The Surge review - An exciting sci-fi twist on the Dark Souls formula

 It’s impossible to talk about The Surge without first naming Dark Souls, the franchise that became a genre. Yes, The Surge is a Souls-like. Much like Nioh, it borrows certain staples from From’s iconic series. Killing enemies leads you to collect tech scraps. If you die, they drop. Instead of the usual casual stroll you can take to retrieve your souls, here you’re presented with a timer: if you don’t retrieve your scraps within two minutes or so, they’re gone forever. Thankfully, this system is compounded by the ability to extend the timer by killing enemies. At first, the timer system seemed like it could be unreasonable; needlessly punishing in a genre already about killing you over and over. But it works well. Not once did I find myself running out of time unless I chose to abandon scraps.

Losing scraps isn’t quite as punishing as in other games of its ilk. The majority of scraps are gained from single-use inventory drops, rather than by killing enemies, and even if you lose a bunch you’ll often find you have a load more tucked away in your inventory. You can bank scraps too; head to Ops, The Surge’s bonfire equivalent, and you can drop your scraps off in a machine, keeping them permanently safe.

Scraps are used in part to level up your character, aiming for additional implant slots. Implants form the core of the game’s ability and levelling system; you can increase your stamina, gain additional health kits, equip special moves or various buffs and bonuses. For the most part, I stuck with a lot of healing syringes, but changing your loadout to suit specific challenges is a fun, welcome change compared to working on a specific, set character build.

 On top of levelling up Warren, scraps can be spent to either build or upgrade armour and weapons. The system to acquire these parts is genius; if you see an enemy wearing armour that you fancy, then you use the game’s body part targeting system to cut it off him. You’ll be seeking out enemies wearing various parts of the set you’re going for, hacking off their limbs, torsos or heads to collect the part’s original blueprint, and then the materials required to construct it. Arms use one material type, legs another etc, so you’re never left having to search for exactly the right armour type once you have a blueprint. In the same manner, weapons can be swiped from enemies by cutting off the arm they use to hold said tool of death.

There’s a bunch of weapon variety here, ranging from super fast twin rigged weapons right up to massive hammers and blades. For the most part, I found the quicker weapon types suited my play style better; The Surge is not a game that encourages slow, careful block-heavy play, but the heavier weapon types are still excellent. Between the weapons, armour and implants, there’s a host of customisation on offer, and a bunch of different playing styles available. Being able to switch around your build so easily keeps the game very fresh, too.

There are a few missteps along the way. Sometimes, reaching a new area can lead to an incredibly high difficulty spike until you get your head around an approach. This is part and parcel for the genre, but in places, The Surge’s levels are so sprawling, with even shortcuts requiring a lot of trudging back and forth, that quick and sudden deaths can become frustrating, rather than a learning experience. That’s rare, though, but still not quite as perfectly balanced as some of its peers.

There’s also one particular boss in the game which is an absolute low point. There’s a trick to beating him much easier than it first appears, but discovering it is somewhat obscure, and it’s possible to spend absolutely hours banging your head against this particular difficulty spike before making progress. For a game where the other bosses are so well balanced and designed, albeit pretty sparse, it’s a shame that the penultimate boss is such a headache.

Areas can become a bit repetitive too, with a little too much time spent in one vast central hub where everything looks largely the same. While there are some great environmental variants later in the game, such as the bio labs and R&D, you spend a bit too long in metallic corridors and dark warehouses, and although the combat and enemy encounters always keep things exciting, a bit more variety would’ve been nice to see.

Even with its issues, the game shines. The small design problems all strike me as things that’ll be workshopped out for a sequel, the level design and boss structure being refined and improved. There’s definitely potential for The Surge to become a staple of the action adventure Souls-like genre, and this game is an incredibly strong start. It also possesses a surprisingly deep, interesting narrative that tackles transhumanism, disability and the nature of existence in a somewhat more nuanced way than the usual sci-fi fare. The cast of characters breathe a lot of life into The Surge’s otherwise cloying, horror-themed take on robots and cyborgs, and by the time the end credits rolled, I found I’d experienced an exceptionally interesting, exciting and satisfying narrative action game.

The Surge is available now from Amazon, 365games.co.uk and Tesco