flexible chain-blade of that set.
Pulling out the weapon and leaving the cell
The prologue ends when a banner announces “New Quest: ORIENTATION” and lists the objective Leave the Oldest House. Dylan wonders why the Board wants him outside at all.
What Orientation sends you into next
Inside the Oldest House
The corridors outside the cell are already red-lit and emptying out. Arish comes over the facility PA to announce that the lockdown has failed and every HRA has collapsed, with the Hiss resonance spreading through each sector. A security control room along the route holds “A Memo On Dylan Faden” next to terminals reading LOCKDOWN LIFTED.
Central Executive is where the Board authorizes weapon use and the game explains its melee basics, with Square for primary attacks and Circle to dodge. Dylan clears Hiss-corrupted guards on the walkways, picks up health from the fallen, and climbs toward the exit.
The Director’s office is a short detour off that path. Jesse’s ID and “A Letter From Emily Pope To The Director” are sitting on the desk and shelves, which makes the room worth the stop before you take the lift toward the Thomas Street Exit.
Manhattan and the radio call
A final elevator ride and a crawl through a collapsed concrete wall put Dylan on the street in daylight. The game hands the camera to a brown autumn leaf drifting over Manhattan, past wreckage, dead FBC agents, and bodies suspended in the air.
Dylan removes a green FBC field radio from a floating corpse’s hand and responds to Special Agent Zoe de Vera, whose transmission reports a distress call involving a paranatural entity. He says he has combat and containment training, so she sends him toward the tall white hotel marked by the neon sign. Dylan also reveals that he has been inside the Oldest House for seven years.
The walk to the hotel is the real combat tutorial. Roaming Hiss soldiers, a fenced alley arena with respawning drones and an armored brute, and streets that fold into vertical geometric pillars all arrive before you meet Zoe at the edge of severed asphalt.
Control Resonant is rated M for Mature with Violence, Blood and Gore, and Strong Language descriptors, and it arrives on September 24, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. Pre-orders through controlgame.com include the Hiss Corruption Outfit and the Pickpocket’s Tool Artifact, with the Digital Deluxe Edition adding the artbook, soundtrack, Untapped Artifact wallet, a starter resource bundle, and the AWE Mission Outfit.
