Control Resonants kreativa chef förklarade varför gamla gudar från Asgard inte dök upp

Released last month, Control Resonant is the latest addition to Remedy’s shared universe, which also includes the Alan Wake game series. And although the game has virtually no connection to Alan Wake II, which was released relatively recently, the project’s game director recently commented on the absence in Control Resonant of one of the developers’ signature features—primarily related to music.

Specifically, it's about the Old Gods of Asgard, the alter ego of Poets of the Fall, who are best known for their performance “Herald of Darkness” from Alan Wake II. In a recent interview with VGC, Mikael Kasurinen, creative director of Control Resonant, explained that the developers didn’t want to include the band’s characters in the game so they could focus more on the main character, Dylan, including his musical preferences, which are used in the background. Nevertheless, you can spot a poster featuring the now-legendary rock band in Control: Resonant. For more detailed comments from Kasurinen on this topic, check out below:

“Less is more, let’s focus on this, making sure that we have the right emotional journey.

When we use music… when you look at The Ashtray Maze, it is about the music and I think the difference in Resonant is that these moments are ultimately about the story and Dylan, music kind of “happens to be there” to set the right tone. The focus is not the music.

There was just a little bit of a different framework, a different direction of how we treat these things in this game. When we look at Dylan as a character, this story, ultimately is about him, the other characters, the antagonists, it’s all about Dylan, we focus everything around that.”

Although the Old Gods of Asgard are absent and, as previously noted, there are few connections to Alan Wake II, Control Resonant still takes an important step regarding the writer’s story—namely, it directly teases the third installment. Remedy is known for laying the groundwork for its future games, and Control Resonant features a scene that reveals what Alan Wake might be up to after the events of the second game. It also features Alex Casey, played by Sam Lake, and mentions The Scratcher—the main antagonist of Alan Wake II.

As for Control Resonant, last week Remedy confirmed the game has sold 1 million copies. Perhaps the developers are planning to release a story DLC that builds even further upon the foundation for Alan Wake III—especially considering the game director for the second installment, Kyle Rowley, has been leading the development of a mysterious, unannounced project since January 2025.

Control Resonant is available on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5.