Worse still, some of these upgrade trees – especially the armour improvement – remained a mystery to me for many, many hours. Sometimes I could upgrade a bit of kit, other times I couldn’t, and I was never entirely sure what component I was missing to do so. With each arm, leg, chest or head piece attached, a variety of effects impact your player in ways that you won’t immediately recognize but will effect you in the long run, especially as they stack with other bits of armour. Certain builds seemed too slow or clumsy to ever be used properly. Overall, the readability of the game’s progress is what hampered my enjoyment of the title the most, and that’s a real shame considering how fun everything is here when it comes to gameplay.
Pushing your luck, resisting the urge to scurry back to your latest safe room and instead delve deeper into the Surge’s labrinthine bowels – all of which are far more varied and memorable than the one-note design the original enjoyed – is where The Surge 2 truly shines, especially if you have a build you feel comfortable with and an area that suits your character level. Alternating between a barrage of distant fire from your drone and up-close-and-personal attacks zeroed in on a specific bodypart is great fun, especially as you juggle the ebb and flow of your battery, using it on healing or limb chopping as the moment sees fit.
Presentation:
The Surge 2 isn’t going to win any beauty contests. It’s a rough-and-ready sort of game, with a rough-and-ready sort of look, and feels just as cobbled together as its patchwork assortment of bad guys. Indeed, the visuals have a scrapbook-feel to them, never locking down a particular style. Texture pop-in remained an ugly nuisance throughout, and overall I was never left particularly impressed at what was on screen.
The audio is similarly mish-mash. Voice actors feel B-list at best, the music is forgettable and the sound effects are a little clumsy and blunt. Nothing in the presentation sells the Surge 2 as a polished game, and that’s a let down, considering how great it feels to play.
Conclusion:
The Surge 2 is a confident step forward for developer Deck13. It’s the best game of theirs I’ve played to date, and I continued to have fun throughout its entire campaign. There are certainly rough edges here, but any fan of Soulslike games should give this one a go: it’s a solid entry in a genre that doesn’t enjoy enough iteration or genuine innovation, and the Surge’s hectic, limb-chopping systems work wonders in reinvigorating a style I’ve become overly accustomed to. I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s next from these guys.
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