The Surge 2

To summarise, The Surge 2 is another quality Soulslike offering from Deck 13. Rather than continuing the story from the point of view of the same character as in the previous game (The Surge), you play as a nameless survivor of a plane crash who awakens in the city of New Jericho, which is under quarantine due to an outbreak of a nanite disease.
First, I'll get the bad out of the way:
Compared to the previous game, this one seems to be graphically less impressive. The Surge set expectations high, with excellent lighting & texture detail, and overall superb art style. The problems that The Surge 2 has seem to be (a) the lighting is off (oversaturated in places) and (b) the world lacks detail in certain places, as if the developer did not have time to add clutter or refine textures to make them look used or weathered over time; for example, some brick surfaces are perfectly flat and flawless as if God himself came down from heaven to show mortal bricklayers how it's done.
Onto the good:
Combat is much like The Surge except that now there is a new directional parry system. Unlike The Surge, where opponents could be staggered by blocking just before an enemy strike lands, it is now necessary to block AND make a gesture with the mouse in the appropriate direction at exactly the right instant. This takes a lot of getting used to, and to be perfectly honest, three playthroughs later (I have just finished NG+2), I still don't feel like I have mastered it. According to the developer, it's possible to finish the game without using directional parry at all, but I don't believe it to be an optimal way to play. Overall, combat is fun and rewarding, especially when pulling off a directional parry and counter-strike.
Like the previous game, new gear and weapons are obtained by finding or by cutting it off something or somebody else. Gear and weapons are upgraded through parts which are (you guessed it) obtained by cutting them off something or somebody else. I cut off enough limbs in my playthroughs to keep New Jericho's kebab shops stocked for months.
There are more sidequests compared to the previous game, and they are entertaining enough. Completing them generally provides gear or weapons which can't be obtained any other way.
Technically, the game appears to be satisfactory, for me at least, given that an update resolved my performance issues. I experienced a couple of crashes to desktop in 116 hours of gameplay.
I sometimes found myself unsure about how to proceed for a sidequest, but I don't fault the game for that. I attribute this mostly to my failure to pay attention to instructions / hints, having become accustomed to modern games that lead players by the nose with quest markers. There are no quest markers in this game, and personally I like that. Difficulty is sufficiently high that, for an old-timer whose reflexes are not what they used to be combined with a completionist bent and a tendency to check every nook and cranny, the first playthrough can easily be 50 hours.
I give a solid thumbs up to The Surge 2 and look forward to what Deck 13 do next.

If you see that mixed up there and you're concerned, the majority of the bad reviews are "Game would not open." or saying the game mechanics suck while at 0.4 hours played.
This is not an easy game. You will have to learn. If you don't like learning and dying, just don't even try man.
However if you're not someone like that here's my first impression.
I really enjoy the way you get new equipment more than I thought I would. The executions are cool (Tho they aren't many) and I've enjoyed collecting various sets so far. The combat is a little confusing. I can't really tell what I need to do to confirm a stagger yet. Mostly how I've been playing is dodging and waiting for openings. The weapons are neat, however the game gave me these duel swords that stack a dot that does MASSIVE damage when the bar fills. It's just plain better than anything else I have.
The worlds are big and pretty fun to explore. Most of the time your going to find a dead end with a path you can't access without a certain item. Like the EMP for example. Although perhaps I just missed it.
One thing I will say is that the camera can be pretty annoying sometimes. Like as in your view will be in a wall or some random thing and that'll cause you to get hit because you couldn't see it coming.
Other than that I'm enjoying it and I'm excited to progress further.
If you're a fan of Souls likes than this is one worth picking up but perhaps on sale.

This game Supports Ultrawide Natively! Just throwing that out there for my folks with Ultrawide setups. That being said I'm about 6 hours in and I've just been grinding the first major level after a boss and having a blast. The new jump mechanics are delightful. I feel like the drone mechanics are an improvement over the last game. The limb removal and farming is very similar which I love. I just kinda fell back into it. It's a good challenge and the game looks pretty good as well. For a game to run well on launch day, support ultrawide resolutions, and be fun is sort of rare. And that the game wasn't $60-70 really made this a great buy for me. I love the setting, the focus on combat and exploration, and the mixing and matching of different armors, weapons, and playstyles. I think other developers could take some pointers. My only positive criticism comes largely from my friends wishing that The Surge 2 supported co-op. I bet it would take the level layout to another place entirely, but I will say that a game with these mechanics but with co-op sounds like a blast. Just throwing that out there. I was looking forward to this for months and I am so happy I had all my expectations met. I'm a happy nerd.

What a fantastic sequel.
Even though I preferred the lonely feel of the first game, this sequel is superior in every way.
The combat is still awesome. I had a high stamina build and was playing super aggressively, kind of like Bloodborne. Cutting off limbs and looting body parts is still a fantastic and unique way to gear up and really makes this game special. The armor designs are fucking awesome. Seeing a new enemy always makes you go "oh damn, i want that helmet" You can also do the same thing with boss fights and it makes every new enemy you meet extra exciting.
The level design has a TON of variety. Cities, factories, caverns, parks, military camps; They really took the complaints from the first game to heart. The second half of the game can get a bit confusing and you'll probably get lost, but no major complaints.
There's a ton of special characters this time and you'll meet some pretty good ones. I especially liked the Johnny Cage-like washed up actor who decides to be your sidekick. I wish I finished his quest so I can take his cool helmet. It's REALLY cool.
Overall, there's a lot more humor and character this time.
tl;dr
It's an awesome sequel. One of the highlights of 2019. If you enjoyed the first game, you will LOVE The Surge 2.

In the contest between this and Code Vein, the winner of the Soulslalike contest is... Both of them!
TLDR: Both this and Code Vein are worthy purchases, albeit for very different reasons, which game is your cup of tea will depend heavily on personal preference, I'll go into that below.
The Surge 2 follows up as a direct sequel to the original, and storywise assumes that you modified the payload that goes up into space with the USB stick that you get from the good doctor about midway through the first game. This has the net result of preventing the worst of the Utopia launch, namely killing everyone very quickly, but also results in the nanites picking up elements of the boss you fight at the very end of the first game. I'm trying to avoid too many named spoilers but covering this element of the story is important because it sets the stage for the world you enter in the second game.
This time around, instead of playing as Warren, you get to create your own character, with a choice of background (which has a minor narrative impact), and you can set your gender, customise your looks, and much like any souls game, set everything up to your liking, before you're thrust into the game proper. Enter pandemonium, you start off in a prison hospital where everything is currently falling apart, with rioting in the cell blocks, and something very big and ugly ripping the structure and guards a new one.
A much more intricate world than the original, albeit at the expense of the overall size
Map design in the second game is best described as knotty, the number of shortcuts and loopbacks in each given area is impressive, and you're never far away from a path back to a medbay to bank your tech scrap, or field an upgrade to your power core. This does come at the tradeoff that the maps are more dense, instead of being expansive horizontally, they compensate in being more intricate and expansive vertically, in some places this works exceptionally well such as downtown Jericho, in Port Nixon however it ends up making the area feel somewhat bland and lacking in identity (the port really could have done with being more sweeping).
This map design gets remixed at the half way stage once you defeat a specific boss, and the story essentially moves forward in a very permanent way, this refreshes the maps and prevents things from getting boring, but then opens up one of my more definite criticisms of the game.
The nanite enemies make a very unwelcome return, and in force, and boy do they annoy the timber out of you. In the first game they were gimmicky, the gimmick here seems to have gone for the most part, replaced instead by absurdly fast, sweeping blow mobs that can, even with heavy armour, four or five shot you. You're going to want to invest in armour upgrades in a big way once the midway point kicks in, and ensure your weapons are up to scratch, because the difficulty jumps significantly.
Mechanical improvements all around with perhaps two exceptions
The Surge 2 has made several very welcome improvements, the drone now works using an ammo pool that can be refilled by killing enemies, and extra ammo can be banked at a medbay (in fact you end up drowning in the stuff even if you drain the clip of the drone regularly), the much maligned weapon skill grind has gone, which given the sheer variety of weapon types has climbed significantly, again, is really welcome.
Implants are now all treated as hot swap types, so you can experiment with different build types, also welcome (though the seeming lack of exo-rig upgrades to this point is annoying, the first game allowed for 16 implants max, this looks to top at 12). I've not *finished* the game, so if there is an exo-rig upgrade for more implants, let me know.
Less welcome is the directional parry system, which adds a needless bit of fiddling to what is a simple concept, if you block at the exact right moment, you should be rewarded, now instead you have to use the right stick to match the direction of the attack at the right time whilst holding the block button. This is fiddly and with some enemies, a real pain as their attack patterns are too unpredictable to make this work properly. The original parry system worked -fine-, this feels like adding a third wheel to the bicycle.
The other complaint is that whilst you can now upgrade implants that provide injections such as heals, you cannot upgrade other implants, this seems like a massive oversight, because that would allow you to fine tune your build. Perhaps they can fix this particular issue, because being able to upgrade one set of implants but not another feels really arbitrary.
Closing thoughts
If you loved The Surge, this is a no brainer. If you love soulslikes, this is a no brainer. The combat is very much of the Dark Souls vein, albeit with a voice of it's own and enough added on top to feel interesting (the original game is still one of my top recommendations for people looking for a change from Dark Souls itself), if you're fresh to the Souls genre as a whole, I'd *slightly* recommend starting with the original, and then moving up to this one once you've mastered the original. It'll make the learning curve a lot easier. But that really is personal preference.
Oh, and obviously, if you like your souls with Anime, Code Vein is also there for you. But that review is elsewhere.
Verdict: Essential, naturally

Overview
The Surge 2 is a single-player, post-apocalyptic sci-fi souls-like, developed by AA studio Deck 13. In this game, players will impersonate the unnamed survivor of flight 221's crash over Jericho City, USA, happened under mysterious circumstances. Waking up without memories of recent events, players will find themselves walking a dark and devastated world filled with dangers, death and misery - not yet knowing they will soon be part of a much greater plot unfolding.
As seen in the previous chapter, this title offers souls-like style combat united with RPG-style exploration, crafting based progression mechanics and quests. Surge 2 expands missions greatly, offering a large quantity of quests with overall clear objectives and often meaningful rewards, multiple choices. Level design has taken a considerable step up as well, with even more complex, vertical, varied environments filled to the brim with alternate paths, secrets, and secondary areas. The addition of online mechanics such as map markers and even a hide and seek mini-game featuring place-able banners are interesting, but still no PvP / Invasions.
Even with many positive sides that greatly expand and innovate on the prequel's mechanics, Surge 2 also has some issues, first of all balance problems, since some weapons, especially 2.0 Boss ones, and implant combinations united with specific armor sets can create immensely powerful builds, too much for their own good, this factor in the hands of experienced players can make the game significantly less challenging. Secondly, the game can sometimes crash or have visual glitches impairing visibility, for me these were however rare problems I had just a couple times in 26 hours. Lastly, the boss challenge and quality is inconsistent, with some of them being a serious challenge, while others are just underwhelming and too simple.
Overall, even with some issues, The Surge 2 is a worthy successor to the first chapter, improving, expanding and innovating all the mechanics that made Surge 1 an excellent game. Priced at 50€, and offering about 20-28 hours for a single run, heavily depending on player skill, secondary quests, exploration rate, efficiency, ultimately offering excellent content quality, I can recommend getting this game at full price.
Rating:
Excellent
Pros & Cons
🔵 Pros
+ Excellent world and environment building, offering visually great landscapes united with complex, vertical level design.
+ Satisfying exploration mechanics, rewarding attentive players with unique items, secret quests and bonus resources.
+ Significantly improved quest system, featuring fully described, branching choice quests in generous amounts.
+ Challenging, tactical, skill-based combat system, with new mechanics such as directional parrying.
+ Great amount of weapon classes, armor sets, implants and items to find.
+ Overall interesting story and lore, especially for veteran players accustomed with Surge 1 already.
+ New Game+ mode that changes enemies and even some boss fight mechanics for a second play-through.
🔴 Cons
- Balance issues with some weapons and armor/implant combinations, creating overpowered builds.
- Inconsistent bosses: some bosses are very difficult while others, even found later, are instead less challenging.
- Above average number of minor, moderate bugs or issues, in need of some polishing and fixing.
In-Depth Breakdown
🎮 Gameplay Analysis
Gameplay in The Surge 2 is divided into Exploration, Online Mechanics, Character Management, Quests and Combat.
Exploration in early game is performed on foot, with the aid of your exo-rig for enhanced jump capability, while later on with main story, a number of gadgets will be unlocked to traverse previously inaccessible map areas. Needless to say, exploring every nook and cranny of the various areas is extremely rewarding in terms of gear, weapons, implants and resources found, while also giving out numerous recordings, shedding more light on the events happening in Jericho. Surge 2 introduces some meaningful backtracking, as several doors and areas will be closed off at first, and only much later players will be able to pass them. There is a map but can only be found at static info stands and doesn't provide much info at all. Fast travel has been added, unlike in Surge 1, and is unlocked pretty late in the game, comprising only a few, but critical, places, and is a welcome addition.
Online Mechanics consist in players being able to leave markers around the map (if they find the proper drone module) in a similar fashion to Dark Souls, while a hide-and-seek mini-game, where players need to hide their banners, and all players can find others' banners around: the more a banner stays hidden, the higher reward will the owner receive in terms of Scrap.
Character Management consists in equipping gear, implants, weapons and as well improving them via a crafting-based system. As in Surge 1, materials for upgrades, and new gear itself, is mostly obtained by chopping off enemy body parts in combat - but a good amount can be gained from looting, quests or shops. Differently from Surge 1, implants can freely be changed on the go at any time, but crafting / upgrading still need a Medbay. Leveling up your hero will give two stat points to spend in Health, Stamina or Battery, which are all important attributes, and do not influence what can or can't be used: players can use every gear piece regardless of stats, which sadly removes some depth from the build system. On death, all scrap is lost and needs to be retrieved in time, which increases when enemies are killed, just like in Surge 1.
Combat is the core of The Surge experience, taking all the good points of the prequel's combat, improving them, while also adding new mechanics or altering existing ones. The baseline is the same: learn enemy attack patterns, use the right tool for the job, make a build that works, and most of all be skilled in dodging, timing and parrying - but the formula has changed: this time, healing is tied directly to energy gain, with charges being created from battery bars, gained by hitting enemies. Directional parrying is an interesting mechanic, but in my experience it proved to be rather unreliable and not really worth using over normal attacks. Combat finishers need energy and enough damage dealt to enemy armor, and HP, to be performed, in a similar fashion to Surge 1, and are a core mechanic as well. Surge 2 features a lot more drone-based weapons that can be very useful if used correctly, and make ranged builds a possibility with related sets.
🔩 Performance Analysis
In my 26 hours of playtime, a few crashes were experienced when killing a single specific enemy, but other than that performance and stability were solid all around without noticeable performance drops. The game ran solid on 1440p, 144hz, maxed out . There were however some graphical glitches, namely polygons flickering around sometimes in a few areas, but nothing more.
Final Thoughts
The Surge 2 is a really worthy sequel of the first chapter, improving on all fronts and delivering a satisfying, challenging souls-like experience sure to please fans of the genre, I recommend playing the first game before this one to have a better understanding.
This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers.
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I feel bad for Deck 13 cos this game is in many ways being unfairly ravaged.
My personal motto with the Surge was, "It's going to get fun soon." In the end I finished the game and felt totally ambivalent about it. Some parts were good, other parts were bland, and some of it was bad. Mostly unbalanced enemies, boring boss fights and same same level design. But for what it was it was a good attempt.
However, the Surge 2 is seriously tickling my pickle. Combat feels more fluid, is more balanced and has more customisation. The violence is still epic. The bosses I've fought thus far haven't been incredible, but are a strong improvement over the first. Same same level design is still a problem, but not in any way as much as in the first game, and there are some quality of life improvements past the half way point that are seriously welcome.
As for performance there are some issues, however, I'm running the game on very high settings and have had no crashes or serious issues. I had a dreadful frame rate drop when I emerged form the prison to look over what became a very janky city-scape, but that's really it, besides the occasional frame-rate drop here and there.
Lastly, we need to support these guys for delivering an awesome game, that they are working hard to improve as we speak. We are pretty spoiled for choice these days, but if we don't stop slagging off smaller dev teams when they don't deliver perfection we are going to end up with companies like EA, Bethesda, Epic etc running the show and then we have a future of uber buggy, trash teir, micro transaction filled crud to look forward to.
This is a good game, I hope it sells well and I hope deck 13 make another, and if they improve the next as much as they have from Surge 1 to Surge 2 it will be flipping amazing. No two ways about it