The West Incursion Zone is where CONTROL Resonant stops playing nice. Reality folds in on itself here: streets run vertically, buildings bleed into each other, and the whole area feels like someone dropped Manhattan into a blender. Getting through it properly requires the Gravity Shift ability, which lets Dylan walk across walls and ceilings to reach places that would otherwise be completely inaccessible. Here's exactly how to unlock it through The Incursion Fault main story mission.
How to start The Incursion Fault
The Incursion Fault is part of the Search for Jesse questline, and it kicks off once you enter the West Incursion Zone and push toward the Parking Garage in the northwest corner of the region. You'll spot spectral visions of Jesse along the way, which act as loose breadcrumbs pointing you in the right direction.
The problem you'll hit almost immediately: a road curving upward at a fully vertical angle, with no way to traverse it yet. There's an elevator nearby that bypasses this wall, but it needs power first.
How to power up the elevator
To restore the elevator, you need to head into the House of Mirrors next to the road. The process mirrors (no pun intended) what you did during the Welcome to Manhattan quest at the Central Checkpoint:
- Find the charged fuel cell inside the House of Mirrors.
- Use Dylan's Aberrant ability to strike it and carry the charge.
- Bring the charge to the elevator and strike the battery housing next to it.
- Once the elevator activates, ride it to the top of the vertical road and drop off at the Parking Garage entrance.
Control Resonant Guide: How to Get the Gravity Shift Ability
Where to find the Parking Garage key
Reaching the Parking Garage entrance only gets you so far. The door is locked, and a note left near the entrance explains why: the security guard stepped out to the laundromat to dry his gear. The location, Wear'Em & Wash'Em, gets marked on your map automatically after you read the note.
The laundromat's front doors are locked from the inside, so the front entrance is a dead end. Here's the actual route in:
- Head into the alleyway to the right of the building.
- Use the Elevate ability to float over the patches of Hiss goo on the ground. Walking through it deals damage, so don't skip this step.
- Follow the alley around to the back of the building and enter through the unlocked rear doors.
Inside, you'll find the security guard. He's under the influence of the Hiss at this point, so the interaction is grim but brief. Grab the key from him and head back to the Parking Garage.
How to get the Shift ability
With the key in hand, unlock the Parking Garage doors and take the interior elevator up to the rooftop parking lot. What you find up there is one of the more disorienting setpieces in the game: a massive pit made of warped, twisted parking lanes spiraling downward.
The descent into the parking pit
Jump directly into the pit and aim for the very bottom. There's no fall damage to worry about here since this is a scripted sequence, so don't hesitate. Once you land at the bottom, look across the gap and you'll see a glowing CRT TV.
Interacting with the TV triggers the transition to the Astral Plane, where Dylan meets Jesse. Follow the linear path through the plane and interact with Jesse to receive the Shift ability. A short tutorial section follows before Dylan gets teleported back to the warped Parking Garage.
Control Resonant Guide: How to Get the Gravity Shift Ability
How to escape the Parking Garage after unlocking Shift
Once you're back in the warped garage, the exit isn't obvious. The key is to follow the exit signs posted on the walls and ground as you use Shift to walk up the twisting roadways. Take your time reading the signs rather than guessing which surface leads out. Getting turned around here is common, but there's hidden loot tucked into some of the dead ends, so exploring a little before committing to the exit path isn't a waste.
Shift ability vs. Reach ability: what's the difference?
Both abilities are unlocked through the same basic loop: reach a Fault zone, find a CRT TV, interact with it in the Astral Plane, and receive the power from Jesse. Shift is the second traversal ability in the sequence and opens up significantly more of the West Incursion Zone once you have it.
For other progression systems worth understanding before you get too deep into the West Incursion Zone, the best Aberrant forms guide breaks down which forms suit different playstyles and which ones hold up in tougher encounters. Picking the right form early saves a lot of backtracking.
If you're working through related side content in the same area, the Crossing the Threshold quest walkthrough covers another mission that rewards useful gear, including the Sensory Restraint Hood and an Artifact Recipe.
For everything else across the game's systems and story missions, the full CONTROL Resonant strategy guides collection has you covered.