So this comes out tomorrow and has been pretty overlooked at large. The reason of course is pretty obvious. The Surge is a sci-fi Dark Souls clone. If Nioh took the formula to a world like Onimusha then The Surge takes it closer to a world somewhere betweeen Brink and the film Virus. In a near future where the earth faces ecological disaster a silicon valley tech giant starts a new initiative called "project reSOLVE" to restore the earths life. Hiring the homeless, invalid and infirm and empowering them with exoskeletal robot suits directly implanted into their skin to form the workforce of his revolution. You play a character who mid application ends up in the installation chair as "The Surge" happens and his implantation begins. Without anaesthetic. He wakes up in a scrapyard being dragged by a small drone off to "repurposing for parts" and escapes to find the compound is now a nightmare scenario where humans are being puppeted by their now independent rigs and are either mad and feral or begging for help as their bodies try and kill you. No levels or boss souls just parts to strategically break off to upgrade your own rig. Fighting the unfortunates or crazed, feral construction machines as you try to find the truth behind the titular event.
Sounds neat right? but theres that reason there aint much buzz: Its by the developers of Lords of the Fallen. Which if souls was a genre LotF would be the rock bottom of it. So naturally i'm approaching the title with some trepidation. I hear its better than that but still the setting cant help but inspire some brink vibes. Still from what i've seen its more bloodborne than dark souls which is a nice change.
Plus god knows i've wanted a sci-fi take on the formula since Demon's Souls 8 years ago.
What do you make of it? Heres some gameplay of the first few minutes, but warning its got a very minor spoiler of a very interesting reveal about the character and why its a character not a create a character deal: