Buy The Surge 2

The Surge 2 is set in the future, after a terrifying nanite apocalypse unleashes a swarm of monsters called The Defrag on humanity. You take on the role of a generic nameless man or woman who was a passenger on a doomed plane. You wake up post-crash in a medical facility just in time to find it overrun by monsters. You have to escape and find a way to survive in this dark new reality. Most of the story is told via audio logs or background conversations.

The Surge 2 is — say it together with me because it's the credo of half of the games on the market these days — heavily inspired by the Dark Souls franchise. That means the usual limited health replenishment, aggressive and deadly enemies, collecting loot from enemies to power up, and marks left in the environment by other players. You probably know the deal by this point. The moment you go in, you'll know if it's the kind of game for you. The Surge 2 focuses more on equipment than stats, but otherwise, it should feel very familiar.

Combat is very much in the vein of the Souls franchise, but it resembles Bloodborne more than Dark Souls. The combat is often swift and brutal, and it heavily emphasizes aggression. Hitting enemies fills your battery meter, which you can use to perform special attacks or heal yourself. This means the best way to heal is to tear through your foes instead of fighting defensively. That was one of my favorite aspects of Bloodborne, and it's handled well in The Surge 2, as the reward for aggression is both healing and additional power.

Defense can be useful, though. A pretty cool new addition to the game is the directional parry. Instead of parrying being a mechanic where you press a button at the right time, you must choose the enemy's attack direction to properly parry. This involves either recognizing the animation of the enemy attack or installing a combat implant that gives you some warning. (The implant doesn't work so well on quick attacks, though.) I really enjoy this mechanic because it adds a layer of skill to the parry mechanic that makes it less of a win button. If you master it, prepare for enemies to melt like butter.

A neat element that was brought over from the first title in the series is the limb-targeting system, and it's smoother and easier in The Surge 2. You can focus on specific enemy limbs and hack them off, sometimes without killing the enemy. This has the twofold advantage of weakening an enemy and providing a valuable piece of loot to craft better equipment. It isn't always necessary, but with powerful enemies or bosses, you're far better off spending the extra time to hack off a limb or two instead of going for the kill.

Adding a touch of Monster Hunter to Dark Souls is great, and it makes the combat feel distinctive. Being rewarded for riskier attacks means that you're encouraged to do something besides going for the most damage in an attack. Damage still matters a lot, but it can be worthwhile to wait until an enemy leaves their arm exposed and vulnerable to chopping. This also helps keep combat feel engaging, since you can immediately beat down weaker enemies or opt to take some extra risky moments before proceeding with the beatdown.

The Surge 2 also borrows the Souls mechanic of needing to return and reclaim your loot when you die. In this case, it's almost exactly like it was there: If you die, you drop your scrap, and you need to return without dying to get it back. The twist is that you're timed, and that adds some serious tension since you'll run out of time if you're careful, so you'll need to charge through enemy-laden areas.

This brings me to one area where The Surge 2 is slightly disappointing. It's a serious victim of the inverse difficulty curve. The early parts of the game are brutal and often fatal, but if you get enough boosts, you'll quickly outpower foes — and even the bosses. It's nice to feel more powerful, but it loses something since the Souls style of gameplay usually encourages the mastery of enemy patterns over power. It's not enough to sour the game, but it's one of the things that prevent it from reaching the same great heights.

The Surge 2's only serious flaw is that it lacks the personality of the Souls titles. The environment is mostly bland and unmemorable, with little in the way of environmental storytelling or distinctive areas. If the title didn't constantly invite comparisons to the Souls games, then it wouldn't stand out as much. On its own merits, the game does a whole lot right, and it's a great improvement over the first game in a lot of ways. It just hasn't managed to get enough of its own style and personality to feel like anything but "a Dark Souls clone."

Visually, it's mostly a great-looking game. The animations are smooth, the crunch of battle is satisfying, and the enemies look suitably dangerous. My only real complaint is that the environments feel bland and repetitive, and they're occasionally difficult to navigate. Despite taking place in a larger area than the original The Surge, the levels feel less memorable and distinct. The soundtrack is quite good, and the voice acting may lack the charm of the strange stiltedness of a Souls game, but it more than carries the weight of the story.

All in all, The Surge 2 is a great game to pick up if you're looking for a more arcade-like take on the Dark Souls formula. It's a fun and engaging game with a solid combat system and enjoyable mechanics, and it's only dragged down by a mediocre story and lackluster environments. With the excellent improvements from The Surge to The Surge 2, the franchise is well on its way to standing tall in the Soulsborne genre. It's well worth playing if you're an aficionado of this genre and don't mind dying a few times.

Score: 8.0/10