Thank you Focus Home Interactive for sending us this game to review!

The Surge 2 takes place after the destruction from the first game. The city of Jericho has been evacuated and a large wall has been erected to keep those infected with a techno-nanite disease isolated from the rest of the world. Your character (who can be a male or female) crash lands in this city and is one of two survivors. The other surviving passenger is a young girl named Athena who is related to the president of Creo Institute of Technology.

As you explore the town and battle the hostile cyber-humans, you’ll come across audio logs which tell most of the game’s story. The children in this city have been experimented on and Athena has been captured by the same group of scientists. When you arrive in certain areas, you’ll see a memory flashback regarding what happened to her there. Along with figuring out why you two are linked, you’ll have to save Athena before it’s too late.

When it comes to battles, you’ll have to perfect your timing for dodging and using your various attacks. Many of the enemies equip a shield that can only be bypassed with a charged attack. Naturally, the enemies won’t wait around for you to kick their butt. The ability to target specific areas comes in handy, especially during boss battles. Targeting unarmored body parts makes taking down foes easier, but you’ll get better loot if you attack fortified areas.

Chances are you’ll take damage and you can heal by using an injectable health kit (limited qualities), a med station (the best way but there’s not many of them), or a med bay. Alternatively, there are implants available that will replenish your stats for you as you battle so keep an eye out for those. The three attributes you can increase are health, stamina, and battery power.

The med bays serve as respawn points and are essential for leveling up and upgrading/crafting gear. Unfortunately, after a med bay visit all of the previously defeated enemies are once again revived. As enemies are defeated, you may acquire schematics for their equipment and scrap metal to forge your own versions of them. Scrap is also needed to level up your rig which opens up more upgrade slots allowing you to equip more implants.

Your drone has several functions and comes in handy during battle. You can have the drone scout for loot, attack from a distance, unlock doors, and spray paint graffiti. If you have the online mode enabled you can see graffiti left behind by other players. Often times the graffiti is merely cosmetic, but there are many instances where it can point out a stash of goodies that you may have missed otherwise.

The levels are easy to get lost in, but there are a fair number of maps available to keep your bearings. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to quick travel to the various destinations. As you progress in the game, you’ll unlock abilities like using a zip line, lift, and opening magnetic locks. Once acquired, you can use the abilities to enter areas in the map that were not accessible previously.

Visually, The Surge 2 looks great with highly detailed maps, characters, and intimidating bosses. Due to the fighting, you can expect lots of blood, violence, and limbs being torn off (especially during the finishing moves). Decapitation happens often during a battle's finishing move. For the most part this game ran fine on my RTX 2080 Ti video card. However, I did experience several game crashes in a row that were not resolved until I updated my drivers to the most recent version.

The sound is top notch in this title and at a particular med bay, the catchy song from the previous game is reprised. The voice acting is well done and brings the characters to life. Language is another moral concern since many curse words are heard in the dialogue and audio logs. One of the audio logs is an advertisement for a consensual relationship. God’s name is also thrown around casually. Religion is not shown in a positive light as there is a group of zealots that partake in drugs regularly.

With the gory violence, drug use, and language, The Surge 2 definitely earns its “Mature” rating. If you enjoyed the original game and the Dark Souls genre, you’ll want to pick this one up. I enjoyed it more than the original.