CONTROL Resonant Dylan Faden: The Protagonist, His Powers and His Story

Who is Dylan Faden?

Dylan Faden is the protagonist of CONTROL Resonant — and a name Control players have waited seven years to see again. In the 2019 game, Dylan is Jesse Faden’s younger brother: taken by the Federal Bureau of Control after the Ordinary incident, locked in the Panopticon as a “Prime Candidate”, and ultimately used as the Hiss’s nexus during the Tower’s invasion.

Resonant wakes him up as the lead. The setup inverts the first game: Jesse, still FBC Director, goes missing as Manhattan warps — and Dylan goes looking for her. That search is the spine of all 16 main missions, with the Jesse Sightings fault missions at its center.

How is Dylan different from Jesse?

The differences are the game’s design pitch, not just lore flavor:

The full mechanical comparison lives on our Control vs CONTROL Resonant page.

Dylan’s kit in the released game

Everything the pre-launch previews hinted at shipped in concrete form:

• The Aberrant — his shapeshifting weapon, with primary forms (Strike, Glaive, Cleave), secondaries (Crush, Drill, Extend) and combo finishers; the best weapons page ranks every pick
• Traversal from the faults — Shift and Reach, unlocked through the Jesse Sightings missions inside the Dimensional Faults; progression hard-locks on them
• Combat abilities from the Resonants — each zone boss grants a power, some as branching choices like Push or Ground Slam at the Dancer
• The execution-Dominance loop — Falter enemies, execute, ride Dominance; the best talents page builds around it

Dylan’s story, from awakening to the Hedron

Light structural spoilers; the fine detail is on Jesse’s page.

Dylan wakes into a Manhattan warped by a new resonance, finds the FBC’s Zoe De Vera as his handler (her page), and works the crisis while chasing sightings of his sister. The late game pivots to the Hedron — The Hedron Link, then Sever the Hedron Links, then Fight the Core — where the story pays off the sibling reversal: Dylan falls, Jesse sacrifices herself to save him, and the ending leaves him alive at her bedside, the first game’s ending played back with the roles swapped. A New Game Plus run then carries his kit forward.

Sources

• Xbox Wire — Control Resonant: unveiling the next chapter
• Reddit — Resonant ending discussion (MAJOR spoilers)
• PowerPyx — Control Resonant Walkthrough: All Quests