The Surge

The Surge

The Surge is an action-RPG that will bring to mind such titles as Dark Souls or Bloodborne, utilizing fluid weapon combos and item creation combined with the fun and added powers of an exoskeleton. If you are a big fan of Souls titles, The Surge might be your next stop.

With some pre-rendered and rather grizzly cutscenes occurring early on, The Surge aims to entertain and surprise with more of an emphasis placed on the environments and combat styles than a strong, overarching story to follow. Having platinum trophies for both Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne, I can tell you that this is by no means a bad thing. The combos are fun and learning enemy movesets quickly is as entertaining as it is addicting. The focus placed on the dystopian world does not have as much attention to detail as Souls titles might, but it was still an impressive landscape to explore.

Story

The story in The Surge involves technological advancements upon the human race, forcing many of the humans to adopt exoskeletons to keep up with their all-mechanical coworkers. Deeply reminiscent of Elysium, Matt Damon’s foray with the exoskeleton combat, Earth has suffered greatly and is a mostly desert location with little to offer what humans remain. While the idea of a scorched Earth crafted by

our own hands is nothing new to gamers and movie-goers alike, it is an appropriate tale for the gameplay, even if its acceptance by our hero is explained away by him simply being in a wheelchair. Dialogue between the hero and others through terminals felt somewhat rushed and out of place, however once again referring to playing Souls titles; we’re not here for the chit-chat. Soon after the wheelchair is replaced by the exoskeleton, you pick up a big stick and get to work on the rampant robots.

Visuals

Having played Uncharted 4 and Horizon on a PS4 Pro hooked up to my 4K TV quite recently, it is difficult for me to say that The Surge is ahead of the curb visually. The graphics are OK, especially considering recent A-list titles and their 4K efforts but it could just have easily been a PS3 game at times with the visual style implemented .. The environments are appropriate, yet restricting enough to keep the game linear and blocked off in the traditional “Souls-esque” fashion. Most of the time I felt like a tiny Optimus Prime battling a variety of robots with a low-tech hammer.

Animation was well done, and many of the robots wind-up attacks were appropriately different so that you could tell the combo they were about to do, while having a few milliseconds to react. Armor and weapons can be crafted with varying rarities and your character changes to match the equipped gear. Some robots can even drop their weapons for you to pick up, and the weapon styles were varied enough to keep the pace and gameplay shifting with the ease of swapping changing what you have in each hand.

Gameplay

Now to the core of the game, and the cause of most of my swear words as of late: gameplay. The Surge starts out difficult and gets harder and harder as you progress. Early mob movesets are easily predicted and avoided, however later into the game they become almost ridiculous in nature relying on some luck in addition to a developed Souls skill set. You can pick one of two classes at the start of the game, Heavy Operator or a Field Technician, obviously the former being very tough and powerful and the latter being a faster but weaker attacker. There aren’t anywhere near as many bosses in the Surge as Souls, but they are big and they are bad, with the first boss or two being simple and later bosses being terrible kings of the arena. I found myself having to take breaks from the game, much as I did with some of Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and coming back later after a calming down period.

Dashing out of the way is a staple in this game as well, although there are seemingly no invulnerable frames (those few frames of animation per second you can use to dodge successfully in Souls games) to utilize. You are also required to target certain parts of the mobs you fight in order to deal optimal damage or sometimes any damage at all, requiring a few extra button presses that seem neat at first and a rather large hindrance later on.

I found the game difficulty ramped up rather quickly for me, feeling as though I had missed a large section of gameplay where I would be introduced slowly to the new features monsters had. The systems within the game for crafting are not explained much at all, and I was left to my own devices to figure out where to go, what to do, and mostly I was even having to invent reasons for my character even doing them. The story was pretty basic, the graphics were also rather bland at times, but the combat complexity and difficulty kept me pretty entertained throughout, at least in-between the periods of rage for overly difficult robot combos.

While the difficulty may seem like a bad thing to have, it is as much a reason not to play these types of games as it is a reason to play these games. If you seek a challenge with a simple story, rather fun combos and some tough bosses, The Surge should be your next stop! Maybe wait for a price drop, though.