Remedy Entertainment made a deliberate choice to omit the common "yellow paint" directional markers in Control Resonant, aiming to foster a greater sense of player autonomy and exploration. Game director Mikael Kasurinen stated that the team consciously decided against using such overt signposting to allow players to discover their way through the game's world.
"It was a conscious decision, obviously," Kasurinen said during the Dropped Frames podcast. "It's not like the game is telling me what to do and I just go and do it. I feel like I'm the one making the decisions in the game. It's so important that the players feel like they're the one figuring it out."
The use of bright paint or other distinct visual cues on ledges, climbable walls, and other environmental elements has become a prevalent mechanic in many modern open-world games. This approach aims to guide players and prevent them from becoming lost or stuck.
However, this practice has faced increasing criticism from players. A notable example includes Insomniac Games' Marvel's Wolverine, where players derided the game's blue "scent trails" as "fart trails." The developer eventually added an option to disable these trails, but the controversy highlighted player fatigue with such explicit guidance. Wolverine also utilized white paint to mark climbable walls and ledges.
Remedy's decision in Control Resonant is particularly significant given the game's larger, more open world compared to the original Control, which primarily relied on in-world environmental cues for navigation. While Control Resonant does incorporate yellow elements, Kasurinen explained that these are integrated more organically within the game's industrial aesthetic, appearing as if they are part of the environment rather than explicit game mechanics.
Kasurinen emphasized the importance of finding a balance between presenting a believable world and providing necessary gameplay information. "You have to find the right balance between 'here's the world' and 'here are the different themes and elements that you have to pay attention to,'" he noted. "But it has to feel like it's on you to make a decision on what to do with those elements that you see within the world. If it feels like, 'go here,' it's not anymore a decision for the player. Somebody has already decided for you."
This design philosophy aligns with a broader call from some players for developers to trust them more and to return to methods of environmental guidance that rely on subtle visual cues, lighting, and level design, rather than explicit markers.