A highlight for independent developers is having the creative control in the direction of the experience they want to bring to the player. It’s what makes indies such a unique facet of game development today.

Over the years, Remedy Entertainment has staked their claim as one of the most innovative game developers, delivering numerous high-quality games from the likes of Alan Wake, Control, and soon with Control Resonant. It’s here where things get exciting — Remedy will be publishing Control Resonant themselves and the ID@Xbox team has been helping support and guide them through this journey as they bring this game to the Xbox community. Part of that support has been to make sure that the game will support Xbox Play Anywhere at launch for Control Resonant.

Xbox Play Anywhere titles can be played across Xbox console, PC, and supported gaming handhelds at no additional cost, allowing you to pick up where you left off on your preferred device, bringing all your saves, game add-ons, and achievements with you.

To learn more about this journey, ID@Xbox’s Guy Richards spoke with Remedy’s Miika Huttunen, Mikael Kasurinen, and Anne-Marie Grönroos about the game’s diverse gameplay, support for XPA, and more.

You’re bringing Xbox Play Anywhere support to Control Resonant at launch. What does that unlock for players, and how has it shaped your approach to development?

Miika Huttunen, Senior Communications Manager: We want players to feel at home with Control Resonant wherever they choose to play. Our focus has been on making sure the experience feels great across platforms.

You’re self-publishing Control Resonant and working with ID@Xbox on this project. How does that partnership support the way you want to bring the game to players?

Huttunen: Yes, Remedy Entertainment is publishing Control Resonant ourselves, which is incredibly exciting.  It’s been amazing to see our company grow over the years and we appreciate all of the support from our fans and partners. Of course, the ID@Xbox team has been a tremendous group to work with as we get closer to the launch of Control Resonant. Their support and guidance has been such a positive aspect of the journey to bring this game to the incredible Xbox community.

We of course have many partners we work with, such as ID@xbox to try to make sure we land well on all platforms. Remedy has a long history with Xbox, so that always helps!

With more players spending time on handheld devices, you’ve worked to make Resonant Handheld Optimized. How have you approached making Control Resonant feel great in that format?

Huttunen: We want to ensure the game is great on all platforms and the best possible experience for players. Many of the moments in AAA games tend to really shine on big displays, but we of course realize that there are players on handheld devices. We take that into account from a performance and controls standpoint to ensure that those players get the best possible experience.

Is this the kind of game that could benefit from playing side-quests on handheld, and switching to the TV for major moments?

Huttunen: That’s an interesting question. I think it’s up to players to decide on what type of device they want to play, but it’s definitely great that you can play on one device and then continue on another.

Control Resonant takes the series in a new direction, from evolving combat to a new playable character. What drove those decisions, and how did you balance these new ideas with what fans loved about the original?

Mikael Kasurinen, Creative Director: I look at these two games as siblings, each standing on their own feet, with their own attitude and approach to the world. But it’s still the same shared world, in the middle of a new crisis. The stories in both games have the Faden siblings at the center; we just shift the perspective depending on which game you play. So, players shouldn’t worry about losing a connection to these characters and who they are. But to truly get to know them, you need to see their respective journeys through their own eyes.

This also lets us bring a fresh take on the world through quests, gameplay, weapons, and abilities. And it’s easier for new players to jump in: there’s no pressure to play the first Control before Resonant. They both work as their own experiences, each with a protagonist who’s a blank slate, ready to discover their fate. And if you want to expand the picture, nothing stops you from seeing the other side of the coin.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The first game effectively took place in a single (albeit very changeable) location – how has creating an entire city changed how you design exploration, combat, and more?

Anne-Marie Grönroos, Lead Level Designer: We have a bigger, more interconnected world. The open areas are bigger and more frequent than in the first game, which means we can show landmarks from further away, creating anticipation between seeing them for the first time and finally reaching them: many of our landmarks are created by paranatural situations that the player needs to deal with, so just seeing them in the distance already starts building up a mystery. Compared to being constrained inside the Oldest House, we can show several interesting things to pursue at once, giving the player more options for where to go and what to focus on next.

There’s a greater variety of environments and a mix of both indoor and outdoor locations, creating a bigger contrast between the two (versus going from a small office space into a bigger office space). We also get the contrast of regular New York against the paranatural. The paranatural feels stranger when it’s grounded by something familiar. The scale of the big events is and feels bigger when you see the city as a point of comparison.

We can show and tell stories of the FBC interacting with the civilian world and see the impact of the paranatural on the lives of the regular people. You can see how FBC operations work outside the Oldest House, before and during the current situation. We also have stories with no FBC connections at all.

The city environments provide a lot of opportunities for vertical gameplay. We had significant verticality in the first game, too, but now you are constantly switching between the rooftops and street level and below, feeling even more like a superhero than in the first game.

Between Control, FBC, and Resonant – and the major ways they all differ – it feels like this setting can support whatever kind of game you want to make. Do you see Control as a place for Remedy to experiment in ways it would feel less appropriate to do with other projects?

Kasurinen: Control is a versatile franchise. It can support a wide variety of experiences, but of course they need to feel like they belong and have a meaningful role to play in the larger scheme of things.

Each entry in the franchise has to push the world’s story forward. For instance, even though FBC: Firebreak was a departure in many ways, it conveyed events that happened during the lockdown of the Oldest House after the events in Control and, in its own way, set the stage for Control Resonant.

So yes, it can and should also be a place for experimentation, as long as we keep our eye on the ball and it has something meaningful to say.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​