I found myself shaking my head in disbelief every half hour or so just in awe at how well designed each area is and breathed a sigh of relief knowing I wouldn’t need to retrace my steps upon dying. For those who are annoyed by other soulslike games when they find themselves running through the same areas and fighting the same enemies over and over again after dying, the almost-sarcastic number of shortcuts found in The Surge 2 is a godsend. Every time you reach a new area, you’ll find a door to open that leads back to the save point you started at, and each time you unlock a new ability the city becomes infinitely more traversable - so much so that you’re likely to have little reason to ever make use of the game’s fast travel system which unlocks about three-quarters of the way through the story. There are so many shortcuts in Jericho City that it’s almost unbelievable. At first you might find the number of alleyways and lock doors absolutely jarring and hard to navigate, but there’s an incredibly elegant design behind the madness: shortcuts. Simply put, The Surge 2 has the best level design I’ve ever seen in a game. But it does bum me out that there weren’t any encounters as memorable as the one in the first game where you’re trapped in an AI-controlled room that tries to kill you.īut perhaps the most impressive thing about Jericho City is how incredibly well designed the map is. This doesn’t mean that they’re bad in fact, most are challenging, unique, and entertaining. While The Surge had some really unique encounters that forced you to puzzle-solve to achieve victory, The Surge 2 takes a more traditional approach with big monsters or powerful humanoids that simply need to be hit enough times to be defeated.
One caveat here is with the boss fights, which feel like a bit of a step down from the first game. And unlike its predecessor, The Surge 2 is packed with a wide variety of enemy types to keep you on your toes every step of the way. It helps that the animations for dismembering enemies are varied and so badass that I couldn’t help but cackle after seeing every new execution. With dozens of weapons, electronic implants that let you define your own playstyle, and armor types that greatly impact maneuverability and defense, I never found myself bored hacking and slashing my way throughout Jericho City. Additional cutscenes and playable chapters that become available in New Game+ go a step further by actually explaining some of the weaker elements of the story retroactively, which I’ve never seen before.Īt the heart of The Surge 2 is its excellent combat, which is centered around fast-paced melee encounters where dismembering your opponents to steal their weapons and armor is key. Though the story starts off a little sloppy and disjointed, by the middle of the game it rallies in a big way and concludes in a hugely epic and memorable finale that made me forgive it for its initial missteps. Throughout your journey, you’ll face off against a technology-worshipping cult, technological abominations, and a private militia, and more as you unravel the mysteries of Jericho City. The Surge 2 puts you in the head-kicking boots of a nameless survivor of a mysterious plane crash, who searches for answers in the ruined dystopia of Jericho City after waking from a 2-month coma. But where The Surge was a surprising sleeper hit that opened the door to new possibilities, the sequel kicks open that door with the confident swagger of a franchise that’s come into its own - and the result is an experience that’s truly hard to put down. The effort paid off, against all odds, setting itself apart from other souls-inspired games with excellent limb-reducing combat and high quality world-building. A sci-fi Dark Souls game sounds great in theory, but after Lords of the Fallen, it became clear that the souls-like genre is not so easily replicated. When developer Deck 13 released The Surge in 2017, the franchise had a lot to prove.
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