{"id":10101,"date":"2026-11-06T13:08:39","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T13:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=10101"},"modified":"2026-11-06T13:08:39","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T13:08:39","slug":"control-resonant-recursions-and-iterations-mission-design-time-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=10101","title":{"rendered":"How Remedy designed Control Resonant\u2019s wildest mission: \u2018Anything kind of goes\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Note: Some spoilers for <\/em>Control Resonant\u2019s \u201cRecursions and Iterations\u201d mission follow.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One of Control Resonant<\/em>\u2019<\/a>s most memorable missions involves time travel \u2014 kind of. There are certainly multiple timelines intersecting, or maybe overlapping, or maybe running in parallel. As protagonist Dylan Faden, you meet some of the researchers who are trapped in and investigating these timeline anomalies. Dylan\u2019s first encounter with the researchers is somehow not the researchers\u2019 first time meeting Dylan. But before we can learn much more, time glitches out, and they all turn up dead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That seems to be the end result in every timeline Dylan comes across, even toward the end of the mission. What does it all mean for this<\/em> timeline, the one we\u2019re playing? Did the act of tracking down the researchers change our timeline? Are we in a different timeline entirely?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I wasn\u2019t sure what to make of it when I finished the mission, and I\u2019m not alone \u2014 even the developers at Remedy had trouble keeping track of it all. \u201cI don\u2019t actually remember where we landed on with the writing,\u201d says lead level designer Anne-Marie Gr\u00f6nroos, turning the question over to senior level designer Admir Burnic. \u201cLike, are the researchers even there<\/em> after the mission is done? Are they still living their life?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Image: Remedy Entertainment<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Burnic isn\u2019t sure, and I tell them I\u2019m not entirely sure, either. But that\u2019s not really the point of the mission. Like many of Remedy\u2019s best sequences, the \u201cRecursions and Iterations\u201d mission is more about the unease of knowing something is wrong but not exactly what it is, the subtle horror of realizing generally what\u2019s been happening but not necessarily why<\/em>. Maybe the narrative team did establish a canon ending for the researchers and all three of us just missed it, or maybe it was ambiguous on purpose.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s funny, when you\u2019re dealing with this sort of time-travel stuff, timelines, whatever, there\u2019s always this aspect to it where it\u2019s almost illogical,\u201d Burnic says. \u201cSo anything kind of goes. I mean, it could be intentional. It could also not be intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Prepare for (being inspired by) Titanfall<\/em>.<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Toward the end of \u201cRecursions and Iterations,\u201d there\u2019s a mind-bending combat sequence in which a bunch of Dylans, presumably from the other timelines, glitch in to join the fight. Burnic says this was a somewhat late addition inspired by \u201cEffect and Cause,\u201d a mission from Titanfall 2<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There\u2019s this time-travel mission in Titanfall 2<\/em>. I was really inspired by that. I wanted to do something along those lines, but I was looking for \u201cWhat\u2019s the Remedy version of it?\u201d And at some point I had this idea of glitches of Dylan showing up executing enemies. I remember it was fairly late in production, so it was a bit risky. I knew I can\u2019t just go and pitch this. I have other stuff to do at the same time. So I was finding something that was relatively easy to do, a way to reuse Dylan\u2019s animations that we already have. So I remember just going to one of our animators and going, \u201cHey, can you just throw me some of these animations? I have an idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Either way, the storyline was a consistent standout for Remedy\u2019s playtesters, Gr\u00f6nroos and Burnic tell me. What they had to fine-tune \u2014 and very intentionally so \u2014 was the language and narrative of the physical space. In the final version of the mission, Dylan has to travel between three different research stations in the labyrinthine Underpass, an expanse of floating concrete islands, to search for the researchers. Ambiguity here was going to be a problem.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIn the beginning, it was, like, identical stations, and we would more rely on the narrative content inside of stations to [tell you] what happened there,\u201d Burnic says. In the final version, the stations share the same layout but are in visibly different states of disarray and disrepair. \u201cWe found a sort of language we could use. Station A was, \u2018They were here for two weeks,\u2019 station B [was], \u2018They were here for three months,\u2019 and I think the last one was the extreme one, which was like, \u2018Oh, this was 10 years into this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The team used that concept as a guide to visually differentiate each station from the others. \u201cAnd that came very much from a need,\u201d Gr\u00f6nroos explains. \u201cWhen we had people playtesting that mission before, they didn\u2019t even know how many stations there were. Like, there were people who thought there\u2019s one station, maybe there\u2019s six stations, who knows, because they look so identical and the environment is not that easy to tell apart, either.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Concept<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Concept art of the Underpass in all its brutalist glory.<\/em><\/figcaption>Image: Remedy Entertainment<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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There were, aptly, a lot of iterations of this, and art was just part of it. One of the biggest changes was mechanical: You need the Reach ability, which allows Dylan to essentially grapple over long distances, to access the Underpass area to begin with. This wasn\u2019t an explicit requirement early on, but it makes the floating islands of the Underpass much easier to navigate. And \u201cit was the navigation issues that were keeping this mission down\u201d during development, Gr\u00f6nroos says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But Dylan\u2019s abilities presented their own problems. \u201cIf I remember correctly, we wanted to have certain beats, certain narrative moments, being represented to you first, and I think one of the biggest difficulties for me especially was that Dylan as a character is so powerful. The gaps he can close with his powers is quite insane, right? And it was so easy to break [the flow],\u201d Burnic says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI remember at some point kind of realizing that, however you twist and turn it, you can never really guarantee that a player sees this, and trying to guarantee it will be a bad design because it will be too hand-holdy,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt was more like these narrative moments were pieces of the puzzle, almost. So it doesn\u2019t matter which one you get to first, but hopefully the player will be able to put them together once they have all the pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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With a supremely powerful character like Dylan, Burnic says, \u201cyou need to lean into it and just design in a way where you can trust the player.\u201d And with multiple timelines involved, seeing certain things out of the intended order wasn\u2019t going to break the overall story of the mission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I certainly got turned around a few times in the Underpass and doubled back to look for collectibles I might\u2019ve missed. But I didn\u2019t struggle too much, and I understood the story Remedy was trying to tell \u2014 maybe not every single detail possible, but the most important beats, and definitely the unsettling, otherworldly mood it created.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That was ultimately the \u201cfragile balance\u201d they had to strike, Gr\u00f6nroos says: trying \u201cto have enough guidance that you understand what you are doing and where you\u2019re supposed to be going\u201d without holding the player\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s in the DNA of the whole game, really.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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