you’re going to need to start building
a collection nicked from enemies. And
that means chopping off a few heads.
It also helps that the process of
cutting off one of these parts comes
with its own decadent finishing move
animation, which gives you a brief
respite from the action and a much-
needed breather.Chop shop
When you’ve reduced a body part’s
armour enough, you’re able to hold X
to spend a bar of battery and get your
groove on with that finishing move.
The better the crafting component,
the more damage you’ll need to dish
out. But often enemies won’t have a
full set, leaving some parts exposed.
Adjusting your aim with the right stick
allows you to choose where your
strikes land, so you can make the call
on whether you want to have a slightly
harder time to get a better part, or
make short work of your enemies.
Just as you’d expect in this sort of
game, combat can be pretty brutal. So
these kinds of on-the-fly decisions
aren’t ones to be taken lightly. Take
too many hits, and you’ll find yourself
in danger of being demolished.
Battery isn’t just for spending on
slicey finishers, though. You can also
use it to heal yourself in a pinch by
turning it into an injectable. Pressing B
applies it, but you can also hold B to
stack them for later – though starting
out you can only carry two. Choosing
whether to go for a finisher or heal in
the midst of combat is a terrific bit of
improvisational resource management.
You gain battery by attacking, and it
depletes outside of combat, so you’ll
always have to be making decisions
based on the situation. It’s one of
the most elegant uses of risk/reward
healing we’ve seen in this genre of
hack-and-slash exploration.
As different as the sci-fi city of
Jericho might be to explore (weaving
highways and alleys lead to a very
well-crafted environment with plenty
of secrets to discover), it’s more than
just the setting that sets The Surge 2
apart from the competition. It’s also
the slick combat that always feels
rewarding, and keeps pushing you to
engage with its mechanics and cut
out your own hole with how you want
to play, which has put this cybernetic
sequel on our radar. QAre you, for some reason, the sort of
person who could never get into the
Dark Souls games because they didn’t
have enough dismemberment? If so,
then Deck13 has its sights set on you
with The Surge 2, which takes the
machine-battling Soulslike away from
an industrial estate and right into the
heart of the sprawling, futuristic urban
Jericho City.
Even without really knowing what’s
going on, it doesn’t take you long to
suit up with all the tools you’ll need for
some truly hardcore combat from the
police armoury, and begin chopping
up bodies without much of a second
thought. But shearing one part of
someone’s body from another isn’t
just a novelty. No, no, it’s perfectly
justified – because you’re harvesting
them. Which is really one of the best
reasons there is to get slicey and
dicey with a bunch of monstrous
cyborg thugs.
Everything you pick up in the
game comes from the combat itself,
whether that’s one of several different
weapon types (each with their own
combos), schematics that teach you
how to craft armour for each body
type or simply amassing the basic
‘tech scrap’ crafting component. The
trick is knowing what you want and
then getting out there and taking it.
In order to craft or upgrade helmets,Deck13’s Johannes Bickle says Jericho CIty is an amalgamation of US cities
The Surge 2
Deck13 doubles down on
limb-cutting surgery
Austin Taylor
PUBLISHER FOCUS HOME INTERACTIVE DEVELOPER DECK13
ETA 24 SEPTEMBERSIDE
HUSTLE
Your main goal is to
find out the true
nature of the robotic
calamity befalling
Jericho City, but
there’s plenty of
others still living and
resisting inside that
need help. Assisting
them will usually be to
your advantage, but
doing so may lead to
some dangerous
situations.
“The trick is knowing what
you want and then getting
out there and taking it”
038 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE
PREVIEW