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Abilities
September 12, 2026 at 07:14 AM
Initial version (2026-09-12)
Abilities in Control Resonant are the paranatural half of Dylan Faden's kit, sitting alongside the melee forms of the Aberrant. They come in two groups that behave differently. Two traversal abilities arrive early and stay for the rest of the run, and a pool of combat abilities grows across the campaign, paid for out of a meter that melee strikes refill. This page is the index for both. For the weapon half of the loop see Melee Combat, and for where abilities are equipped and tuned see The Gap and Talents.
Everything below reflects what has been shown or published as of 12 September 2026, twelve days before the digital launch.
The split matters because the two groups are acquired differently, cost differently, and behave differently when a campaign is finished and restarted.
Group | How it enters the kit | What it costs | Carried into New Game Plus |
|---|---|---|---|
Traversal abilities | Earned from the world rather than from a boss or a shop. Reach is the payout at the end of a self-contained mission. | No meter cost. Once unlocked they are always available. | No. Traversal abilities reset and are re-unlocked as the world opens up again. See New Game Plus. |
Combat abilities | Offered by a defeated Resonant. Up to three are put forward per fight and the player keeps one on a first playthrough. | Paid out of the Combat Ability resource, which melee hits with the Aberrant refill. | Yes. Every ability earned from a Resonant persists, and NG+ additionally allows more than one from the same Resonant. |
These are the abilities named in material published before launch. The list is partial by design: the full roster of Dylan's paranatural abilities is broader than what has been previewed.
Ability | Kind | What it does |
|---|---|---|
Reach | Traversal | Gravity-defying movement that carries Dylan across paranaturally warped architecture and up the vertical surfaces of Manhattan. |
Shift | Traversal | Redirects momentum through a Gravity Anomaly rather than fighting the field. Converts a fall into a directional dash and turns rotating geometry into a route. |
Combat | Summons a volatile telekinetic entity that attacks on its own once deployed. It can also be thrown directly at a target as a single heavy hit. | |
Force-push | Combat | Knocks a cluster back and opens the space for a melee string. Often used as an opener. |
Remote explosions | Combat | Detonations triggered at range for area damage and mid-combo pressure. |
Deployable shield | Combat | A defensive placement that doubles as a close-range offensive tool. Public previews show Dylan blocking and deflecting a Resonant strike with it, then countering through the opening. |
Mold Turrets | Combat | An emplacement tied to the Mold that fires independently and applies harmful status effects. A throwable variant can be tossed into a knot of enemies as a temporary bomb. |
Both traversal abilities arrive early and neither is gated behind a late-game unlock, because the world starts asking for them as soon as the West Incursion Zone opens up.
Reach is not handed over by a boss. Gameplay footage released in August 2026 shows it earned at the end of the Metro Fault mission, a self-contained descent into the Manhattan subway where the trains have come loose from physics and the Mold holds the tunnels. Finishing the descent is the unlock, and Reach is what lets Dylan scale the twisted vertical surfaces above ground afterwards.
Shift is the ability the Gravity Anomalies are built around. Remedy describes it as redirecting momentum through an anomaly instead of fighting its pull, which turns a distortion that first reads as an obstacle into a traversal tool.
One consequence is worth stating plainly, because it changes what an arena is. Shifting gravity does not only redirect a jump. Dylan can settle onto a vertical surface and move along it on foot, and fight from there. Two separate public showings, one hands-on in June 2026 and one on a show floor in August 2026, both had him walk a wall for long enough to fight from it. Surfaces that would otherwise be backdrop become standing room, and targets placed out of reach of the floor are the reason to go up.
Combat abilities do not sit on their own bar. Landing melee strikes with the Aberrant refills the Combat Ability resource, and spending that meter on a power does damage and applies stun at the same time. A stunned target whose Falter meter has topped out is open for an execution, and executions grant a temporary buff to melee damage that carries into the next string. Abilities are therefore the hinge in the loop rather than a side option: the meter only builds while swinging, and it only pays off if the player keeps swinging afterwards.
The rate at which that layer returns is adjustable. Remedy has published a per-mechanic Assist Mode, described on 10 September 2026 by lead gameplay designer Sergey Mohov, whose named settings include Power Recovery Speed. The sliders move in both directions rather than only making the game easier, and Assist Mode can be toggled at any point during play.
The build layer is not filled from a shop. Defeating a Resonant puts up to three combat abilities on the table and the player takes one. That choice is permanent and exclusive on a first playthrough, so the shape of a build is partly a record of which ability was taken from which fight and when. Named Resonants published ahead of launch include the Dancer and the Deserter. New Game Plus relaxes the exclusivity: on a second run Dylan can equip more than one ability sourced from the same Resonant, which is the main reason NG+ exists as a buildcrafting playground.
Equipping happens inside the Gap, the diegetic mind-palace space where the loadout is assembled. Which abilities are active for the current build is chosen there, alongside the Aberrant form set and the talent tree.
Layer | What it does to abilities |
|---|---|
Holds the ability slots. Abilities earned from Resonants are equipped and swapped here, and unequipped ones remain visible in the same space. | |
Passive nodes that tune how a power behaves in practice, including stun timing and resource cost. Branches are mutually exclusive, so one playthrough cannot tune every ability. | |
Passive modifiers that skew the resource economy, biasing the curve toward earlier ability spends or toward longer combos before one. | |
Carries combat abilities over, unlocks additional talent nodes that connect abilities to Aberrant attacks the base game cannot reach, and resets traversal abilities. |
The first public playable build, shown at gamescom in August 2026, put three further ability names on screen. Dominance is a post-kill damage buff, Ignite is a fire ability, and Barrage is a rock barrage that raises Falter damage rather than health damage. All three were mapped to separate inputs alongside the Aberrant strings, and the same session showed a fight continuing across reoriented surfaces after the player shifted gravity to walk the walls of an arena.
As of 12 September 2026 these three names come from a single demo showing and have not appeared in first-party written material, so treat them as demo-shown rather than as a settled part of the roster.
Open as of 12 September 2026, twelve days before the digital launch:
Damage values, cooldowns, ranges and exact resource costs for every named ability.
The total size of the combat ability pool, and how many abilities can be equipped at once.
The inputs Reach and Shift are bound to on each platform, and whether either carries a charge or a cooldown.
Which talent nodes modify which abilities, and the structure of the exclusive branches that gate them.
Whether a Resonant can be re-fought to re-pick an ability inside a single playthrough.
Whether the three names shown in the demo are final, and what else sits in the roster that has not been previewed.
How many simultaneous Seekers or Mold Turrets can be active at once.
This page will be updated as more is shown.
