It wasn’t a satisfying feeling, waking up in the abandoned factory with an exoskeleton around my body. To make things even worse, something terrible has happened to my colleagues and the machinery during the Surge. I don’t really understand what’s going on just yet but everybody wants me dead. I need to find a way to defend myself and solve this mysterious event.
Solid engine
We kicked off the presentation of The Surge with an impressive looking introduction of the environment. The developers are using the great Unreal 4 engine again to really bring their modern version of our world to life. The environment looked impressive and was filled with fun details and flare effects. It has that typical ‘Lords of the Fallen’ look to it, which makes sense since it’s developed by the same team. So if you’ve played that game before, you understand the vibe of the Surge a little better.
Besides the looks of the environment, the actual character also looked great. It had enough details to leave behind a good impression and without feeling like another one of those generic characters. It’s nothing too special but it’s good enough to give you that modern gaming feeling. You won’t be disappointed with the way the game looks but the gameplay isn’t as spectacular yet.
Beat down the enemies, over and over again
The team described the game as an action-packed combat game but the combat itself looked a little too repetitive to be honest. The entire combat revolves around stamina, which again is something you might remember from the other games of the studio. Since stamina is a big part of the combat, you’ll really need to consider your attacks and defense since everything demands energy of the character. If your stamina runs out, you can’t continue your attacks so keep a close eye on that bar in the top of the screen!
The combat itself doesn’t feature light or heavy attacks; instead, the team went for horizontal and vertical attacks that can be combined to create combos. The main feature during combat is the ability to focus on a certain body part. If you aim for the head for example, you’ll be able to cut it off once you inflicted enough damage. This cutting off of body parts is very gory and brutal but also serves a purpose. If you see some useful weapons or gear on your enemies, you can try to cut off the right body part in order to collect that gear for yourself. You can’t immediately equip it however, since you’ll need remaining parts to create your own gear over at your working station.
The working station
This station is the place to be to improve your character. You can change his abilities and even add a lot of skills to increase chances of survival. Besides this, you can craft and equip new gear using the remainders of the gear you collected during your adventure. There is a huge amount of different types of gear and weapons in the game so experimenting what kind of set-up works best for you, will be a huge part of the final product for sure
You’re always in full control over your character and his process, the weapons and skills are entirely up to you but it doesn’t stop there yet. There are no traditional cutscenes in the game, you can always run around freely if something is happing near you. If you like those scenes however, you can hold the special camera to have traditional cutscenes but it’s great the developers give you the freedom to do whatever you want.
Early conclusion:
The Surge looks good thanks to the great Unreal 4 engine but the actual gameplay isn’t there yet. It’s a bit too repetitive at this point and the enemies look a bit too generic, even the bosses. The game is releasing next year so the team still has enough time to get things working properly. As for now, I’m willing to give this game the benefits of doubt.
