THE SURGE 2

We’d surge you not to overlook this sequel

Rather than feeling like a bolted-on sequel, our first look at The Surge 2 in action reveals it is a genuinely meaty upgrade to Deck13’s mech-styled take on the Soulslike genre. And it’s a comparison the firm’s head of game design, Adam Hetenyi, has no problem with: “I totally consider [Soulslike] a genre, but that we’ve carved out our own identity in the genre.”

Moving away from the first game’s bleak CREO factory and Warren’s struggles there has given Deck13 ample room to return to The Surge’s blueprints and make some changes to how this sequel will fit together. Set two months after the first game, it continues to follow the fallout, but this time within the quarantined Jericho City where things aren’t going too well.

The design of the city leads to a more expansive, more open design that has you taking your now-custom characters through a mixture of environments. It’s a city where the wealthy have been using their technology to repress the downtrodden poorer classes. The demo we take a look at is set in a synthetic “natural park”. Exploring out-of-the-way routes not only yields items, but also audio logs that tell you more about the city before the fall.

GET WRECKED

A ruined city might not be original, but it’s a welcome change from the much more drab setting of the first game. Changes to the action also further make it stand apart from the pack. Deck13 is doing this by “playing up our body part targeting, and the way you make yourself stronger, and interact with the world”.

Tactical mech destruction adds a unique strategic edge to combat that The Surge 2 can call its own. The ten weapons (double the first game’s five) can transform between different states. “[We’re] really just trying to build up everything from before and give players more and more ways to customise their own gameplay,” says Hetenyi. “The more that we do this, the more we expand in our own direction and continue to build on our own take on the genre.”

“TACTICAL MECH DESTRUCTION ADDS A UNIQUE STRATEGIC EDGE TO COMBAT.”

Collect blueprints to customise your character beyond visuals to get the edge on enemies.

Above Jericho City gives your character lots of reasons to explore, such as hidden secrets like customisation blueprints.