Deck 13’s new hardcore action-RPG The Surge recently unveiled a few minutes of unedited gameplay. It showed the visceral, uncompromising combat, the limb-cutting system, and a few of the brutal enemies prowling the dysfunctional CREO Complex. Made by the developers of Lords of the Fallen, the game is due in 2017 for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Is The Surge a Dark Souls clone or something in its own right?
The brutal combat of The Surge looks like Dark Souls. But set in a bleak, industrial future. As for the game itself, Lords of the Fallen wasn’t flawed in the same way that Demon’s Souls was. With DeS you could see a strong vision and grasp of mechanical complexity despite the game’s technical shortcomings. LotF’s issues were much more endemic. And showed amongst other things a very faulty and shallow understanding of combat mechanics design. And a tendency towards prioritizing flashy animation work that often led to inconsistency or unfairness.
So far The Surge looks to have potentially similar issues. Although the increased game speed might be more pleasant. We’re just reserving judgment either way until the game comes out. However, each game should be valued as an individual and independent creation unless part of a series. This game is barely like Dark Souls and while we’d still play it, devs shouldn’t promise things they can’t do. And they shouldn’t force something to be another thing entirely just for more players. People want to play a good game and that’s about it so just make a good and valued game people will like.
On the other hand, there is a point in comparing it to Dark Souls. They look very similar in combat and it will grab the lovers of the dark souls series attention. Because dark souls fans would not expect something that looks like this to be like dark souls.