Hands-on with Control Resonant and Tomb Raider, thoughts on The Lost Wild, and more

Hi there! Continuing my Summer Game Fest previews, I went hands-on with a few very, very different games from major publishers and indie developers alike. There are also a couple of games that I wasn't able to personally play, but instead watched live gameplay as the developers provided insight into what to expect.

It feels strange (and good) to be publishing these at a daily clip, and even after today's batch, I'll still have a fair bit left to talk about in the days ahead. I'm enjoying that while it lasts, especially in the face of companies continuing to cut their workforces with no end in sight.

If you didn't seen my previous newsletter, be sure to check it out, as I covered games like Alien: Isolation 2, Halo: Campaign Evolved, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword.

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Blood Dungeon mixes platforming with Vampire Survivors-style gameplay

The last game I played at Summer Game Fest, Blood Dungeon is a new game from Messhof, the team best known for 2014's Nidhogg. Blood Dungeon is an roguelike explicitly styled after the gameplay in Vampire Survivors, meaning the player character attacks automatically. The setup is simple: After picking a character, you start exploring a dungeon, gathering money, keys, and blood (or experience points).

Straight away, the art direction stands out. I can only describe it as "stylistic suck," with an impressive amount of effort into making every playable character, enemy, item, and boss look like a Paint doodle.

Despite the game's denizens looking the way they do, it controls great, and jumping up walls feels fast and fluid. Combat is great, capturing those same tense moments in Vampire Survivors or Ball x Pit where getting a key upgrade suddenly makes it possible to survive.

After just a couple of minutes, I already felt like I had to keep going no matter what, with the screen turning frantic and filling with dozens of stronger and stronger enemies. More than any other session, my time here felt like it flew by, and despite only playing two runs, I'm already in.

Blood Dungeon is slated to launch in late summer 2026 on Xbox, PC, and PS5.

Control Resonant sets Dylan as his sister's opposite

Going into Control Resonant, I wasn't sure what to expect. Despite thoroughly enjoying Remedy Entertainment's past games — I liked the first Control, and Alan Wake 2 is one of my favorite titles of the past few years — this sequel was promising to be a major shake-up, fully shifting into action-RPG territory and eschewing the ranged battles Remedy is known for by introducing melee combat with new lead Dylan, the brother of the first game's protagonist, Jesse Faden.

After a little over 20 minutes hands-on, I'm happy to say my fears have been obliterated. Dylan feels natural with the Abberant (his tool and a dark mirror of the Service Weapon), whipping between forms with ease. Chaining attacks together, I slice weaker Hiss apart with a scythe one moment before staggering larger foes with a hammer the next.

Aerial movement is similarly smooth, with Dylan quickly gaining the ability to jump, dash, and hover, platforming across a distorted vision of Manhattan as the horrors of the Hiss bleed into the outside world.

There are so many points at which it's clear Dylan is Jesse's opposite, from little elements of game design (she shoots, he uses melee attacks) to even the story's basic framing, as Jesse started her journey breaking into the Oldest House, while Dylan is breaking out.

I don't want to spoil even the earliest bits of the story, but if you're a big fan of Jesse, don't worry. Even though she's not the playable lead, she's still heavily involved, and my mind is already racing to see where this story could be heading.

Control Resonant is scheduled to launch on Sept. 24, 2026 on Xbox, PC, and PS5.

Silent Hill: Townfall is creepy, retro, and slow-paced

Visiting Annapurna Interactive's section, I was able to see a theater presentation for Silent Hill: Townfall, the next game in the recently -resurgent survival-horror series being developed by Screen Burn (formerly No Code), the team behind Observation and Stories Untold.

Set in a remote Scottish town, Silent Hill: Townfall embraces Screen Burn's love of retro technology, something the developers say is a studio motif. Protagonist Simon Ordell has returned to settle personal matters in his life, only to find the town engulfed in a strange fog, with people missing and horrific monsters wandering the streets.

Silent Hill: Townfall is a very slow-paced first-person game, rewarding careful, thorough exploration. While there are some more classic puzzles, the developers emphasize use of the handheld CR TV, which can lock onto various signals. Sometimes, these signals might show where Simon needs to head next, or they could provide a warning for where an enemy is, allowing Simon to slip by carefully.

One of the most interesting things shown in the demo is Simon's thoughts, which avoid a common gaming trope by being presented on-screen as handwritten notes, instead of being voiced aloud. Screen Burn says this is meant to make the game feel more authentic and real, as players have to read Simon's thoughts and hear the words in their own heads, instead of having Simon unrealistically say everything he's thinking out loud.

When combat does begin, it's brutal, with Simon forced to use anything he can get his hands on, like planks of wood. I'm told that ranged combat is present, but there weren't any guns shown in the demo.

Silent Hill: Townfall is slated to launch on PC and PS5 on Sept. 24, 2026.

Slap Out Of It is silly, silly, silly fun

Turbo Button's Slap Out Of It, was, at first glance, perhaps the strangest game I played during Summer Game Fest. A puzzle game that wears the idea of puzzles on its sleeve, Slap Out Of It is pretty simple. Players are employed as a PuzzPal, meaning you find solutions to problems for a living.

Sometimes those solutions are pretty simple. Someone's feeling heated and doesn't realize they've been set ablaze? Grab the fire extinguisher. Someone is bored? Hit the vending machine for old games and puzzles. All of these problems are solved by slapping. As a strange denizen of this world, you are blessed/cursed with noodly arms that extend and slap.

A big ol' button? Slap it. A rude chicken blocking your path to a club? Slap it. A security officer's rotund belly? Slap it. Slapping is simple and hilarious, and while my Monday fatigue may have been playing a part in this, I quickly became enamored with slapping everything in sight, laughing all the way.

The puzzles do get more complex, and while I was able to complete the demo, I did stop to consult the game's system a couple of times when I was stumped. These hints are completely optional, so you won't have a companion character yelling in your ear about what to do just because you stopped to take thirty seconds to explore.

There's no release date at the moment, but Slap Out Of It is set to launch at some point in 2027 on Xbox, PC, and PS5.

The Lost Wild envisions dinosaurs as animals, not monsters

Another game I saw when I stopped by Annapurna Interactive, The Lost Wild is interesting, but not for the reasons you might immediately think. As I told the developers at Great Ape Games, having dinosaurs in your title is a good start, but it's clear there's more here than merely making a horror game with dinosaurs.

Indeed, Great Ape Games speaks with reverence towards the the extinct creatures, wanting to portray them in a game as yes, terrifying, but as wild animals. They're scary because they're unpredictable and massive, not because they are unstoppable movie monster hunter-killers.

In the presentation, the protagonist (a woman named Saskia) wakes up in a strange jungle climate with no recollection of how she got there. She quickly discovers she's not alone, as a researcher she finds is quickly turned into prey by a hungry Allosaurus.

From here, some gameplay unfolds that'll be familiar for anyone that's played an Amnesia or Outlast game. Saskia can't find, but she can stay hidden, using thrown bottles to distract the large predator while gathering keys to make her way into a facility. It's familiar, but the atmosphere is excellent, with the thick flora providing a thousand hiding spots for predator and prey, and each step Saskia takes feels like a risk, as listening for the thudding creature's steps becomes paramount.

While the Allosaurus is the only predator seen in the demo, it won't be Saskia's only problem. A Quetzalcoatlus and what appear to be Velociraptors can be seen in the reveal trailer, the team promises they have many more dinosaurs waiting to surprise players.

I've not hidden my opinion that most survival horror games have tapped out of new ideas without introducing some form of combat, and that still holds here. That said, the setting and concepts are intriguing, and I'm definitely keen to learn just what secrets this dark jungle research facility is hiding.

The Lost Wild is set to arrive at some point in 2027 on PC and PS5.

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is fun, gorgeous, and clearly needs more time

It's been a minute since the last true Tomb Raider game, and with Legacy of Atlantis, the developers at Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog are trying to marry the more realistic aspects of the "Survivor" trilogy that began in 2013 with the confident, dual-wielding Lara Croft of the original games.

This remake once again sees Lara exploring across the globe, with my gameplay demo (which lasted about 30 minutes) taking place in Peru. Lara is forced to replace some ancient mechanisms in order to continue her journey, and straight away, the game looks fantastic. The jungles are lush and rich with detail, with dense foliage that's overgrown a forgotten temple.

Once gameplay is underway, it's clear why this game has been pushed to next year. Many of the controls don't quite feel polished, with jumping and climbing particularly finicky, and I missed a couple of moves on the first try that I was then able to get on the second with no discernable difference in my inputs.

Combat feels significantly better, as Lara puts her pistols and acrobatics to work when encountering some decidedly not-extinct dinosaurs. It feels good to dodge at the last second, leaping and spinning away from danger before unloading magazines into the snarling creatures.

Overall, I'm left definitely thinking the game needs more polished, but still appreciative of what this reimagining is doing for Lara and Tomb Raider as a whole.

Unfortunately, the developers have also chosen (or been told by leadership) to use generative AI as part of their development process. While I did not have an interview, I recommend checking out the response to Game Informer asking about the use of generative AI.

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is scheduled to launch on Feb. 12, 2027 on Xbox, PC, PS5, and Nintendo Switch 2.