Where the phrase comes from
There is no boss officially called the "Underwhelming Deserter." Two separate things collided in search: the Deserter, one of the Resonants, and a recurring line in reviews describing the game’s bosses as visually spectacular but underwhelming to fight, with encounters that repeat.
So people searching this phrase usually want one of two things — a way past the Deserter, or confirmation that the boss really is as shallow as the reviews suggest. Both are covered below.
Who the Deserter is
The Deserter is one of the Resonants, the ominous entities born of the Patterning that wield exceptional power. This one is tied to a factory on the verge of exploding, and the arena reflects that: industrial, unstable, and increasingly hostile as the fight goes on.
Remedy has said the bosses in Resonant are "nothing alike," each built around a different facet of the Patterning, so tactics that work here will not transfer wholesale to the next Resonant you meet.
How the fight escalates
It opens slowly. The Deserter spews streams of lava across the floor and your only job is reading the flows and staying clear of them. Treat this phase as free damage time rather than a threat.
From there it gets creative: fiery projectiles at range, and stabbing attacks with the many red-hot pipes protruding from its body when you are close. The arena itself becomes the real danger as it converts the floor into lava and spits magma.
- Keep moving constantly — standing still on a floor that turns to lava is what kills most first attempts.
- Jump often and finish enemies in the air, since the ground is frequently unsafe.
- Treat the projectile pattern as movement pressure, not as something to tank.
The window that wins it
After a burst of attacks the Deserter drops into a brief state of shock. That opening is where the fight is decided — it is your dedicated damage window, and it repeats reliably.
The common mistake is greed. Pull back as it recovers rather than chasing one more hit into the start of the next burst, because the recovery animation flows straight into another lava phase.
What hotfix 1.3.3 changed for this fight
Remedy shipped hotfix 1.3.3 at the global launch after early feedback that enemies needed too many hits to kill and to Falter (stun) for executions, and that Dylan felt too weak in the early hours. The Deserter is one of two bosses the patch note names.
| Change in 1.3.3 | What it means for the Deserter |
|---|---|
| Lower base health for most enemies and the Dancer and Deserter bosses | Fewer damage windows needed to finish the fight |
| Lower required Falter (stun) level for the same enemies and bosses | Fewer hits needed to Falter it and set up executions |
| Higher maximum Aberrant Strength and Ability Strength, with bigger increases later on | The more upgrades you have, the more damage you deal |
| Cheaper respeccing, and more Reset Items at every vendor | Rebuilding just for this fight costs less |
| Aberrant Strength tooltip reads “Damage and Falter X%” instead of “Multiplier X%” (English text first) | Aberrant Strength raises Falter as well as damage |
The patch note does not mention the Deserter’s attacks, the lava phases or the shock window, so the movement and timing advice on this page still applies. Remedy published no health or Falter numbers, and we have not re-timed the fight on the patched build, so we do not quote hit counts or kill times.
Source: Remedy’s hotfix 1.3.3 announcement on Steam, published on the global launch day (September 24, 2026). Later patches may change these values again; check Remedy’s Steam announcements for newer notes.
Build notes for Resonant bosses
Resonant removes traditional defensive mechanics — there is no block to fall back on, so offence is effectively your defence. Power, the resource behind your Resonance abilities, only regenerates from melee hits, which means backing off entirely starves you of your best tools.
Different Aberrant forms and artifacts favour range, close combat or specific damage types, and against a boss that owns the floor you want mobility and reliable aerial finishers. Respeccing is not free, but hotfix 1.3.3 permanently lowered its cost and added more Reset Items at vendors, so rebuilding specifically for a boss is cheap.
Is the fight actually underwhelming?
Opinion splits hard. Reviews praised the art direction and the almost ecclesiastical boss music while criticising encounter repetition, and the game’s aggregate score of 84 sits alongside individual scores as far apart as 10/10 and 4/10.
The practical read: the Deserter is a spectacle fight with a readable, forgiving rhythm rather than a mechanically deep duel. If you are bouncing off it, the problem is usually floor awareness and greed in the shock window, not a hidden mechanic.
Preparing before you enter
Resonant bosses are how you unlock paranatural combat abilities, so each one is a gate on your power curve rather than an optional detour. Going in with a build suited to the fight pays off twice: you clear it faster and you leave with a new ability.
Since hotfix 1.3.3 made respeccing cheaper and Reset Items easier to buy, rebuilding specifically for the Deserter and switching back afterwards costs little. Players who treat their build as permanent make this fight much harder than it needs to be.
- Favour mobility and aerial options over raw single-hit damage, because the floor is frequently unsafe.
- Pick an Aberrant form you can land reliably in the shock window rather than your highest-damage one.
- Remember Power only regenerates from melee hits — backing off entirely starves your abilities.
- Upgrade Aberrant Strength: since 1.3.3 its tooltip describes it as boosting both damage and Falter.
The mistakes that end runs
The most common failure is treating the arena like a normal fight and standing on ground that is about to become lava. Movement here is not a dodge mechanic you use occasionally; it is the default state.
The second is greed in the shock window. The recovery animation flows straight into the next burst, so one extra hit often costs far more health than it deals damage. Disengage on the recovery, reposition, and wait for the cycle to come back around.
What the rest of the Resonants are like
Remedy has said the bosses are "nothing alike," each built around a different facet of the Patterning — the algorithmic distortion transforming parts of Manhattan. The Deserter’s lava arena is one expression of that idea, not a template.
Practically, that means you should not expect a universal boss strategy. What transfers between fights is the underlying grammar: read the pattern, survive the burst, punish the recovery, keep Power topped up with melee hits.
Difficulty settings are a legitimate answer
Resonant uses Assist Mode, in the Gameplay options, instead of fixed difficulty levels. Its sliders cover enemy aggression, incoming damage and how quickly Dylan recovers his abilities, and they can make the game harder as well as easier. Remedy has framed this as an accessibility decision rather than a concession, and turning the challenge down for one boss is a supported way to play, not a workaround.
Zone difficulty also scales with progress and enemies level alongside you, so returning later at a higher level does not trivialise the encounter the way it would in a static-difficulty game.
Why boss fights matter more here than in the original
In Control, power growth came largely from Objects of Power and ability upgrades tied to progression. In Resonant, defeating a Resonant boss is the explicit route to unlocking paranatural combat abilities, which makes each of these encounters a checkpoint on the power curve.
That design also explains why players hit walls at bosses specifically: the fight that gates the ability you need is often the one you are least equipped for until you rebuild around it.
Sources
- GamingBolt — Gameplay showcases the Deserter, a towering magma-spitting boss
- Remedy on Steam — Hotfix 1.3.3: enemy health, Falter and Dylan’s combat strength (September 24, 2026)
- KeenGamer — CONTROL Resonant Review (PC)
- PlayStation.Blog — Control Resonant: PS5 features detailed
- Steam — CONTROL Resonant store page
