Back in 2017 The Surge offered a surprisingly solid sci-fi take on the Action-RPG Souls-genre. Developer Deck13 are back this year in an attempt to improve on those strong foundations of the original title. Whilst fans of the previous game will likely still enjoy The Surge 2, this sequel sadly doesn’t improve anywhere near as much as it should.

The Surge 2 takes place after the events of the original game. This time around you play as a player-created protagonist, as opposed to Warren from the original. The character creator, whilst basic, features numerous options for customising the appearance of your character. Set in a dystopian depiction of Earth, you’re an escaped convict who finds themselves trying to piece together their memory, in the dangerous streets of Jericho City.

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Whilst the game’s setting features more variety than the original, the majority of those maze-like areas unfortunately remain a little grey and drab. From the post-apocalyptic streets to bleak sewers – glamorous locales in The Surge 2 are few and far between. Thankfully some of the game’s locations do pick up somewhat in the latter half, particularly the game’s forest zone, but it’s a shame more variety wasn’t spread throughout.

The Surge 2’s combat picks up where the original left off – a fairly gratifying take on the Souls-like genre. Body part targeting makes an excellent return, allowing players to target different areas of enemies, based on which body parts are weaker or more armoured than others. Just like the Souls games, stamina plays a huge role, with each hefty attack swinging in deliberate fashion.

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Players can dismember specific body parts from enemies after attacking them enough, which in turn provides a chance that the enemy will drop what they’re wielding. Whether it’s targeting a specific arm holding a weapon you’re interested in, or a piece of head armour. It was one of the stand-out areas of The Surge 1’s combat, and remains so here – the allure of gaining new items creates an interesting balance between playing greedy or smart.

Developer Deck13 try to spice things up a little this time around, adding a directional block and parry mechanic into the game’s combat mix. Despite trying to get a hang of it time and time again, I found the mechanic to instead be utterly infuriating. There’s numerous bosses and enemies in the game which seem designed around parrying, however the mechanic is simply not refined enough to justify it.

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An essential mod allows you to see the direction of an enemy’s attack, however each enemy will attack at varying speeds aimed to throw you off. The timing window of said parry is far too small and inconsistent, leading to incredible frustration instead. What doesn’t help matters is that the game punishes you significantly for a failed parry, either through a stamina depleting half-block or simply not blocking the attack at all. I bashed my head against this combat wall attempting to learn the timing window and instead came away with the decision that dodging and avoiding attacks was a far more reliable way of mitigating damage instead. It’s a real disappointment.

Thankfully the combat itself is still fairly satisfying. The slow-motion dismember finishers never got old, and when everything’s going your way the combat can feel like a blast. There’s a much greater weapon variety here too, with plenty of tools at your disposal from slower heavier two-handed objects to wide reaching staffs and dual-wielding blades.

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As you achieve successful hits your battery gauge builds. Filling up charges on the bar allows you to either spend these on instant heals or store a limited number for later. It’s a system which encourages aggressive play, given that your energy will deplete over time, and one which I found to be a smart way to handle healing. Another new addition is that upon death you’ll now leave behind a regenerative healing beacon of scrap. In standard Souls-like fashion if killed you’ll drop any held scrap (XP currency) at your area of death – however this time around that scrap now gives off a convenient healing aura. It provides a slight helping hand for tackling tough fights a second time around (or third…fourth…fifth).

The handy drone is new addition to The Surge 2 – providing the player with a form of ranged attack. The drone can be upgraded with various weapons and tools throughout the game, including the ability to drop automated turrets, mines, stun or simply shoot enemies from afar. Whilst I did find it to come in handy plenty of times, the drone feels like more of a power-up than a reliable weapon, due to its limited ammunition. Said ammunition also doesn’t return upon death, so after narrowly scraping through a tough fight only to fall to a cheap death minutes later, means you’ll be without the help of your drone companion when approaching that tough combat scenario a second time around – a situation I found myself in far too often. This is exacerbated by numerous irritating enemies having seemingly infinite ranged ammunition to chip away at you from afar.

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Said irritating enemies are something I encountered way too often for my liking in The Surge 2. There’s just far too many frustratingly designed combat scenarios which really dampened my enjoyment of the game. The game’s combat is at its best when fighting a single enemy, simply by design. However, there’s plenty of moments where the developers throw 3-4 enemies at you at one time leading to plenty of infuriatingly cheap feeling deaths from fights where I felt like I was battling the mechanics more than the AI. It’s these constant difficulty spikes which just end up feeling downright annoying rather than satisfying.

The game’s progression doesn’t help this situation much either. You can spend scrap at any med-bays (save points) throughout the game world to level up. After levelling up you gain a couple of points to distribute into health, stamina or battery power. Whilst I did notice the slow crawl of improved stats, the game’s enemies pretty much feel like they’re scaling up 1:1 with you. New armour pieces offers numerous bonuses which look appealing on paper, but rarely result in a tangible benefit (outside of set bonuses). As a result you seldom feel powerful, unless returning to old areas. Enemies will hit harder at the same rate you improve your health and gear – it’s a never ending statistical stalemate.

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I did however appreciate the myriad of options provided by the game. From the ability to disable motion blur and chromatic aberration, to altering controls, adjusting how often you see the game’s slow motion finishers and even the ability to select from a higher resolution 30fps mode vs a higher framerate lower 1080p resolution mode on the enhanced consoles.

There’s other smart new changes too, such as the ability to converse with various NPCs throughout the world – not just providing more context to the game’s lore, but you’ll also encounter a range of vendors and quest givers. Sadly there’s no easy map system to view or track quest areas of interest to help you navigate the game’s maze-like environments. Instead dotted around the environment are viewable maps within the game world, often leading to more confusion than they aid.

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Despite numerous improvements from its predecessor, sadly there’s many areas of the game which oddly enough feel like a step backwards from the original. So much so in fact that I ended up firing up the original game to check my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me. I started a fresh new game on The Surge 1 and was actually blown away by how visually (at least on an Xbox One X) the original game feels like a step-up over the second. The lighting is notably superior when placed side-by-side with the sequel’s flat appearance. Not only that but the original title has far more personality and character to it, when compared to The Surge 2’s distinct lack of any strong characters and barely existent story. I even felt during combat the original had more weight and impact to your attacks than the second. What originally started out as a thought of my memories playing tricks on me, ended up blowing me away how striking the difference was.

It doesn’t help matters too that I encountered a range of bugs during my extensive time with the game. From minor visual quirks such as NPC character’s hairlines seemingly wobbling constantly (seriously, what’s with this?), regular framerate drops and screen tear, to more frustrating issues which resulted in unnecessary deaths – such as grav lifts not functioning and instead allowing my character to fall to their death. At one point during the game after dying in combat, my character still seemed to exist in an invisible form. During this form I was still able to attack enemies, who struggled to hit me. This major bug seemed like a gift from the gaming gods, after an extended period of struggling with a seriously tough boss. Given the timing of the issue only a few corridors away from said boss, I wandered into the boss’ combat arena and battled using my new-found half invulnerable form to see what happened. After slaying the boss my character was unable to open the doors necessary to leave the area, but thankfully the game had saved the progress regardless. Boss successfully defeated, finally!

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Despite a fairly extensive list of issues with the game, The Surge 2 is still a decent attempt at the Souls-like formula. Big fans of the original will undoubtedly appreciate the numerous advancements and improvements to variety. The original felt like a breath of fresh air at the time of release, a surprisingly strong title. The Surge 2 however feels like a game with a grander scope stretched across a budget that was unfortunately far too thin to support it – the result is an inconsistent experience that goes from feeling great one moment to infuriating at the drop of a hat.

If you loved The Surge 1, it’s likely you’ll feel just as strongly about the sequel. Go buy it, and enjoy it! The combat is still good fun and the improvements to weapon and environmental variety are sure to please many. If, like me though, you were hoping for more of a step-up over the original, you’ll likely feel a little disappointed. The Surge 2 has far too many frustrating mechanics, difficulty spikes and niggling issues which begin to add up over time. Deck13 are onto something here, but this simply doesn’t feel they’re there yet.

REVIEW OVERVIEW
Overall Score
VIAGame provided by publisher for review
Charles is the editor of Gaming LYF. Self proclaimed industry news addict, currently researching ways to feed Twitter, Reddit and other news sources straight into his veins.
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