The Surge 2, the sequel to 2017’s The Surge, is now available on PC, Xbox One, and PS4. Developed by Deck13 Interative and published by Focus Home Interactive, The Surge 2 takes the design of the first game and expands it significantly while keeping the core the same; the game, which is highly reminiscent of Dark Souls, casts players as the survivor of a mysterious plane crash who must don an exo-skeletal rig and fight their way through a sci-fi cityscape in search of answers.
The Surge 2 Launches Today
While the core gameplay design is reminiscent of the Dark Souls series, The Surge 2 does boast some highly unique mechanics which set it apart. Chief among those is the ability to target enemy body parts and then cut them off. In addition for adding a wide variety of gory finishers to the game, this also serves as a central loot mechanic; in order to acquire most new weapons and armour pieces, players must manually cut them off enemies.
The Surge 2 also features a unique healing mechanic. Where Dark Souls gave players a set number of healing items between save-points, The Surge 2 instead gives players a battery. You build up battery charge while fighting enemies, and can then drain charge in order to activate a partial healing ability. Charge decreases over time, however, meaning that players have to risk death in combat in order to keep healing. Fortunately, players do have the ability to ‘bank’ a small number of healing charges for use at any time.
Reviews released since launch have so far been fairly favourable, with the game’s Metacritic scores currently ranging from 74/100 (PS4) to 87/100 (Xbox One). This matches up with most high-profile review sites, which have generally given it between 7-8/10. You can check out our own example of The Surge 2 early-access gameplay on the VGR YouTube channel below.