Control Resonant's Hiss Transporter Turns the City Bus Into a Nightmare

Anyone who has spent time on the streets of Control Resonant's Manhattan knows the feeling of a familiar place turning hostile. The Hiss Transporter may be the sharpest example yet. It is the front half of a city bus, hanging upright and glowing red, with passengers jammed halfway through its windows. Its horn echoes through the streets before the vehicle slams into the pavement, sending out shockwaves while more twisted riders spill out to join the fight. You have to clear the passengers from both sides before the bus finally bursts apart.

As a fight, it is a grind. Thinning out waves of enemies while dodging ground pounds wears down patience fast, and the encounter stretches longer than it should. The design is hard to dismiss, though. Remedy has built much of its identity on taking the mundane and making it menacing, and a bus is a loaded choice. Most people see one as a reliable, even comforting sight, a sign that a ride is on its way. Turning it into something that looks back at you, with bodies wedged into the windows like cargo that has outgrown its container, strips that reassurance away.

That gap between what we expect and what we get is where the unease comes from. The original Control leaned heavily on Altered Items and Objects of Power, ordinary things such as a refrigerator or a floppy disk that became dangerous once the Hiss got into them. Resonant uses that idea less often, but the city still carries it. Stoplight poles become battering weapons, and street signs and chunks of concrete swirl around the first boss. The streets feel like they are working against you.

The approach borrows heavily from David Lynch, who built a body of work on setting the everyday against something dark. A radiator that hides a dreamlike world, or a ceiling fan that seems to carry a malevolent presence, works because it takes something we trust without thinking and quietly makes it wrong. Remedy has openly cited Lynch as an influence, and the same logic runs through Alan Wake and Control.

The Hiss Transporter may be a tedious fight, but it does its job. Every bus that appears out in the open now feels like a small warning, and that lingering unease is a sign the game's central idea is landing.