Artifacts are equippable items with passive modifiers in Control Resonant. They are the third pillar of Dylan's build alongside the Aberrant and his combat abilities, and the system is where the player tunes a build's identity outside the talent trees. For wider context, see the Overview and the Melee Combat page.
What an Artifact Does
Each artifact is a passive modifier slotted into a small loadout. Slotting one does not change the moment-to-moment input rhythm. Instead, the artifact tilts how the rest of the build performs.
Modifier Class | What It Tunes |
|---|---|
Survivability | Defensive characteristics like incoming damage, healing rate, or armour values. |
Combat performance | Damage output, combo properties, resource generation rates, or specific weapon-form behaviour. |
Exploration | Movement-related tuning, traversal cost, or open-zone behaviours. |
Resource economy | How the combat ability resource builds, decays, or spends on abilities. |
Artifacts are not purely additive. Many come with conditions or trade-offs, so building around them is a deliberate choice rather than a free stat stack. The mode encourages tilted builds: an artifact may sharply improve one axis at the cost of another, and the player chooses which trade-offs to take.
How Artifacts Are Obtained
Artifacts arrive in two stages. The world contains untapped artifacts, which are discovered during exploration but are not directly equippable. To turn an untapped artifact into a usable one, the player visits the Gap and crafts it.
Stage | Detail |
|---|---|
Untapped artifact | Found in the world during exploration. Cannot be slotted directly. |
Crafting in the Gap | The Gap, the diegetic mind-palace menu, is where untapped artifacts are crafted into usable artifacts. |
Equipping | Once crafted, an artifact can be slotted into the loadout up to the artifact slot cap. |
In the released game, artifacts come mainly from main and side quests, which hand them over as untapped artifacts to awaken in the Gap, and many are later sold by vendors once a zone's vendor level is high enough (see Zone Levels). Crafting takes materials looted from quests, activities and containers, according to guides to the released game. Three Steam achievements track the system: Paranatural Apprentice ("Craft an Artifact."), Paranatural Craftsman ("Equip 3 Artifacts.") and Paranatural Artisan ("Craft 30 Artifacts.").
The Gap step is what connects the artifact system to the rest of the menu architecture. The same metaphysical space that holds the talent trees and the Aberrant configuration also holds artifact crafting. See the The Gap page for the wider menu structure.
Slot Cap
The number of artifacts the player can equip at once is capped by the campaign state.
Run | Artifact Slots |
|---|---|
Base game first playthrough | Three slots active at once. |
New Game Plus | Four slots active at once. |
The fourth slot in New Game Plus is the headline build change for the mode. Three passive modifiers active at once already forces a tilted build; a fourth opens combinations that the base game cannot reach. See the New Game Plus page for the full carry-over rules.
Named Artifacts
Two artifacts are named on first-party surfaces, both as edition entitlements, and Remedy has not published their effects. Guides to the released game name many more; the ones two or more guides agree on are listed in the second table below.
Artifact | How It Is Obtained | Unlock |
|---|---|---|
Pickpocket's Tool Artifact | Digital pre-order bonus on every storefront, alongside the Hiss Corruption Outfit, for orders placed before the September 24, 2026 release | Unlocks at the end of Act 1 |
Untapped Artifact (Wallet) | Digital Deluxe Edition content, alongside the AWE Mission Outfit and the Starter Resource Bundle; since launch also sold on Steam as part of the Digital Deluxe Upgrade add-on | Unlocks at the end of Act 1 |
The Wallet entitlement is listed as an untapped artifact, which fits the two-stage system above: it arrives as something to craft in the Gap rather than as a finished passive. See the Editions and Pre-Orders page for the full edition contents.
Artifacts Named in the Released Game
The effects in this table are as described in guides to the released game and have not been checked against in-game text; exact values may change with patches.
Artifact | How It Is Obtained | Reported Effect |
|---|---|---|
Badge 11-60 | Orientation, the opening quest | Reduces damage from environmental hazards. |
Amulet | Defeating The Dancer | Adds 5 percent critical-hit chance to melee attacks. |
Lighter | Defeating The Deserter | Resistance to Burning. |
Face Mask | Defeating The Collective | Effect not recorded here. |
Trusted Spanner | The Every Dog Has Her Day side quest (see Side Activities) | Adds 15 percent Raw damage. |
Wallet | Digital Deluxe content | Draws on Dylan's health to pay for abilities when Power runs out, which guides warn can be risky early on. |
Coverage of the gamescom demo also showed two artifacts in play, a Fork that raised melee damage and a Fingerboard that raised damage and Falter inside gravity anomalies, with the presenter swapping one for the other in the Gap before a boss fight; the exact percentages come from a single translated report and are not repeated here, and the released game's names for those two artifacts are not yet recorded on this page. One review of the finished game describes many side quests unlocking items that the player then constructs for buffs, and guides to the released game confirm that completing side quests unlocks new artifacts and makes them available at vendors.
Where Artifacts Sit in a Build
Dylan's combat identity rests on three layered choices: the active Aberrant form set, the combat abilities equipped, and the talent branches taken. Artifacts are the passive layer that runs over all three. Two players with the same form set, ability list, and talent tree can still play very differently if their artifacts pull in different directions.
The combat loop on every page is the same: melee strikes build the combat ability resource, abilities stun enemies and open them up for executions, executions grant a temporary damage buff that carries momentum into the next exchange. Artifacts skew that loop. Some bias the resource curve toward earlier ability spends, some bias toward longer combos for bigger buffs, and some bias toward survivability for high-pressure boss fights.
Unconfirmed Details
The following were not covered by first-party material before release and have not yet been checked against the released game:
The exact stat values of every artifact, and the full list of artifact names beyond those in the tables above.
The full catalog size of available artifacts.
Whether artifacts can be upgraded, rerolled, or recombined after crafting.
Whether artifacts have set bonuses for slotting multiple of a type.
Whether artifacts can be respec'd freely or are locked once crafted.
This page will be updated as the released game is documented.