CONTROL Resonant Underhill: The New Growth Choice Explained

Who is Dr. Underhill in CONTROL Resonant?

Dr. Raya Underhill is the FBC’s head researcher of the Mold — a returning face for series veterans, per the Control wiki’s character page, which lists her across 2019’s Control, FBC: Firebreak, and Resonant. In the original game she was the scientist barricaded in the Research sector studying the Mold; in Resonant, her New Growth quest opens with her missing.

The setup, per GamesRadar: she was “investigating the Mold when she went missing” and is now experimenting without agency oversight — harvesting from test subjects. The FBC fears she will “make the situation worse”; she considers the Bureau “too risk-averse to solve the situation.” Classic Underhill.

How do you start the New Growth quest?

In The Park — the optional zone on the zone order route. Two doors in (per PowerPyx’s walkthrough): finish the Zoe’s Briefing side quest, or talk directly to the female soldier on the roof of the FBC Base. The quest then runs you across The Park and the Oldest House before bringing you back.

The New Growth quest, step by step

Condensed from PowerPyx and allthings.how:

1. Ask around about the missing doctor — including the guard Busken at the FBC Base
2. Investigate her last known location, then her Central Executive office behind the Level 6 clearance door
3. Search her apartment in The Park — you will find her in the kitchen area
4. Collect her equipment and find her test subjects at her lab in the sewers — if the lab door is locked after meeting her, the key is on the table next to her (a tip from PowerPyx’s comments that saves a lot of wandering)
5. Track down and defeat all three Mold specimens — bring your anti-Mold tools; the Cleansing Rush talent earns its keep against Mold status ailments
6. Return and talk to Dr. Underhill — the quest ends, and the choice fires

The Underhill choice: report her, free her, or keep the samples

At the end of New Growth, Dylan decides what to do with the doctor. The options, per GamesRadar:

• Report her to the FBC — hand the rogue researcher back to the Bureau
• Give her the chance to escape — look the other way entirely
• Let her escape but keep the samples — she goes free, her experiments do not

None of it changes your rewards. GamesRadar’s verdict: “there is no real consequence to the Underhill choice, so it doesn’t matter what you pick.” The one difference is flavor — a later call with Zoe where you relate your decision and she expresses an opinion on it. Pick whichever Dylan you are playing; nothing downstream forks.

What do you get for New Growth?

The same haul regardless of your choice:

• Brass Dusters — an artifact with a real build identity: “combat abilities deal +50% damage but no Falter effects.” That is a straight trade of the stun-and-execute loop (see the combat guide) for raw ability damage — strongest in a kit built around Push-style utility rather than Falter setups
• A Zone Level increase for The Park
• Trophy progress — New Growth plus the Carbon Copy questline together unlock the Budding Mycologist trophy, one stop on the Platinum road

New Growth is one of the named side stories in the full walkthrough roster — the side layer that turns a 20–30 hour story run into a 30–40 hour completion.

Sources

• GamesRadar — New Growth and Underhill choice guide
• PowerPyx — Control Resonant New Growth Walkthrough
• allthings.how — New Growth Quest Walkthrough (and Underhill Choice)
• Control Wiki (Fandom) — Raya Underhill