When it comes to developer Remedy, you should always expect the unexpected. So we probably shouldn't be surprised to discover that its new Control sequel, announced at The Game Awards tonight, swerves on pretty much everything you'd think would carry over from the first game. To break it down:

• It's not a third-person shooter—it's a melee-focused "action-RPG".
• It's not set in the Oldest House, but instead an open world New York.
• It doesn't star Jesse Faden—you play as her brother, Dylan, who was the first game's villain.

Perhaps appropriate, then, that it's not called Control 2—it's Control Resonant—though it does seem to follow on from the events of the first game. Dylan, seemingly now free of the influence of the Hiss, has been deployed by the FBC to combat a new supernatural disaster—namely, reality-warping forces that have spilled out of the Oldest House and into the outside world, twisting an entire city into new forms.

Where Jesse wielded the Service Weapon, able to transform into a variety of different guns, Dylan instead has the Aberrant, an artifact that frankly looks like a cursed crowbar. It too can shapeshift, but into a selection of melee weapons, including an enormous hammer and a pair of swords.

What it's most reminiscent of isn't any previous Remedy game, it's Devil May Cry. I don't just say that because it's a melee action game—it seems to be a key touchstone across the board. The Aberrant's exaggerated forms (that is one seriously big hammer) are much more like Dante's weapons than Jesse's more subtle arsenal, and the fast, explosive combat looks equally familiar. Enemies are more surreal and twisted, and though the city has more than a touch of Inception about it, it also looks a lot like the weird dreamscapes of Ninja Theory's DmC.

It definitely feels far removed from the claustrophobic, bureaucratic horror of Control, and I wouldn't be surprised if fans are hesitant about so big a shift. I've got some misgivings myself for sure.

Will it be able to maintain that wonderful atmosphere and sense of humour of the first game in such a different environment? Will the more outlandish visual design clash with the series' established tone? And is an entire open world city a step too ambitious for Remedy, even carved up into metroidvania-style chunks?

But on the whole, I'm excited. When Firebreak came out, I found myself disappointed by the idea that Control's narrative would still be trapped entirely within the Oldest House, and it made me realise I did want a proper sequel to break into a different setting—even if I didn't expect quite so dramatic a shift.

And frankly, Remedy's drive to try new and surprising things with each of its games is exactly the thing that's made it one of my favourite developers over the years. It's always taking risks, it's always reaching a little beyond its means, and in my book the results are almost always fun, interesting, and unique despite any flaws.

Hopefully, we shouldn't have too long to wait before we can try Control Resonant for ourselves, either—it's currently planned for a 2026 release date. Remedy hasn't gotten any more specific than that yet, though I'd imagine "a date as far away as possible from GTA 6" would be a safe assumption to start speculating from.

Exodus, the upcoming sci-fi RPG from Mass Effect and Baldur's Gate veterans, is taking another major step towards full 'spiritual successor' status.

In its new trailer at The Game Awards, we got the longest look yet at Exodus' gameplay. While developer Archetype has done an awful lot to build out its universe - with everything from novels to a tabletop roleplaying game - it's not shown off much in the way of how the game actually plays.

As it turns out, the way it actually plays looks a lot like Mass Effect, though perhaps that's not too shocking with BioWare veterans Chad Robertson and James Ohlen helping lead Exodus. There's cover shooting, companions, and even some mystical abilities that make traversal look particularly exciting. A decent chunk of the trailer is given over to cutscenes, admittedly, but there's certainly a good amount of footage to go off.

There's also a lot of Matthew McConaughey, who's lending some extra gravitas to Exodus' Interstellar-style time dilation narrative by serving as the voice actor behind main character Jun's mentor figure. He's mostly voiceover, so we don't get a particularly substantial insight into his character, but that's made up for by Jun himself, whose hero's journey is a significant part of the trailer.

From sprawling in the mud of some backwater town to saving the world as the only person capable of wielding the Celestial technology that humanity now relies on, it's a pretty wild ride of an arc within a single trailer.

The companions appear in much of the trailer, once again riffing on Mass Effect. On each mission, you'll get to choose which two allies to take along with you, borrowing from their unique skill sets to decide on your approach.

That might mean a pair of stealth experts, tech geniuses, or simply those who prefer to go loud, but Archetype hasn't revealed all that much about how its cast will play out yet. What it has shown off is plenty of ensemble shots, suggesting that the downtime between characters might be just as important as the action itself.

There's a bittersweet sting at the end of the new Exodus trailer, which confirms a release date slip into early 2027. Initially planned for a 2026 release but with no more exact window than that, it's a shame that we're not getting hold of Exodus next year, but hopefully we're only looking at a real-time delay of a few months at most.

They're already responsible for many of the best RPG games on our list, but are Exodus' devs about to add another entry?