The Surge: My Hands-On Experience

The Surge is a hardcore action RPG with a focus on melee combat. The game released May 16th, 2017 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. Focus Home Interactive and Deck 13 are the devs behind the title. The game first starts off by delivering a short speech of the world and how CREO will be making a difference. Warren is the main character and begins his journey to make the decision to join the CREO cause. Warren has acknowledged his opportunity to work for CREO as a chance to walk again (he is crippled from the waist down in a wheelchair), as CREO workers are given an EXO-Suit which provides them with extra speed and strength. After you learn some basic controls on your train ride to the CREO facility, your then asked to choose between two EXO-Suits which pretty much slim down to the decisions of wanting to choose speed or power. In my case, I went with power. In Demon’s Souls style games (yes, that’s right I said Demon’s Souls because people tend to forget it set the stage before Dark Souls) I felt strength could always be more useful in the beginning as you’ll find yourself taking less time fighting and more time progressing. Not saying other stats are less important but strength usually did the trick for me. So going with a strong suit to start The Surge was definitely my first option as from trailers, it seems melee combat and close quarter battles would be more of what the game’s confrontations would entail. After making my EXO-Suit choice, it then showed a graphic SURGEry (yeah I did that) of the EXO-Suit being installed on Warren. It’s after that very moment that things went from peaceful (before the surgery that is) to what the hell is going on? Warren goes from passed out after surgery to waking up to a robot trying to repair Warren’s EXO-Suit leg. The best thing that happens next is that Warren is then able to stand and walk all do to the EXO-Suit. He even acknowledges this blessing just moments after a few more confrontations with enemies and a tutorial of the combat system. The tutorial explains how the melee system and looting system work. Your pretty much able to aim for any enemy and the enemy’s strong and weak points. The enemy’s weak points are ideal for those trying to make quick of the moment to continue forward but the strong points are usually where the real loot lies, which can mean schematics and materials for better weapons and armor. In other words the risk is worth the prize, as it was in every Demon’s Souls style game. So in each battle it is important to figure out which part of the enemy is of value to you and to continue attacking it until you are queued to dismember it from the enemy’s body. Fighting enemies with the same class of weapon (one-handed, two-handed..etc etc) will also level up its proficiency, making you better with that class of weapon each time it levels up. After a few enemy encounters, you then find a med bay and a hologram of what appears to be a lady who works for CREO. She warns you the facility is not safe and that you should work your way inside and find a new core to better operate your EXO-Suit. You then set off to find a new core since your suit’s core is damaged and without it, your suit will be unable to function properly. Along your short journey, you’ll encounter more enemies and some audio logs from a certain CREO employee. I used the enemy encounters to collect more weapon and armor schematics, as well as to collect materials and scraps. Schematics are pretty much the information on the materials needed to complete making any weapons and armor. The scraps are used to finalize purchasing these weapons and armor and are also used to level up your core. Your core is vital to functioning your suit and leveling it up makes it that much more important. Each time you use more scraps to level up your core, your core then gains more power output. This output is used to function your armor, weapons, helps add more perks or abilities to the EXO-Suit and helps unlock passageways throughout the CREO facility. Each weapon, armor and ability effect the suit in many different ways so be mindful of what you deem best to help you progress throughout your journey. The med bay is where you replenish your health packs (you start off with a max of 3), work on crafting and upgrades. However coming here to regain health packs comes with a risk, as it will revive all the enemies you’ve ever encountered. So it be best if you choose wisely. Well at this point in my own opinion I do like the game thus far. I do believe it would appeal to any Dark Souls fan as a lot of the mechanics of the game are similar. I will continue playing onward until I beat the game and post a review. Whether you have played the game or not or if my hands-on experience has struck any questions or statements you’d like to make, feel free to do so in the comments. For everything on The Surge or anything gaming, be sure to keep it locked right here on MagGamer.