The Gap is the diegetic menu space in Control Resonant. It is a metaphysical area inside Dylan Faden's mind that doubles as the in-game build hub, and it is where the player configures the Aberrant, manages combat abilities, allocates talents, and crafts Artifacts. For wider context, see the Overview.
Quick Profile
Field | Detail |
|---|---|
Type | Diegetic menu space; metaphysical area in Dylan's mind |
Access | Opened through an in-game input rather than a flat pause menu |
Function | Build crafting hub; houses talent trees, ability slotting, weapon configuration, and artifact crafting |
Style | In-fiction extension of Dylan's parautilitarian state |
Why It Is Diegetic
Most games stop the world when the player opens a menu. Resonant keeps the menu inside the fiction. The Gap is presented as a place Dylan goes inside his own mind, and the act of opening it reads as a deliberate in-character action rather than a fourth-wall break. The design choice fits Dylan's class identity: a parautilitarian operative whose powers and senses sit on the supernatural side of the agency's books, and whose menu is therefore part of his powers rather than a layer on top of them.
What Lives Inside the Gap
The Gap is the single hub for the build-side of progression. Four systems live here.
System | What the Player Does |
|---|---|
Aberrant configuration | Choose the primary form, secondary form, and combo ender for the three-slot loadout. Adjust which form variants are active and which weapon-tree branches are taken. |
Talent trees | Allocate talent nodes that amplify synergy between the Aberrant and Dylan's combat abilities. Branches close off other branches, so the player commits to a build identity here. |
Combat ability slotting | Equip combat abilities earned from defeating Resonants. Choose which abilities are active for the current loadout. |
Artifact crafting | Convert untapped artifacts gathered in the world into equippable passives. Manage the three (or four, in NG+) artifact slots. |
The Gap is also where the player browses what is still locked. The talent tree visualisation, the unspent untapped artifacts, and the unequipped abilities all sit in the same space, which makes the Gap the primary diagnostic surface for what the player has and what is still to come.
How the Gap Connects to the Rest of the Game
Every progression system that does not happen on the combat ground happens in the Gap. The Melee Combat loop is tuned in the Gap. The rewards from defeating Resonants are slotted in the Gap. The artifacts the player picks up across Manhattan are crafted in the Gap. The Aberrant's growing catalog of forms lives in the Gap.
That single-hub design keeps the build vocabulary in one place. When the public combat previews describe build crafting, they describe the Gap.
Story Framing
Dylan spent essentially his entire life inside the Oldest House as a long-term containment subject. The Gap is an extension of that interiority. Where Jesse Faden's first-game progression sat in the world (binding to Objects of Power, learning abilities through physical contact with the agency's catalog), Dylan's progression sits inside him. The Gap externalises that inwardness as a navigable space.
Unconfirmed Details
Exact controls and input cadence for opening the Gap on each platform.
Whether the Gap pauses the game world or operates with a partial real-time element.
Whether story events alter the Gap's appearance or available sections.
Whether the Gap has any cooperative or social-feature behaviours; the game is single-player only.
Whether the Gap exposes a public stats or codex surface beyond build management.
This page will be updated as more is revealed.
A Diegetic Mind Palace
The Gap is not a pause menu hung off the screen edge. Remedy describes it as a diegetic mind palace: a space inside Dylan's head that the player enters as part of the moment-to-moment fiction rather than as a UI overlay. The player can step into it at any time out of combat, on PlayStation by pressing the directional pad, and the entry animation, the layout, and the way the upgrades are presented are all part of Dylan's psyche becoming a place he can walk around in.
What Lives Inside
Three of Resonant's progression layers are accessed from inside The Gap rather than from a separate menu:
Supernatural combat abilities Dylan has earned from defeating Resonants, and the choice of which abilities to equip on the current build.
Upgrades to the Aberrant, including the choice of Primary Form, Secondary Form, and Combo Ender and any modifier nodes those forms unlock.
The talent tree, which improves the synergy between Dylan's abilities and his melee output. Talents have exclusive branches, and a single playthrough does not have enough points to unlock everything.
Reading the page on Artifacts alongside this one is the cleanest way to understand how a build is assembled, since artifacts are the fourth layer that sits next to the three Gap-internal layers.