Notebookcheck reported on September 17 that Argentina’s Cultura Geek briefly posted its score and synopsis to Metacritic before the embargo, then had the entry removed. The score is no longer visible on Metacritic’s public game page, and no full review text or independently reproduced benchmark material has emerged. That makes the score and impressions a real early signal, but not evidence that the PC version is technically sound at launch.
The timing is unusually tight. Remedy’s communications director, Thomas Puha, said reviews are scheduled to go live at 6 a.m. Pacific / 9 a.m. Eastern / 3 p.m. Central European Summer Time on Friday, September 18. Remedy is releasing Control Resonant on September 24 for PC through Steam and the Epic Games Store, as well as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
The leaked score is a data point, not a verdict
According to Notebookcheck’s account of the deleted Cultura Geek entry, the outlet awarded Control Resonant 80/100. Its synopsis reportedly praised battles built around Dylan Faden’s shapeshifting Aberrant weapon, comparing the pace and entertainment value to Devil May Cry while saying the more aggressive combat did not erase the series’ unsettling mood.
The same synopsis reportedly found the narrative repetitive, at least in its early stretch. That criticism deserves more attention than a one-number score because Remedy is taking a visible design risk: Control Resonant trades the first game’s telekinetic gunplay-centered structure for an action RPG led by Jesse Faden’s brother, Dylan, in a transformed Manhattan.
Remedy has confirmed the fundamental shift. Its own product page calls the game an action-adventure RPG, while the studio’s Steam updates describe a system of supernatural abilities, Talents, Artifacts, side quests, bosses, build choices and New Game+. Those are far more than cosmetic additions to the original Control formula. They create the possibility that players who liked Control for its tightly authored, strange institutional spaces may react differently to a game that asks them to manage progression systems and explore broader zones.
A single early synopsis cannot settle whether that transition works. It can, however, identify the question reviewers need to answer on Friday: does the Aberrant weapon and Dylan’s ability kit provide enough depth to support an RPG-length campaign, or does the new structure stretch the story and combat loop too thin?
“Solid performance” has no PC value without a test configuration
Notebookcheck correctly notes that the original Control built a reputation for demanding hardware, particularly when ray tracing was enabled. That history makes performance one of the major practical questions for Control Resonant, especially because Remedy has described its new Manhattan as its largest and most visually varied environment yet.
Yet the alleged Cultura Geek review provides none of the information that would make a performance observation actionable. There is no identified test platform, no processor or graphics card, no indication of whether upscaling or frame generation was enabled, and no description of image-quality compromises. Even its apparent comparison point is unclear: Notebookcheck says PlayStation 5 owners can select a 1440p/60 fps mode or a 4K/30 fps alternative, but a console mode cannot tell a Windows buyer how the game behaves on a midrange RTX or Radeon GPU.
That omission matters more than the positive adjective. A review can reasonably call a console build “solid” after observing stable performance in a preset quality mode. PC players need to know whether that stability holds in combat-heavy outdoor areas, whether traversal produces frame-time spikes, whether path tracing is optional rather than expected, and how much visual quality must be surrendered to reach 60 fps.
Remedy published final PC system requirements through the game’s Steam announcements on September 9, after saying earlier in June that a more detailed performance-target breakdown would follow. The existence of final requirements is helpful, but a requirements graphic still is not an independently measured result. It says what the developer expects a configuration to run, not what it will deliver in a busy fight after launch drivers, shader compilation, and real-world settings choices enter the equation.
Until reviews publish reproducible settings and frame-rate data, prospective PC buyers should treat the leak’s performance line as unverified. It is not negative evidence; it is simply too incomplete to support a purchasing decision.
Remedy’s official material supports the combat claims, not the score
The combat portion of the leaked summary is at least consistent with what Remedy has shown and described publicly. The studio’s June “Take CONTROL” material emphasized fast-paced close-range combat, supernatural abilities, exploration, traversal and player choice. Its later Steam posts say Dylan can carry Aberrant upgrades and combat abilities into New Game+, combine abilities in different ways, and equip Artifacts with benefits and trade-offs.
That corroborates the direction of Cultura Geek’s assessment: Control Resonant is plainly designed to be faster, more build-driven and more melee-focused than its predecessor. It does not corroborate the review’s conclusion that the fighting is entertaining, nor does it establish the reported 80/100 score. Those remain Cultura Geek’s alleged judgments, relayed by Notebookcheck after the original Metacritic listing disappeared.
The distinction is worth preserving because early leaked review scores tend to acquire false authority once they are repeated. A removed listing does not become a consensus merely because it appears on a score aggregation service for a short time. Metacritic’s public listing for Control Resonant still showed no critic average before the embargo, precisely because the scheduled reviews had not yet arrived.
For readers deciding whether to preorder, the only responsible use of the leak is narrow: it suggests one outlet found promising combat and did not flag obvious technical trouble in the version it played. It does not answer whether the game’s RPG systems improve Control, whether its story lands, or whether a Windows PC can run it well at the settings a player expects.
What Friday’s reviews need to establish
The review embargo lifts six days before the September 24 release, leaving enough time for readers to compare full critiques rather than treating one deleted synopsis as the final word. The immediate priority for PC coverage should be methodology, not aggregate scores.
Useful launch coverage should identify the tested build and platform, disclose resolution and upscaling settings, distinguish average frame rate from frame-time consistency, and test combat and traversal rather than a stationary early-game scene. Reviews should also state whether visual features such as ray tracing or path-traced lighting materially change hardware demands and whether the game’s performance changes across its larger Manhattan zones.
Cultura Geek’s apparent 80/100 may prove close to the eventual critical consensus, or it may be an outlier. By Friday morning, the meaningful development will be whether multiple reviews — especially those with transparent PC testing — reach the same conclusion about Control Resonant’s combat, story pacing and launch performance.