The Surge 2 Review
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Introduction
The Surge 2 is a challenging action-RPG sequel developed by Deck13 and published by Focus Home Interactive. Standing on the shoulders of FromSoftware's Dark Souls series, The Surge 2 does its best to carve out its own niche within the Souls-like sub-genre of action-RPGs, and in my opinion, it succeeds at doing so. And if you'd like to know why, you should keep reading.
The Aftermath of Utopia
The original The Surge ends with Warren, the game's protagonist, sabotaging the launch of a Project Utopia rocket but failing to stop it completely. As a result, instead of wiping out the majority of life on Earth, the rocket crashes inside Jericho City and leaves behind an ominous-looking cloud of self-aware nanites and a deadly Defrag disease that no one knows what to do with. And it just so happens that the plane carrying our new custom protagonist to Jericho City collides with that rocket and conveniently sets The Surge 2's events into motion.
Which means that this time around we get to create our own characters. This includes choosing the character's background that serves as their origin story. These backgrounds are mostly cosmetic, but they do open up some unique dialogue options here and there.
The plane crash takes our character out of commission for a few months and when they regain consciousness in a prison hospital, the city is surrounded by a wall and overrun by looters, cultists, opportunistic mercs, and various nanite-based lifeforms. The game will then task you with busting out of prison and finding a mysterious little girl who may or may not hold the key to Jericho City's nanite problems. While looking for the girl you'll get to explore Jericho City and its various districts and that's pretty much all the main story is good for - getting you from point A to point B. Naturally, there are some twists and sudden revelations there, but it's all quite forgettable.
However, during the final act the story takes a bit of a turn and becomes quite engaging. Without going into too much detail, you basically get to pursue a certain unstoppable character all across Jericho City and witness the wake of destruction he leaves in his path. In a way, this reminded me of Diablo II's story but much more zoomed in. Still, it's just a minor part of The Surge 2 and by the time you get there, chances are you've already checked out and don't care about anything that happens in the story.
And while the main story may be forgettable, when it comes to side content, The Surge 2 elevates the genre to a new level. You see, as opposed to something like Dark Souls, The Surge 2 is structured like a proper RPG with real quests and even a journal. No longer do you have to follow cryptic clues and perform minor tasks for NPCs without knowing whether what you're doing is a quest or just a waste of time.
The quests are varied and range from simple tasks, like obtaining a particular armor set, to the one where you storm a cultist compound together with a washed up actor wearing the armor of the series' mascot, Iron Maus, and yelling cheesy one-liners at you. These quests offer you a certain degree of freedom with how you tackle them, and while none of them are particularly intricate or groundbreaking, by action-RPG standards they can be considered quite exceptional.
Even the seemingly mindless armor fetch quests aren't there to give you some busy work. Instead they serve as a nudge in a particular direction and an indicator that maybe those enemies that seemed unbeatable earlier, yeah, you are now strong enough to fight them and get their stuff. Pair that with the fact that NPCs actually react to your actions throughout the game, and you start realizing that there might be more to The Surge 2 than it initially appears.
For whatever reason when a studio other than FromSoftware attempts to create a Dark Souls-style game, they always seem perfectly fine with just making Dark Souls, but worse. Dark Souls has challenging combat? We'll have challenging combat. Dark Souls has a gloomy atmosphere? We'll have that as well. Dark Souls has a story that's intentionally difficult to understand? Well our story is so obtuse even we don't know what half of it means!
The Surge 2 moves away from that and attempts to create its own identity and offer some unique twists on the formula instead of just being content with a trite pastiche that has no chance of ever surpassing the original.
The game is set in a city that just months ago was bustling with life. As a result, you get bright colors, varied urban environments and plentiful signs of life. Most of the enemies you're facing are actual people. Their moral fiber may be questionable, but they're no mindless zombies. They chat with one another, they sometimes mock you, and they have their own plans for Jericho City.
Once in a while, if you're careful, you can even sneak up on your enemies and listen in on their conversations. Then, during a particular section of the game, you can activate some holographic projectors and use them to distract your enemies and avoid fighting them altogether. These moments are few and far between in The Surge 2 but they do exist.
And if we ever see The Surge 3, I really hope the developers keep moving in this direction. Add more quest reactivity, create dynamic faction interactions instead of scripted ones, offer more branching quests. Keep the combat system, maybe tweak it a little, but move the game closer to something like Deus Ex. Now that would be a sight to behold. Still, even in its current iteration, The Surge 2 isn't a game you should skip if you're a fan of Dark Souls and are interested in playing something similar but at the same time unique.
It's the Journey not the Destination
While the story in The Surge 2 isn't exactly its strongest suit, it does a decent job of enabling exploration, and that's where the main meat of the game lies. Jericho City is separated into several distinct interconnected districts, and each of those can offer hours of engaging content. You'll be traversing the downtown areas, exploring a power plant turned into a church by a bunch of cultists, dealing with backstabbing hunters in a grassy park area, and exploring the dark tunnels running underneath the city.
Each of these areas can be considered a master class of level design. The Surge already had great levels that offered countless side passages, shortcuts, and secrets, and The Surge 2 ups the ante by introducing even more variety, verticality and large open spaces into the mix. And if that wasn't enough, it also features some “metroidvania” elements. What this means is, initially certain paths are unavailable to you, but as you progress through the game you get access to new traversal tools, which you can then use to explore those previously unavailable areas.
The game does a very good job of seeming larger than it actually is. During the first few hours, it really feels like you can just pick a direction and go. You will invariably find new stuff, new challenges, and new story threads.
As you explore, you will encounter numerous NPCs, and contrary to what you might expect from a Dark Souls-style game, these aren't all traumatized warriors on the brink of insanity. The Surge 2's NPCs tend to be colorful, memorable, and covered in cheese. Maybe it's just my sense of humor, but I couldn't help but chuckle when a shady back alley doctor proudly proclaimed that he swears the hypocritical oath every day in a thick Russian accent.
You also get to meet some of the characters from the first game and learn more about them. And in general, The Surge 2 continues to build up this dystopian world where apocalyptic dangers go side by side with a healthy dose of gallows humor. The game's setting wouldn't be out of place in some 1980's action movie. What started off as just a single somewhat boring futuristic factory is at this point a full blown sci-fi world with its own lore, quirks, and identity that asks its audience such tough and thought-provoking questions like “are you a man or a mouse?” And I wouldn't have it any other way.
The Surge 2 also introduces countless quality of life improvements that make the overall gameplay experience much more enjoyable. It's hard to list every single one of these improvements, but think of everything that annoyed you while you were playing the first game and chances are, The Surge 2 fixed it. The UI is much clearer and you can actually see your active implants. You can disassemble high-level upgrade materials and use them to upgrade your low-level equipment instead of farming early enemies for no good reason. The list goes on.
And just to top things off, the game offers at least two endings and the New Game+ mode that provides new challenges and surprises for those of you who can't get enough of The Surge 2.
Augmented Systems
Just like in The Surge, Tech Scrap serves as your main currency in The Surge 2. You use it to buy items, upgrade them, and increase your Core Power. The latter acts as your level and determines how much gear and implants you can equip at any given time. As a new spin on this system, each time you level up, you now get two attribute points you can put into your Health, Stamina, and Energy stats. The first two are pretty self-explanatory, while Energy is a bit trickier.
As you attack your foes, you build up your Energy meter. You can then spend your Energy to perform finishing moves or to use your implants, including the ones that heal you. You can also bank some Energy for later use, which creates a system where as long as you keep attacking without getting hit too much in return, you will never run out of healing supplies. This allows for more uninterrupted exploration and improves the overall pace of the game.
The combat system still focuses on methodical stamina-based melee fights, but you can now move while blocking and it won't continuously drain your stamina. On top of it, there's also the directional parry system that allows you to pair your blocks together with directional inputs and if you do it right, such a parry staggers your opponents and increases the damage of your next attack.
Some stronger foes, including bosses, have shield indicators near their health bars, meaning you will have to parry them several times before you get an opening. This adds a certain rhythmic quality to the game's combat. Pulling off a successful directional parry chain against a boss feels incredibly satisfying. But the best part is, if you don't like to play defensively, you can ignore this system altogether and instead rely on dodging and hit and run tactics.
Speaking of bosses. It's not at all a controversial statement to say that The Surge had weak boss design. But the second game, while still not reaching the heights of some of the better FromSoftware fights, is much better in that department. There's way more bosses in The Surge 2, they offer a higher degree of challenge and feel more memorable overall.
Still, the game's main focus when it comes to combat are not the bosses, but the regular enemies you fight while exploring the levels. And those are much more varied in The Surge 2. The game features several factions, each with its own unique flavor, be it deployable turrets and electrical weapons, or heavy armor and energy shields. Some of the enemies are armed with projectile weapons and they aren't afraid to use you for target practice.
And if you feel that it's not fair that your enemies get to shoot you while you clobber their friends, at least you still have your drone, and in The Surge 2, your drone is a force to be reckoned with. The game features plenty of satisfying encounters where you're trying to outmaneuver a couple of foes and chain your combos together without getting hit, while simultaneously sniping turrets and ranged enemies with your drone. Alternatively, some rare limited-use drone modules allow you to just carpet a particularly annoying room with bombs and be on your merry way.
To let you truly appreciate all that, the developers have tightened their combat animations, so now everything looks even smoother than before. The weaker enemies now struggle to lift their weapons, while the tough and experienced fighters will try to trick you and change their attack direction mid-swing. The one big exception to this are the finisher animations. With a more open and vertical level design, there are now too many ledges and staircases, and as a result, enemies tend to fall into all sorts of pits while you're locked in an animation with them, which oftentimes results in some minor visual glitches.
And of course you use those finishers fairly frequently in order to get new gear. Use a finisher on an arm, and the weapon it's holding is yours. Chop off a head, and suddenly you've got yourself a cool new hat. This is The Surge way.
The armor system is deeper this time around, since each armor set now offers both full and partial bonuses. These bonuses can shape your playstyle in a major way and you can freely mix and match them.
And let's not forget about implants. Most of them are passive and act as the bulk of your character customization. Thanks to them you can create a character who's good at blocking, one good at tanking hits, or one with a nearly infinite Energy supply. The choice is yours. Then, there are the active implants. You use them to activate various combat bonuses and heal your character.
When it comes to weapons, The Surge 2 features a few new weapon types (think spears and punching gloves), and each weapon now has a deeper attack pool. Unfortunately, it feels like all weapons within a group now have the exact same move set. At least this time around there's no weapon proficiency, so during my playthrough I liked to constantly switch weapons. This kept things fresh and enjoyable, but I would've much preferred it if the game had weapons with unique move sets that altered the flow of combat.
Overall, though, the combat system is solid and is a noticeable improvement over the first game.
Technical Information
When it comes to visuals, The Surge 2 somehow manages to look worse than its predecessor. Sure, everything is more detailed and the areas are larger and more open, but at the same time, it all looks too slick now. The game seems to have lost a bit of its bulky industrial charm.
The game also has some performance issues. I had to tinker with the options menu to find an acceptable combination of settings, but even then, one of the areas, the grassy park one, still regularly dropped my frames below what I consider comfortable. At least the game didn't take too long to load.
Despite its spotty performance, the game was mostly stable and didn't crash on me once. At the same time, I did encounter some minor bugs, mostly related to side quests. I failed one quest and then was reminded of this fact every time I entered a new area, and another one I completed and got my reward, but the quest then duplicated itself and kept sitting in my quest log. The game also froze every time I tried to quit it.
Finally, it's important to note that the game features some limited multiplayer capabilities. You won't get to team up with or fight other players, but you can leave pictogram-based messages on the ground, warning others about upcoming ambushes and secrets. You can also use a certain drone module to leave a holographic image of yourself in a hard to reach spot. The less people find it within an hour, the more Tech Scrap you get. It may sound simple, but I had a lot of fun with this game of hide and seek during my playthrough.
Another multiplayer feature are the so-called Revenge Enemies. When another player gets killed by a particular enemy, that enemy becomes stronger in your game and if you kill it, you get bonus loot.
Conclusion
All in all, The Surge 2 is the perfect sequel. It's bigger and better than its predecessor in pretty much every respect. Some technical issues bring it down a bit, but I'm confident Deck13 will deal with these issues in a timely fashion.
With no real multiplayer and a lacking move set variety, the game doesn't have the longevity of something like Dark Souls, but if you're not looking for a game to sink a thousand hours into, then as far as I'm concerned The Surge 2 is the best Dark Souls-style game currently on the market and the only Dark Souls-style game that tries to push the genre forward.
