Control Resonant Subway Vault: Reach Ability Unlock

The Subway Vault quest is the only way to get the Reach traversal ability in Control Resonant. You unlock it by completing a side quest in the Evacuation Zone. The short version: head to the rail yard street station, fight through a level 4 building, complete the vault, and you can grapple to spatial anomalies across Manhattan.

But the walkthroughs you’ve seen skip the things that actually matter for this specific fight. Here’s what you need to know before you step into that station.

This single ability unlocks access to about 40% of the map's hidden crates, health upgrades, and vendor trucks that you'd otherwise have to climb to manually.

Why Reach Changes Your Movement Entirely

Reach lets you zip to those translucent orbs you’ve seen everywhere. It’s not just for exploration — it resets your air dash when you land on a grapple point, extends combos, and lets you escape encirclements instantly. This single ability unlocks access to about 40% of the map’s hidden crates, health upgrades, and vendor trucks that you’d otherwise have to climb to manually. Get it early, and you save yourself hours of backtracking.

Preparation Before the Quest

The enemies in the Subway Vault building start at level 4. If you’ve already taken down a resonant boss, they may be level 5. That skull next to their health bar isn’t a suggestion — it means you deal roughly 20% less damage and take more. Do not attempt this before you’ve cleared at least one world feat in the Evacuation Zone and bought a health upgrade from the nearby vendor truck.

Crucial tip most guides miss: The vault contains both shielded Hiss and armored enemies. You need at least two damage types. Bring a primary form that does raw damage (strike or glaive) and switch your secondary to crush before entering. Crush’s blunt damage breaks armor in two hits. Without it, you’ll spend three times as long on the armored elite near the vault entrance. Swap weapons mid-combat by opening the loadout and selecting a different secondary — you can do this between waves.

Marvel’s Wolverine Special Techniques Tier List: Why Most Players Build Wrong

WARDOGS: Stop Guessing, Start Building FOBs That Actually

The One Control Resonant Mistake Everyone Makes (And 9 More)

Also, clear your talent points toward Dominance first. The Subway Vault boss fight triggers a damage check. Dominance activates after you fill an enemy’s fault meter and execute them, doubling your primary damage for 8 seconds. That window is how you beat the vault boss without burning all your healing.

Walkthrough: The Non-Obvious Route

Mark the rail yard street station on your map — it’s at the northern edge of the Evacuation Zone. You’ll need to enter through a building adjacent to the station. Do not try to jump over the fence directly; there’s no gap. Enter via the ground-floor door with the lit sign.

Inside, you’ll face three waves of Hiss. The first wave is grunts — ignore them and focus on the shield-bearing elevated Hiss. Use sharp damage (drill secondary works well) to break its shield, then execute it for Dominance. Clean up the grunts while Dominance is active.

The second wave includes an armored elite and two ranged grunts. Switch to crush here. Charge a heavy attack, stagger the elite, then follow with a secondary combo. Once its armor breaks, hit it with your primary’s combo finisher — the uppercut surge launcher is ideal because it lifts the enemy, making it helpless.

The third wave spawns after you open a grated door. Use the reach markers that appear inside the vault to navigate confusing geometry. The vault’s final room is a wide arena with a mid-level boss — a Hiss heavy with a shotgun-style ranged attack. Its weakness: it telegraphs its charge with a red flash. Perfect dodge that, then retaliate with a fully charged crush attack. Rinse and repeat.

Using Reach After You Unlock It

Once you exit the vault, hold left thumbstick toward any spatial anomaly to grapple. Practically, you can chain two grapples before touching the ground. Key edge case: Reach does not work in the Gap or inside safe rooms. It also won’t activate if you’re already sprinting — you must be standing or walking. Stop running, aim at the orb, then grapple.

One final nuance the game doesn’t explain: Reach can grab the floating platforms in the West Incursion Zone’s gravity-shift puzzles. If you’re stuck on a wall-run segment, look for a hidden orb above and to the left. That’s a shortcut that bypasses an entire combat encounter.