How To Beat The Collective In Control Resonant

Published Sep 22, 2026, 10:55 AM EDT Collin is a Guides Staff Writer at TheGamer who has been writing guides for nearly ten years. He is also a professional game/level designer. More importantly, he's still waiting for a new Ape Escape game to release. Control Resonant is filled with all types of paranatural enemies that want to make you past tense. From the twisted, unnerving Hiss to the tenacious Mold, it's easy to get beaten down or overwhelmed. Some of the toughest foes are the Resonants, unique bosses that will reward you with a Combat Ability upon their death. One of the easiest is The Collective, as this is less a straight-up boss battle and more a traditional fight with a horde of Mold enemies. If you're struggling with this Resonant, here is how to beat The Collective and what you get for your effort. How To Beat The Collective Before we go into this boss fight, I strongly recommend that you defeat the Central Resonant first. This will provide you with the Ignite ability, which is key to really outputting a ton of damage in this boss fight. Additionally, you'll want to be at least Aberrant Strength 65 for this fight. This will ensure you have enough power to defeat the boss. For this boss fight, you will need to deal with not only The Collective itself, but also all the additional minions it brings with it to fight you. When the battle begins, head to either the left or right side of the room. Use Gravity Anomaly to turn either wall into the floor and run at the large tentacle. Use Ignite to set your weapon aflame and start attacking the tentacle until its health bar is depleted. This enemy can only use two attacks, with the first being a slow wind-up body slam and the second being just spewing a stream of projectiles at you. Additionally, The Collective will spawn a few Mold enemies to support it. After you've defeated the tentacle, get rid of the reinforcements, as they can be a hassle if you don't deal with them as they appear. With the first tentacle down, go to the other wall and repeat the same process above. Make sure to use the Reach ability at the grapple points to quickly navigate across the room. Upon defeating the second tentacle, the boss will flood the walls with toxic mold, and standing on it will poison you. Quickly get back on the floor and approach the massive amalgamation of heads at the end of the room. The lower heads will have discolored, bulbous orbs protruding from their mouths. Target one of these and keep attacking it until the orb explodes. This will deal some damage to the boss, and it will cover the rest of the weak points. Run back to the middle of the arena as The Collective will spew more poison fumes around it and summon another group of enemies. Defeat all the enemies and make sure to avoid the boss's ranged attacks since they can build up poison on you if you're hit. When this wave of foes has been killed, run back to the boss and destroy another exposed orb. Remember, if you ever become infected with the poison, activating your Ignite will instantly cleanse it! The Collective will then spawn three more tentacles (one on each wall and the ceiling), so work your way around the room killing them. Nothing will change from the previous phase; just focus on destroying the tentacles and Mold reinforcements before moving to the next wall. I recommend starting on a wall, then going to the ceiling, and finishing by killing the tentacle on the last wall. This will ensure you don't have a lot of room to run when The Collective poisons the walls. Once you're on the ground, head over to The Collective's head and attack the next exposed weak spot. When it's destroyed, back up, ignite your weapon, and get ready to fight two tentacles right in front of it. Focus on one tentacle at a time; that way you can reduce the amount of projectiles being shot at you while fighting the boss. There will be no additional Mold enemies during this section, so just focus solely on the tentacles and avoid the head's ranged attack. After both tentacles have been destroyed, the last weak point will be exposed. Destroying this will stun the boss and let you perform an Execution, finishing the battle. Upon killing The Collective, you will gain access to either the Growth or Spore Burst ability. The former lets you summon a Mold turret that autonomously attacks enemies and builds up the Infected status effect. The latter gives Dylan the ability to fire those projectiles at a fast speed at enemies in front of him. You'll also unlock the Face Mask artifact, which reduces Infected buildup from Mold enemies.