CONTROL Resonant Assist Mode: Options, Presets and Achievements

This page explains the game’s Assist Mode: why Remedy built it instead of a classic difficulty menu, what each option changes, how presets and individual sliders combine, who each kind of option is meant to help, and what Remedy says about achievements and progress. It is based on Remedy’s official posts on Steam and the Steam store page, checked on November 1, 2026.

Why does CONTROL Resonant use Assist Mode instead of difficulty levels?

In a September 15 post, Lead Gameplay Designer Sergey Mohov explained the thinking. The new game is a melee-focused action-RPG built around Dylan’s shapeshifting weapon, the Aberrant, so surviving means reading enemy animations, managing staggers and status effects, and nailing dodges. That is a new learning curve, and Remedy didn’t want to handle it with a single Easy, Normal or Hard switch.

His argument is that global difficulty modifiers often just change enemy health and damage behind the scenes. That can undermine careful combat tuning, turn enemies into damage sponges, and make progression feel unearned when enemy health drops across the board. Remedy’s answer is a set of separate controls, so you can isolate the one mechanic that causes trouble and leave the rest alone. His example is a player with motor control difficulties who can’t hit standard dodge timings but has no problem with a complex resource economy.

What does each Assist Mode option change?

These are the options named in Remedy’s posts, with the situation Remedy uses to describe each one:

Option	What it adjusts	How Remedy frames it
Enemy Aggression	How aggressively enemies come at you	Turn it down if enemies swarm you from off-screen
Perfect Dodge Window	How much time you get to land a Perfect Dodge	Widen it if you struggle to read a boss attack’s wind-up
Enemy Projectile Speed	How fast enemy projectiles travel	Lower it for the same problem as the dodge window
Incoming Damage	Damage Dylan takes	One of three separate damage dials
Outgoing Damage	Damage Dylan deals	One of three separate damage dials
Outgoing Falter	How fast you break an enemy’s posture	One of three separate damage dials
Power Recovery Speed	How quickly Dylan’s abilities recover	Raise it if managing abilities takes too much attention mid-fight
Enhanced Melee Magnetizing	Not spelled out beyond the name	Turn it up so you worry less about positioning
Immortality, One-Hit Kills, One-Hit Falters	What the names describe; no further detail given	For exploring Manhattan and the story without the stress
Power Core Charge Duration (Update 1.4.0)	A 100-300% multiplier on Power Core Charge duration	Not described in the notes
Dodge and jump refund (Update 1.4.0)	Refunds one dodge and one jump after an air execution if you’re out of both	Not described in the notes

Remedy calls Immortality and One-Hit Kills returning classics and One-Hit Falters its newest addition. Remedy hasn’t published the range of most sliders, so the only exact figure on this page is the 100-300% Power Core multiplier from the 1.4.0 notes.

How do presets and individual sliders combine?

Each slider adjusts one variable on its own. The damage settings are a good example: Remedy describes them as three independent controls, so you can lower Incoming Damage without making your own attacks stronger, or speed up Outgoing Falter without touching damage at all. Remedy frames Power Recovery Speed and Enhanced Melee Magnetizing as ways to cut how much you have to manage mid-fight, separate from the damage dials.

If a blank set of sliders feels like too much, Remedy wrote a few presets based on how different groups inside the studio like to play. You pick an Assist Mode Preset as a starting point and then fine-tune individual sliders from there.

The sliders also work in both directions, which is the biggest change from the first game. In the original CONTROL, they could only reduce the challenge. Here, Remedy’s own example of a harder setup is to raise enemy aggression, shrink the Perfect Dodge Window down to a few frames and increase incoming damage until every encounter is a life-or-death fight.

Timing is part of the design too. Remedy deliberately kept these settings out of the way before your first playthrough, because you haven’t played the game yet and can’t know which mechanics will give you trouble. Its advice is to try the intended experience first, get a feel for the rhythm of combat, and then adjust. You can enable or disable Assist Mode at any point, and the launch hotfix post places it in the Gameplay menu of the game’s options.

Does Assist Mode affect achievements or progress?

Remedy’s statement is direct: “we absolutely do not gate any trophies or achievements behind these settings.” That covers achievements that sound skill-based, such as Paranatural Agility, which asks for three Perfect Dodges in less than six seconds. The full list is on our achievements page.

None of the posts checked mention any other penalty for using Assist Mode, such as reduced rewards. They do point out a separate reason fights can feel hard. The 1.4.0 notes added Build Power to the Loadout screen, and Remedy warns that if you are below the enemy level you will have a tougher time, suggesting side quests, exploration and leveling up.

Some balance changes also apply to everyone, with or without Assist Mode. The launch hotfix lowered the base health and required Falter level of most enemies and two bosses, and raised maximum Aberrant Strength and Ability Strength. Update 1.4.0 cut the overall amount of combat in the Unknown Zone by 10-15% and fixed a bug where the Collective Resonant’s tentacles stayed alive after a kill with One-Hit Kills on. The Update 1.4 guide covers the rest of that patch.

What other accessibility options are there?

Remedy calls Assist Mode only one part of its accessibility work. The same post lists:

• Gameplay: hold actions can be switched to toggles, and controls can be remapped for controller and for mouse and keyboard.
• Graphics: motion blur, depth of field, lens distortion, film grain and vignetting can each be turned off.
• Audio: separate volume sliders and a Hyperacusis Filter for players sensitive to certain sounds. Update 1.4.0 added a separate slider for radio dialogue.
• Interface: subtitle size and backgrounds, speaker names, a localized overlay, a color-blind mode for the interface, and the option to hide individual HUD elements.
• Movement: Shift Tunneling to reduce the effect of rapid movement when using Shift, and separate horizontal and vertical axis inversion for mouse and controller.

The Steam store page also tags the game with Adjustable Difficulty, Playable without Timed Input, Camera Comfort, Color Alternatives, Custom Volume Controls, Keyboard Only Option and Subtitle Options.

What do players often get wrong?

• Looking for Assist Mode before the game starts. Remedy kept it out of the opening on purpose; it’s in the Gameplay options once you are playing.
• Treating it as an easy mode. It is a set of separate dials, and Remedy says the sliders go both ways, so they can make the game harder too.
• Changing everything at once. The design is meant to target the one mechanic that’s in your way.
• Worrying about achievements. Remedy says none are gated behind these settings.
• Blaming the sliders for every hard fight. Remedy names being under the enemy level as a separate cause.

What hasn’t been announced?

• The exact range and steps of most sliders.
• What each built-in preset sets.
• Whether Assist Mode settings carry over into New Game+ and New Game++ runs.
• Whether more options will follow the two added in 1.4.0; Remedy’s broader roadmap is on the post-launch plans page.