The Surge 2 Gameplay Footage, E3 Demo Impressions, Interview

Deck13 and Focus Home Interactive were showcasing a demo of their upcoming Dark Souls-inspired sci-fi action-RPG The Surge 2 during this year’s E3, way ahead of the game’s expected 2019 launch. And before we get to the demo impressions, let’s check out a bit of IGN’s gameplay footage that already looks fairly impressive:

The actual hands-on impressions seem to be quite positive too, praising The Surge 2’s many improvements over its predecessor and noting a welcome addition of a custom protagonist. Here’s what RPGFan has to say:

Whereas the first game had a floaty and sometimes difficult camera, so far The Surge 2 seems to control much better while expanding upon the original’s unique combat system. It’s also much more colorful than its predecessor, but not so much as to detract from the desolate urban setting that still exists beyond the forest. We look forward to seeing all the improvements as a whole when The Surge 2 releases next year on Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

And here’s Just Push Start’s take:

While The Surge 2 is still in the early stages of development, it certainly seems like it’s heading in the right direction. With plans to increase the number of bosses, more varied combat, a more diverse location to explore and more, it looks to be much of what players were looking for in a sequel. Hopefully, as we get closer to the 2019 release, it will continue to improve and be everything fans are hoping for.

Variety spices up their impressions with a few quotes from Adam Hetenyi, head of game design at Deck13:

“The Surge 2” will have many more weapons than the first. Instead of five weapon types, the new game will have 10, though Hetenyi declined to name them all. The weapon the character used in the demo was one he called “double duty” It was a large, slow, powerful axe, that broke apart into two quick implements of death. It looked similar to “Bloodborne’s” transforming weapons, though without the eldritch horror. There will be a number of firearms, but only your little drone buddy can equip them as a secondary attack.

“We love giving players the option to find their own gameplay style and to give them plenty of weapons to try,” Hetenyi said.

Besides that “The Surge 2” will include new consumables, a new crafting system, new character creation, and lots more enemies. It will also feature a new blocking system. The first game had a high and low block, but the sequel will have directional pushes in all four directions. They act like parries (as also seen in “Dark Souls”) that create the opportunity for powerful counter attacks. It’s a high risk for a higher reward.

And Twinfinite offers a full on interview with Jan Klose, the game’s creative director:

TF: You said at the end of the demo that this is connected to the first Surge in story. Is anything changing about the way you tell your story? Because much of the first game was very mysterious and kind of drip-fed.

Klose: Generally the way we tell the story we want to keep similar, you pick up hints in the environment, you talk to characters, and you need to figure stuff out on your own. However, we don’t want to leave you so much in the dark, not only in terms of visuals but also in terms of how you explore the story. One bit of feedback we got was that sometimes people didn’t really know what to do, it was maybe not such a big deal, because the game showed you a path where to go. So this time we want to reverse this a little, we want you to have a very clear mission goal, so that you have this understanding and also the story behind it in your head when you go somewhere. However, then the level will be more open allowing you to go different places. So you’ll be more like ‘I think I need to go there. I think I could take this turn or that turn. Which one will be better for me?’

You can make a choice, sometimes it will be an educated choice, and sometimes you will just try it out, and this is where we think we’ve turned things around a little bit. We give you more hints, more cues on what’s the right thing and what you’re supposed to do, but also the freedom to say no I want to go somewhere else and do something else.

[…]

TF: What was the biggest piece of feedback from fans, the biggest thing they focused on, either liking or disliking.

Klose: Well coming from the positive, people really liked the close combat, so we knew okay we need to make this better and not replace it with something. The other thing, the two things that were most striking, was variety and choice. They really said we want to have more options for this, we want to have our own way of doing something. So we said okay this is tricky to just tackle as one point, so this needs to run through the whole design and all aspects of the game.

There’s got to be more variety and choice in the way you explore a level, create your character, level them up, change your character, take on missions and sidequests. All of that stuff to just give you a broader experience with more stuff you can do, but also more you can pick for yourself. This really touches everything from the basic combat to the boss fights, saying ‘Why can’t I use my drone with the boss in a good way in Surge 1.’ Because I can trigger the drone at any time but sometimes it just doesn’t do something with certain bosses. If I have a good idea of targeting the boss with my drone, then I should be rewarded for it because that was my idea, and be able to fight the boss how I want to without the game stopping me.