Control Resonant launches today, and the game’s first update will address one of its biggest pre-release criticisms: its enemies take too long to defeat, and protagonist Dylan Faden feels too weak. While early access players and reviewers, including us, had to endure a much harder game in the weeks before release, the wider player base will likely have a smoother ride thanks to this hotfix.
Developer Remedy Entertainment has announced in a blog post that after reading reviews (which have overall been very positive despite the combat critiques), and early player impressions, “we have decided to deploy a hotfix (1.3.3) at launch to address a few specific things: enemy health pools feeling too high, requiring too many hits to Falter (stun) enemies for executions, and Dylan’s overall combat strength early on in the game not feeling powerful enough (even if the man just woke up from a coma).”
To improve the combat flow and overall experience, the launch update will do the following:
- Reduce the base health and required Falter (stun) level of most enemies, as well as the Dancer and Deserter bosses
- Increase maximum Aberrant Strength and maximum Ability Strength
- These strength increases follow a curve, with progressively larger increases towards the end. The more upgrades you have, the more damage you deal.
The patch will also lower the cost of respeccing the ability tree, and vendors will also carry more stock of the special resource required to respec. A UI text update aims to better explain Build Power and Aberrant (Dylan’s primary weapon) strength. This will take the following forms;
- Aberrant Strength: “Multiplier X%” will now be: “Damage and Falter X%”.
- Build Power: “Calculated based on equipped Weapon Forms, Talents and Core Upgrades.” will now be: “From unlocked Combat Abilities, Aberrant forms/upgrades, Talents, and Core Upgrades.”
Remedy promises to continue working on other known issues in Control Resonant as players begin diving into the sequel today. Overall, despite some combat headaches, we enjoyed Control Resonant quite a bit, scoring it an 8.5 out of 10. Be sure to read our full review.
