Control Resonant is almost here. The long-awaited sequel to Remedy Entertainment’s 2019 game Control is set to launch on September 24, and we finally know what kind of PC you will need to play it. Now, if you have been worried about having to upgrade your entire gaming setup, there is some good news. The game can run on fairly old hardware, although you will have to settle for 1080p at 30fps. Things get much more demanding if you want to play at 4K with path tracing. In that case, Remedy recommends an RTX 5080. Oh, and you will need 120GB of SSD space.
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Let’s start with the good news. You don’t need a powerful gaming PC just to run Control Resonant.
Remedy has divided the requirements into different categories depending on whether you want to use ray tracing and path tracing. The company has also clearly mentioned that its performance targets use upscaling, which is something worth keeping in mind.
At the minimum end, you can play the game with a GTX 1070 and an Intel Core i5-8500. The target here is 1080p at 30fps, with upscaling set to Quality. You will also need 16GB of RAM.
Now, 30fps may not sound particularly exciting if you have a high-end gaming PC. But for anyone still using an older system, the fact that a GTX 1070 can run the game at all is pretty encouraging.
The requirements jump quite a bit when you start pushing the graphics.
For 4K at 60fps with High graphics settings and path tracing enabled, Remedy recommends an RTX 5080. Even then, you will need upscaling set to Performance. Interestingly, the CPU requirement isn’t nearly as demanding. Remedy lists an Intel Core i7-10700 or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X for this configuration.
So, if your goal is simply to play Control Resonant, your older PC might still be good enough. It is when you start chasing 4K and path tracing that things get serious.
There is one requirement that stays the same across the different configurations. Control Resonant needs 120GB of SSD storage. And yes, that is quite a lot of space. Modern AAA games have become quite large over the years, so a 120GB requirement isn’t exactly shocking. Still, it is worth checking how much free space you have before you start downloading the game.
Remedy also requires an SSD rather than an HDD. This has become rather common with newer games, especially when developers are building their games around faster storage.
As for the other features, Control Resonant will support an uncapped frame rate, HDR and ultrawide displays. Nvidia DLSS 4.5 and AMD FSR 4.1 will also be supported at launch.
The game itself is also doing things a little differently from the original Control. Remedy is moving further towards the action-RPG genre, with more focus on melee combat and player-driven progression. Whether that change works remains to be seen. Thankfully, we don’t have to wait too long.
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