- Remedy says he wanted to make sure Resonant control‘s hand-to-hand combat was “fun to play on a very visceral level”
- The idea for Dylan’s shapeshifting weapon was originally intended for Control
- Because Dylan is a melee-focused brawler, he had to double down, “because this is the first melee game Remedy has ever done so far.”
Resonant control is the first melee-focused game created by Remedy, and according to art director Elmeri Raitanen, it was essential to ensure that it was satisfying to play “on a very visceral level.”
Speaking in an interview with TechRadar Gaming at an event just ahead of this year’s Summer Game Fest, Raitanen, alongside lead level designer Anne-Marie Grönroos, explained how Dylan’s fast-paced, melee-focused combat in Resonant was designed.
Compared to Jesse’s fighting style in Controlwho is more fluid and tactical with her service weapon, Remedy knew she had to make Dylan’s fight fast and brawling while traversing the distorted world of Manhattan.
“This game has always been about movement,” Raitanen said, “and we wanted to make sure that Dylan was a little, well, not a little, a lot faster than Jesse actually is, that he jumped higher and had more ability to move around the environment.
“So movement has definitely been one of the most important things that we’ve looked at, and partly because of the scrum as well – you have to be able to close the distance quickly and [keep the] melee combat fun.
Grönroos added that the team wanted the scale of the game to be larger, to have an “epic scale”, to accommodate Dylan’s melee combat.
“Having a lot of verticality in the levels,” the developer explained, was important, “so Dylan has to be able to stay in the air, fight his enemies in the air, and he has to be able to get back up if he falls.”
Instead of a service weapon like Jesse’s, Dylan will use a shapeshifting melee weapon called the Aberrant, giving players a greater variety of combat to experience.
According to Raitanen, this idea was conceptualized during the development of Control, when the team considered letting Jesse’s service weapon transform into a sword.
“The seed [for] hand-to-hand combat was already sown during Control” he said. “I think we were kind of wondering, ‘Could Jesse’s service weapon ever turn into a sword in there?’ and they were [the combat design team at Remedy] like, “Hey, this is a super cool idea, but we can’t make it work here with these metrics, we don’t have any metrics in play.”
“But it was always in the back of Mixer’s [Creative Director, Mikael Kasurinen] head,” he continued, “Maybe next time, maybe Dylan fights dirty and [he’s a] a really melee-focused brawler, and so that’s something that we had to double down on, because it’s the first melee game that Remedy has ever done so far.
“So we really had to make sure that it’s something that works and is fun on a very visceral level, when you’re doing it, and [it can be] like popping bubble wrap.
Resonant control will launch on September 24 on PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC.
Follow TechRadar on Google News And add us as your favorite source to get our news, reviews and expert opinions in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!
The best game consoles
