Mikael Kasurinen Guides Control Resonant Through Two- to Three-Year Build
Control Resonant is moving toward release later this year, and Remedy Entertainment is treating it as the studio’s biggest game. The sequel to 2019’s Control gives Dylan Faden the lead, shifting the series away from Jesse Faden’s gunplay into melee combat in New York.
Mikael Kasurinen said the project’s official production timeline sat around two to three years, but the work started earlier than that. He began shaping what became Control Resonant while Control was still in development, then spent years prototyping and iterating before the team moved into full production.
Mikael Kasurinen and Remedy
Kasurinen said Control was built around a larger fiction, not one hero carrying the whole thing. “Control was always a franchise that's not about the single character,” he said. “It's about a world that has its own story, that's wide and complicated.” That framing explains why the sequel can swap Jesse for Dylan without losing the series’ identity.
He also described a long setup phase that looks more like infrastructure work than a final production sprint. “The early portion was more like concepting and thinking through 'what are we gonna do and how we would do it',” Kasurinen said. “In the meanwhile, we were building processes, we were building our technology. We were creating tools, and basically preparing to go into pre production and full production with this game, in the last two to three years.”
Dylan Faden in New York
Dylan Faden’s role marks the clearest mechanical change in the sequel. Jesse Faden used guns in Control, while Dylan uses melee combat, and the game is set in the city of New York. That combination signals a sequel that is not just continuing the story, but changing how players move through it.
Kasurinen said the studio’s internal alignment process starts small and spreads outward. “It starts with me giving a big idea early on, but the further we go, the more leaders within the team take responsibility over things,” he said. By the end, he said, “I don't need to remind people and say 'hey, remember, here's the vision of the game.'”
Later This Year
That production model puts the release in a useful frame: this is not a rushed sequel, but one that spent years on concepting, tools, and scope before the team locked into full production. For players, the practical change is straightforward — later this year brings a new protagonist, a different combat style, and a larger bet from a studio that says this is its biggest game.
