Control Resonant Review: Eating Mold Has Never Felt So Weirdly Fun

Control Resonant wastes little time before asking players to do something deeply questionable. Early in the game, you can find yourself staring at a patch of mold, with a handler yelling in your ear to leave it alone, and the choice to ignore that advice is entirely yours.

The scene comes from the opening of the review, where the writer recalls a childhood memory of being served moldy school food and then punished for complaining about it. Against that backdrop, the idea of willingly munching on fungus in a video game lands somewhere between grotesque and hilarious. The reviewer frames it as a kind of Temptation of Saint Mycology, complete with a nagging voice of reason that only makes the act more tempting.

You play as Dylan Faden, and the reviewer sums up the mood of the moment with a blunt comparison to Jackass. That is a telling shorthand. Rather than treating its strange world with unbroken solemnity, Control Resonant appears comfortable letting the player be a reckless goblin in the face of supernatural weirdness, with a supporting cast that reacts with appropriate horror.

It is a small detail, but it says something about tone. Control has always balanced cold, brutalist mystery with pockets of dry humor, and this snippet suggests Resonant is happy to push the comedy further, using the player's own curiosity and stubbornness as the punchline. The handler's screaming works as both a gameplay nudge and a joke, and the fact you can simply refuse to comply is part of the charm.

The excerpt we have covers only the introduction, so the verdict on combat, level design and the wider story will need to come from the full write-up. But as an opening statement, it is memorable. A game that can make a mold-eating moment feel like a comic set piece, tied to a personal anecdote about school dinners, is clearly aiming for personality first.

For fans of the series, that is likely welcome news. Control Resonant looks set to keep the strangeness dial turned up, and to trust players to make their own bad decisions along the way.