Control Resonant's photo mode is confirmed for November, with New Game++ arriving first in October. Four virtual photographers were flown to Remedy HQ to help shape it.
Control Resonant launched on 24 September without a photo mode, which for a game set in a Manhattan where gravity has stopped agreeing with itself was a strange thing to be missing.
Remedy has now said when it arrives. November. And the detail worth sitting with is how it was made.
The VPers Who Helped Build It
In its first post-launch update, Remedy said the photo mode had been in development for a while, and that the studio "consulted some talented virtual photographers from the community" while building it.
We know who they were, because one of them said so.
Damon, who posts as @InnerSolace_, wrote on launch day that he and three other virtual photographers had visited Remedy HQ in Finland to consult on the photo mode. They sat down with the developers and talked through what the VP community actually looks for in one. The others were @TheMiniestMfn, @riainwonderland and @Ludovica_179.
Feedback From People Who Actually Use It
A lot of photo modes fall short because nobody worked out which tools that particular game needed. And they are not all the same. A racing game wants different things to a horror game, and a first-person game wants different things again. What the game is about should shape the toolset.
Where it usually goes wrong is the basics. Plenty of photo modes ship without the core features you need to compose anything, and once you hit those limits you stop bothering. You take the shot the game hands you and move on.
That is why getting VPers in front of the team is worth something. They are the ones who find those limits, because they are the ones pushing against them.
A photo mode built after launch has had less time in players' hands than one that shipped with the game, and we will only know how deep it goes once it lands. But it is coming out of real conversations with the people who will use it, and most photo modes never get that.
Cut From Launch to Protect the Build
Remedy has been straightforward about the reason. The team put the work into the state of the game at launch instead.
Given the choice between a photo mode on day one and a game that runs properly, that is the right call, and it is worth saying so rather than treating the delay as a failure. A photo mode dropped into a shaky build is a photo mode nobody enjoys using.
There is precedent here too. The original Control shipped in August 2019 without one and got it on 16 October, about seven weeks later, as a free update. Resonant is running to a very similar clock.
Control's Photo Mode Was Basic, and We Still Loved It
The 2019 photo mode was pretty simple. Two tabs, Camera and Filters. Field of view, focus distance, aperture, camera roll, ten filters, and the option to hide Jesse or the other characters. Limited range, limited functions.
It did not slow anybody down. The community got an enormous amount of great work out of the Oldest House with those tools.
The one real struggle was lighting Jesse. Getting a decent portrait took a lot of patience and a lot of luck, and plenty of good ideas never made it out because of it.
Alan Wake 2 was a clear step up. Filters that actually belonged to that game instead of generic presets, and modern photo mode features including custom lights. Only one source, but one beats none.
Resonant is a harder brief than either. It is open, it is outdoors, it has weather and a sun, and it has gravity shifts and time fractures going off in the middle of your composition. Remedy has not published the feature list yet, so there is nothing to judge.
New Game++ Lands First, in October
Before the camera, October brings New Game++.
Right now New Game+ lets you run the story once more and that is it. New Game++ lifts that cap, so you can go run after run without giving up your progress. Remedy put it as do 665 runs if you want.
For photographers that is more useful than it first appears. Getting back to a specific location, at a specific point in the story, with the abilities you want, is normally the most tedious part of shooting a narrative game. Looping runs without losing anything turns the whole of Manhattan back into a location you can revisit.
Still Unconfirmed
No feature list yet, no date inside November, and nothing on which controls made the cut. Remedy has given months, not dates, so both of these could move.
The same update confirmed more cosmetic pieces for Dylan are planned, and did not announce a story expansion or a season pass. Newsletter subscribers already have exclusive cosmetics, and a test dummy outfit has been running through Twitch drops.
Bring On November
November cannot come soon enough, and the timing works out nicely. New Game++ lands first, so you can run Control Resonant all over again and see the whole thing through a lens this time.
We cannot wait to see what the community does with it. And we will be expecting a few of those turning up in the PMAs 2027 submissions.
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