Power upgrades are the scarcest permanent resource in Control Resonant. Each one you miss means one less combat ability you can fire before waiting for recharge. The West Incursion Zone holds exactly 4 of these upgrades, and you should collect all of them before you defeat the zone’s Resonant boss. The enemy scaling that follows a Resonant cycle makes the same routes 2-3 times more dangerous, and the power these upgrades grant is most valuable when you need it most — during those early fights where one more ability cast determines whether you survive.
The Case for Grabbing Them Early
Every 3 power upgrade points you collect increase Dylan’s power bar by one segment. More power means more combat abilities per fight. It means you can stack Ignite and a summon simultaneously. It means you can shield bash through a crowd and still have energy left for a finisher.
The power upgrade you collect at level 5 grants you one extra ability cast per fight for the next 5-10 hours of gameplay.
The West Incursion Zone enemies start at level 4-5 before any Resonant cycle. After you defeat the zone’s Resonant, they jump to level 7-8 and gain new attack patterns. The same jump that takes 3 seconds to land becomes a death sentence when a level 8 Hiss Elevated is shooting at you mid-air. Collecting the upgrades first turns those same jumps into routine traversal.
Location 1: The Parking Garage Vault Reward
This is the most straightforward power upgrade in the zone — and the one most players grab first since it’s tied to the dimensional fault quest.
How to find it: Head to the large parking garage in the northern section of West Incursion Zone. You’ll see the giant image of Jesse projected on the structure, which marks the dimensional fault entrance. Climb to the top of the parking garage, then drop through the large hole in the center. Complete the Incursion Fault side quest.
The reward: The Gravity Shift traversal ability is the main prize, but the power upgrade sits in a chest at the quest’s endpoint — a small room at the bottom of the garage that only opens after you complete the gravity sequence. You cannot miss it if you finish the fault. Collecting this upgrade brings your total to 1 of 3 needed for the first power increase.
Location 2: The Vendor-Adjacent Chest
Every zone vendor in Control Resonant has a health upgrade next to the truck. Fewer players know that a power upgrade also spawns nearby — just not right next to the truck.
How to find it: Locate the ice cream truck vendor in West Incursion Zone. Instead of checking right next to the truck, look across the street and up. There’s a second-floor balcony accessible by jumping from a nearby dumpster, then double-jumping and gliding onto the railing. The chest sits in the corner of this balcony, partially hidden behind a ventilation unit.
The catch: This chest won’t appear on your map until you’re within about 20 meters of it. Zone leveling up can reveal large resource crates, but this particular power upgrade crate does not get marked. You have to find it manually or remember where it spawns.
Location 3: The Underground Testing Facility
The FBC testing facilities in each zone reward a power upgrade upon completion. West Incursion Zone’s facility is the least intuitive to enter.
How to find the entrance: The map marker for this facility appears on the east side of the zone, near the zone border with Central. But the actual entrance is a manhole cover on the south side — roughly 200 meters from where the map icon sits. You need to walk the street in the southern area until you see a prompt to open a sewer grate. Drop down, then follow the tunnel system.
The puzzle: Inside, you’ll find a terminal asking three questions. The answers are found on whiteboards in the same room. The questions rotate, so I can’t give you a fixed answer set. Read the boards before interacting with the terminal.
The reward: A chest with one power upgrade point spawns in the observation room after you answer correctly.
Location 4: The Rooftop Time Trial
This is the power upgrade most players miss entirely, because it requires precise platforming and the Gravity Shift ability you just got from Location 1.
How to find it: From the parking garage where you got Gravity Shift, look southwest. You’ll see a series of floating platforms that follow a spiral pattern upward. Use Gravity Shift to walk up the first wall, then chain double-jumps and dashes between the floating debris.
The challenge: A Hiss Elevated patrols the top platform. Kill it before opening the chest — its projectiles can knock you off the building, and fall damage at this elevation is lethal. The chest contains the fourth power upgrade.
Timing note: This platforming route only works cleanly if you have the reach ability from the Evacuation Zone vault. Without it, you need to use Gravity Shift and precise dashes, which is doable but costs more attempts. Still worth doing before the Resonant cycle, because those floating platforms become landing zones for ranged enemies after the difficulty scales.
Counterargument: Why Not Just Come Back Later?
Some players argue that returning to West Incursion Zone after leveling up in other areas makes these power upgrades easier to grab. By the time you’ve cleared Central and Evacuation Zone, your aberrant strength is higher, you have more health, and enemies that once threatened you are now manageable.
Here is why that logic fails: The power upgrade you collect at level 5 grants you one extra ability cast per fight for the next 5-10 hours of gameplay. The power upgrade you collect at level 15 grants you one extra ability cast per fight for the next 2-3 hours. The value of these upgrades depreciates the longer you wait because you are spending the most resource-starved portion of the game without them. The first three Resonant boss fights become noticeably harder without the extra power bar. That bottleneck is precisely where most players quit or turn on assist mode. Collecting all 4 upgrades before the West Incursion Resonant cycle removes that bottleneck entirely.
Using Power Upgrades Across Zones
The West Incursion Zone power upgrades combine with the 3 you can find in Central and the 2 in Evacuation Zone to give you two full extra power bars before you fight your second Resonant. That changes the combat math: you can cast a summon, trigger Ignite, and still have enough power for a shield dash without ever touching a basic attack. That loadout clears the Factory Resident fight in under 2 minutes. Without the extra bars, you are doing the same fight with one ability per 20-second recharge cycle.
- Where is the first power upgrade in the West Incursion Zone?The first power upgrade is in the parking garage vault reward, tied to the dimensional fault quest.
- Why should you collect power upgrades before the Resonant boss?Because enemy scaling after the Resonant cycle makes the same routes 2 to 3 times more dangerous.
- How many power upgrades are in the West Incursion Zone?There are exactly 4 power upgrades in the West Incursion Zone.
