Every time I play The Surge, I like it more. There&rsquo;s no questioning that it&rsquo;s a Souls-like, and it wears that badge not so much on its sleeve as seared onto its chest with a soldering iron. But even from one hands-on to the next, you can feel the bolts tightening, the gears lubricating, as it carves out its own identity in a post-Soulsian world.&nbsp;The tutorial level I played at the Focus showcase in Paris has been seen before, but any Souls veteran can tell you that tweaks as small as enemy positioning, hitboxes and stat balancing can make huge differences. What I played was, according to Deck13&rsquo;s head of design Adam Hetenyi, the complete version of the first level, and it feels fantastic. The combat is smoother than in previous builds&mdash;something that Hetenyi wanted to improve on Deck13&rsquo;s previous Souls imitator. &ldquo;Lords of the Fallen sometimes felt like driving a truck&mdash; powerful and impactful, but also slow and cumbersome,&rdquo; admits Hetenyi. &ldquo;The Surge goes in a faster, more reactive direction.&rdquo; This is reflected in the Bloodborne-like sliding that&rsquo;s replaced the traditional roll as a means of dodging. Yet while attacks and counter-attacks feel more responsive, The Surge encourages you to take your time before striking.As I face off against the game&rsquo;s early enemies, I target their individual body parts to learn their weak spots. While going for one of these zombie-bots&rsquo; unarmored bits is the best way to end a fight quickly, it&rsquo;s also less rewarding, as targeting armor and limbs yields upgrade currency and equipment.Addressing a problem with the Souls series, The Surge encourages you to experiment with new weapons, which you gain by chopping off the enemy limb that&rsquo;s carrying it. Whether it&rsquo;s the speedy twin-rig forklift weapon, a security axe, or greatsword-type nanotool, it&rsquo;s all (*drum roll*) within arm&rsquo;s reach. Once you&rsquo;ve acquired a weapon, you upgrade it by lopping off more weapon-wielding arms to build up your supply of scrap&mdash;the in-game currency for weapon upgrades.GEARING UP &ldquo;You can start acquiring materials as soon as you get the weapon,&rdquo; says Hetenyi. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re a weapon freak like me, you can get a new weapon, then decide to cut off four weapon arms or whatever to upgrade it to usable level.&rdquo; There&rsquo;s a lot of mechanical mindfulness shining through here, and not just in the sense that The Surge is essentially a gauntlet run through sort-of sentient, clanging machinery intent on processing you into spam.Such is the focus on mechanics, in fact, that the story barely gets a sniff (something about a world ruined by ruined by human decadence, self-aware AI, and a regular schmoe called Warren caught up in it all). Deck13 mentions environmental storytelling, though my only encounter with this was an audio log next to a dead body describing how said corpse came to be there. It&rsquo;s a little sparse, as the cold, steely environments which to me give a glimpse into what Amazon warehouses will look like 60 years from now&mdash;bleak. But with the fire just about extinguished on the Souls series (for now), maybe solid mechanics with their own twist are all that&rsquo;s needed to scratch that itch for millions of gamers. Hetenyi is aware of what that itch is: &ldquo;The Surge is about rewards when you overcome a challenge&mdash;not just a story point, nor a loot item, but a real neurological feeling of victory.&rdquo; Every Souls fan can relate to this, and any game that competently provides such a feeling&mdash;in a new setting of sparks, laser cutters and the heavy sound of metal rupturing metal&mdash;has my attention.

The Surge

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