The Surge Officially Announced, Action-RPG from Deck13

Remember the unnamed “dystopian sci-fi” action-RPG that Deck13 and Focus Home Interactive announced back in June? It now has a name, courtesy of this year’s Gamescom: The Surge. According to the press release we have been sent, the game is set in a “heavily dystopian” future, in a planet Earth near the end of its lifespan.

Cities are overcrowded, their social programs saturated with an ageing population plagued by environmental diseases. Due to the increased levels of technology, many of the jobs that used to need human labor are now performed by machines. To find jobs, those who remained needed to head to the suburbs and use performance-enhancing exoskeletons. The developers promise a “very grim vision of the future” that will portray a “decadent state of the Human civilization”.

As for the gameplay, the developers talk about “visceral” action-RPG fighting mechanics powered by a character progression system based on modular upgrades that are gained through combat. That description is exceedingly vague, but the folks at Polygon managed to extract a few more snippets of info from PR and marketing manager Marco Süß in an interview:

Players will assume control of a survivor in that world, an ordinary man who wears a powerful, industrial-grade exoskeleton. It’s not express built with military combat in mind, but that’s where the game’s crafting system and modular upgrades will come in, Süß said. Those systems will tie into The Surge’s combat, which will allow players to target specific limbs of tech-enhanced enemies, lop them off and harvest their technology.

The Surge’s combat will be faster-paced than that of Lords of the Fallen, Süß said, and complemented by exo suit powers, possibly including short bursts of flight for air-based attacks. Deck13 wants to give players a broader range of options in their approach to combat. Customization of the player’s exo suit will lead to different play styles, Süß said, using Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s futuristic exoskeletons as an example of potential upgrade paths.

I do wonder if The Surge hasn’t been announced too early, considering the game is slated for a 2017 release and the developers don’t really have anything to show beyond a few pieces of artwork (we’ll upload them on our gallery shortly). The game is planned for a release on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.