Resonant's NG+ recontextualizes the name Control
It's no secret that the name Control is packed with multiple meanings. Several characters have used that word very deliberately in Remedyverse games since Control 1, and Remedy even jokingly calls attention to it (indirectly) in one of the book club notes:
> The title "Unless You" could refer to a bunch of things in the book, I guess, but I thought it was a little vague and stupid. The way the characters kept throwing it around almost like a catchphrase got real annoying real fast.
As a recap, a selection of the uses and interpretations of the name Control:
- The game is about the Federal Bureau of Control. They control stuff. Duh.
- It's a video game, you control Jesse. Duh duh.
- It is also about Jesse taking and almost losing control, in many ways. Becoming the director, fighting against the Hiss, escaping from the nightmare sequence at the end, etc.
- Similarly, Dylan is first controlled by the FBC, then by the Hiss.
- Trench uses the word in most of his Hotlines, and it is implied that he is a bit of a control freak. In The Coming Storm he is worried about "losing control".
- But perhaps most importantly: after Quantum Break where their publisher (Microsoft) controlled several aspects of the production (such as the entire TV series), Control was the first time in a long while where Remedy is in control of their own creative vision.
I just finished Resonant today, and then went to watch a compilation of the Dr. Darling cutscenes introduced in New Game+ (sorry, I'm not going to replay a 40-hour game for 10-15 minutes of new stuff). In one of the videos, Darling has a very important line:
> Dylan, P6, is the experiment and Jesse, P7, will be the control. We shape every element of one life, while another is left to fend for itself.
Jesse is, unbeknownst to her, the single-person control group of Darling's "science project".
So I think that's pretty neat.