Best Games: Control Resonant

Best Games gets a brand new release, which is rare on this list this year, and a charming little diver gets pushed off to make room.

Control Resonant (2026) goes on at 42.

Remedy is pretty far removed from Max Payne at this point. For two decades they produced top-notch, story-driven games. Take a strange building, fill it with strange people, and never explain any of it until you are too invested to care. The original Control did that in 2019 and I loved it like a weird dream. Resonant takes that same reality-bending energy out of the Oldest House and into an open world New York City.

The biggest swing for them yet. They went open world and evolved their platforming and combat. Two areas that have not been their strong suit historically. And they mostly got it right. It is fun to play, and keeps introducing new mechanics until the end. The only mark against it is that enemies are damage sponges. I ended up turning enemy health down in the accessibility options so I could finish in a reasonable amount of time.

Oh, and it looks great too. Not just graphical fidelity, but funky art design to match its world and story. The only knock is that the big world sometimes feels a little barren.

Dave the Diver (2023) is a charming, wildly varied game where you dive by day and run a sushi restaurant by night. It’s a good game, but sometimes tedious, and mostly a cozy distraction.