Bringing about a new experience full of tough fights, timed movements, and repeat attack styles, Deck 13’s The Surge 2 gives us the fight for our lives. Basing the game on taking weapons and gear right off of your fallen opponent means that you won’t always have the upper hand, which is harshly shown to you right at the beginning of the game. Fighting off enemies while trying to the right thing for a variety of civilians and fellow survivors will prove to be a challenge that many aren’t ready for.

Before I go into detail about this game, I think it’s best to state that this is not a game for those who lack patience nor the faint of heart. You will die, you will have to study all of your different enemies to succeed, and you will be frustrated. Are you up for it?

Story

Jericho City, the closest metropolis to the CREO facility that fell to some ill-fate, are overrun from a torrent of sentient machines called Nanites. The mysterious plane crash that unleashed these Nanites left the city in a cordoned-off wasteland. It’s up to you to fight through ferocious threats and bring the city a step closer to the civilization it once was.

Gameplay

Starting off in a jail’s hospital room, you only have the power gloves as your weapon. This will give you the first since of battle and difficulty as you will have to fight through drones and inmates, each with a variety of fighting style and weapons, in order to escape into the semi-open world. Learning to guard, counter, lock-on, dodge, maneuver, and all the other basics for combat will be burned into you through the grit of battle. They don’t start you off easy either, so don’t expect to be absorbing any blows!

Before you actually end up leaving you will be introduced to your first exo-rig pod. This will act as your upgrade, customization, and loadout board while doubling as a checkpoint. If you die, you will spawn at the last exo-rig pod you used. While you are in there, you can use the Tech Scrap you have gathered, which acts as EXP, to level up your character and improve your three stats (Health, Stamina, and Battery). You can also move over to your Implants page and add a few of them to your build. Implants directly aid you with a few different properties such as stamina boost, auto-actions, and so much more. You start out with only four slots, but open more as you continue to level yourself up.

Once you leave the jail, the real fun begins. Here is where you go out in the world and start encountering a wide variety of enemies, many of which have gear you can take for yourself. Some enemies are nothing but a hassle to stress you out and give you tech scrap upon defeat. Keep in mind though, if you are defeated you will drop all of your tech scrap and have to recover it, but if you die again before it is recovered, or fail to get to it before the timer reaches zero, then it now belongs to the wind. Be ready to meet enemies with a wide range of styles, both fighting and gear, as you travel through the five main sectors of the city and, eventually, the different sectors inside the CREO facility.

What gear you use is completely up to you and it is best to find out which type of weapon suits you best. While the gear itself should be based on the best stats, you want to use the weapon that gives you the fighting style that fights your play style. While you are given the lightweight power gloves in the very beginning and can find a heavier, more damaging weapon, it is better to use the lightweight ones if they fight your playstyle more efficiently. Progress can only be made by smart choices and well-timed movements, not by being a powerhouse or thinking you are one because you got the big boy weapon.

The key to the gameplay, no matter how deep or leveled up you are, is to study and pace yourself. If you try to rush through an area, you can easily end up with a gang of enemies rather than taking them out one-by-one. Not to mention that if you don’t take a moment to see their fighting style you can get caught in a combo of theirs that will wipe you out in one turn. You are easier to kill than your enemies, especially since they never fight against each other. Of course, the further into the game you go, the more you level up yourself and improve your gear, the easier the game will become, but the challenge will be ever-present so don’t get too cocky.

Keep in mind that there are side quests alongside the main quest. The game doesn’t tell you directly which ones are which, but it can be pretty obvious based on what is going on. Plus, side quests can be failed just as easily as they are initiated, and once it has been failed the opportunity is gone. Main quests don’t go anywhere if you lose and instead make you keep trying till you get through it.

The reason I say the game is a semi-open world is that there are multiple pathways to take. Some are more difficult than others, but all are doable. Plus, once you reach certain sections of the map you can find ways to open quick paths to older sections of the city. This is great for when you are trying to go back to the exo-rig pod or have died and need to quickly get back before the timer runs out.

Graphics and Sounds

I would say the game has a decent visual quality. They do well giving off the suburban wasteland feel and making each part of the city, as well as the CREO facility, have their own style. The city areas are mostly just renditions of a generic style, but the CREO facility obviously got plenty of attention when they detailed it. No area was too dark to see and they did well with the lighting in all portions of the game.

The music was simply great to listen to and it certainly got me amped up for each fight. The nerves were already jittery with every fight sequence, but having a good soundtrack to go along with it was a great mix to push me through the battles. Not to mention the spot-on sound effects to give the environment and actions a nice touch.

Replayability

As I mentioned before, side quests are as easy to fail as they are to begin. If you want to go back and try these missions again, I suggest taking yourself through New Game+ so that you are prepared for all the battles. Then again, if you like the challenge and are ready for another beating, then this would be a good reason to go through it again.

What Could Be Better

While I enjoy a good challenge, I don’t understand why they didn’t have a difficulty option. The game is set to be the way it is with no-fault between them. Adding an option for the lesser skilled players to play through a game where there are slight changes to make it easier, or even harder if they are punishing, could improve the audience number and overall quality of the game. It doesn’t need to be anything dramatic and simply having less damage taken per hit with a fourth of the enemies removed would make a great easy mode.

There are occasional graphic errors through the game. They aren’t major but playing on console made these errors shown more often than I would expect on PC. It never caused a death, but I certainly had a few opportunities to strike taken from me because of waiting for the performance drop to pass.

Quests should be specified as to what they are. You can’t set up markers on your map to help you find where you need to go nor could you look at your current objectives. Expecting players to remember all the quests they are on, main and said alike, is unnecessary when they are already expected to handle numerous enemies that could defeat them easily.

Another thing on quests are the side quests. I really didn’t care for reaching a side quest goal moment and it triggering a fight I wasn’t ready for. And then, because I lost the first fight, the side quest failed and gave me no chance to try again. This “one-chance-and-done” style for side missions isn’t optimal, in my opinion.

Conclusion

The Surge 2 is a punishing yet fun game full of challenges and difficult enemies. Fighting even the lesser enemies would prove to be something to proceed with caution about which made the boss fights even more intense than they usually would be. It has an enjoyable story and a frustratingly fun experience. They are moving this series in the right direction and I hope to see it continue with even more crazy enemies and updates.