The Surge: A Walk in the Park Reviews

A Walk in the Park, the bright and colorful expansion for Deck 13 and Focus Home Interactive’s action-RPG The Surge, has been out for a few days now, and according to the reviews, it’s a solid addition to the Dark Souls-styled subgenre of action-RPGs. Have a look:

IGN 7.5/10:

Despite not adding anything new to the gameplay of The Surge or providing many rewards to returning players, A Walk in the Park provides more of the wickedly fun combat and detailed environments that we saw in the main campaign. The juxtaposition of the family-friendly funtime setting and technological horror is at times goofy and genuinely chilling, and even with a fairly basic set of objectives, exploring the ruined park was a fun way to spend a few hours back in this world.

Gamereactor 8/10:

The ironically titled A Walk in the Park dares to be different and makes a dramatic departure from the base title, delivering an absurd thrill ride from start to finish. It delivers a ton of new weapons and implants, some memorable boss fights, and even works to smooth out the late game grind. It may be short-lived and doesn’t fix all of the base game’s shortcomings, but ultimately A Walk in the Park offers a good time that will leave you both smiling and throwing a fit in anger.

WCCFTech 8/10:

The Surge: A Walk in the Park is a more than worthy expansion to the game, offering new challenges as well as new tools to deal with them. Storytelling may not be stellar, and no new gameplay mechanics have been included, but don’t let these issues stop you from taking this lethal walk through CREO World: it’s well worth it.

GameWatcher 8/10:

Whereas The Surge managed to get the basics of Dark Souls right but failed to make either the enemies or world interesting, A Walk In The Park corrects this problem (for the most part). The idea of a sci-fi Souls game was cool but setting it in a Disneyland-style theme park is clever and done pretty well. It’s very much Itchy & Scratchy Land from The Simpsons, with killer mascots and murderous jolly robot parades. Things get ridiculously tough towards the end and the game starts to forget about the fun enemies, but with this expansion Deck13 have finally made a Dark Souls alternative people might want to play. If you own The Surge, you need to take A Walk In The Park.

The Outerhaven 4/5:

Admittedly, I enjoyed The Surge: A Walk in the Park. I have been waiting for this expansion to be released ever since E3 2017 and It definitely was worth the wait. It added elements to the story, connected some dots and got me back to playing The Surge (my sleeper hit for 2017). I just wish it was longer! I mean, I beat it in two hours, It simply wasn’t enough (for me at least). That said, if you enjoyed The Surge, then you’ll enjoy The Surge: A Walk in the Park as well. However, it works both ways – there’s nothing here that will change your mind if you weren’t a fan of the original game.

With this finally released, I hope Deck 13 and Focus Home Interactive now set their eyes for a follow-up to The Surge. Not a DLC, but a completely new adventure. Maybe exploring the grim future that follows the conclusion of the first game.

Windows Central 3.5/5:

The expansion should’ve continued the story of The Surge after the ending instead of being an easy way to reach the final area. While A Walk in the Park adds more gameplay and some challenging bosses, it’s feels more like a proof of concept. One of the major complaints gamers had with The Surge was that it didn’t feature a lot of level variety. The entire experience, aside from the first level, basically took place indoors in similar hallways. A Walk in the Park addresses that but it doesn’t do so in a meaningful fashion because it’s more of the same aside from the visuals. The collectibles could’ve been added anywhere. If you’re looking for a reason to get back into The Surge, this will give you a new area to explore. However, A Walk in the Park doesn’t add anything revolutionary to the experience which makes it a must-buy.

Gaming Trend 80/100:

I should also mention that several quality of life updates have made their way to The Surge since my initial review of it earlier this year, and two of my biggest complaints, in particular, were addressed. Firstly, the game has received a 4K patch for the Xbox One X and now runs and looks better than it did when I reviewed it by a mile. The game now almost never drops a frame, and has more color and detail than I could have hoped for from a patch like this. I dare say that The Surge is downright pretty on the Xbox One X, which is quite a departure from what I experienced in May. The developers also fixed an issue where performing an execution would move your character’s positioning on the map, sometimes causing you to fall off a cliff and die in a terribly frustrating turn of events. In playing A Walk in the Park, on several occasions I found myself quickly getting pulled back into my initial positioning when encountering this issue. While it looks very jarring to see your character inelegantly moved back into safety when you would have normally fallen to your death, I was impressed as hell that they fixed this major annoyance to players. Both of these fixes did wonders in improving my experience with A Walk in the Park.

TrueAchievements 4/5:

The Surge – “A Walk in the Park” introduces us to a theme park setting that nails the look and feel and comes with excellent level design, making it a joy to play through and explore. It is woven into the base game in a way that makes it feel natural and rewarding, although there are a few hiccups in terms of the story as a result. The only real issue is that it’s more of the same. Like the base game, the DLC features too few enemies and only two more bosses. Those bosses themselves are uninspired considering the potential of the setting. Likewise, the new equipment you gain won’t change the way you play, although it might help you look a bit cooler. Overall, “A Walk in the Park” is easy to recommend — if you liked The Surge and you want more of it, that’s what you’ll get here and you’re in for a great time at the theme park. If you couldn’t get over the issues in The Surge then there’s nothing here that’s going to change your mind.