When technology is playing bad jokes
The narrative premises are those of a land close to its end, mainly due to the excessive exploitation of resources by a civilization gathered in overcrowded cities. Technological advancement has enabled citizens, assisted by exoskeletons, to return to explo
ration of peripheral areas of cities to carry out recovery activities, around which all the dynamic roles of personalization and growth of the character will develop and that we will see more in there in the article. All this leads us to face the adventures of the protagonist in a dystopian, arid but highly technological world.
Now let’s go to the basics of gameplay that we know to be the main pillar of this genre. Everything starts with a checkpoint and dining area as well as a base for leveling up and enhancing equipment, just like the bonfires in the Souls series, to be clear.
The commands available to us are the fast attack, the strong one, parade, dash in different directions, and the ability to use the items in our possession. The str
ong attack, in particular, can be loaded and despite the extended run time it can count on greatly increased damage. The enemies encountered in the short section dealt with span from simple drones, different levels, and different attack patterns, to humanoid enemies also equipped with exoskeleton.
An armor is forever
The exoskeleton is divided into six different parts, one for the limb plus two generals, the enemy that has it can be hit in each other, selectable by right analogue lever.
Of these, some will be described as weak and any blow will result in an increased amount of damage. By striking the most rugged areas, however, we can break the piece of armor, first gain the pattern and then, from the next, the pieces needed to build it.
Better armor, more than through dedicated coffers, will thus be obtained by defeating the enemy in his possession many times, recalling, in some respects, what has been done in the Monster Hunter series. Once we have recovered the currency in the game, similar to
the experience, we can spend it to raise the level of the core of the
exoskeleton. A stronger core provides more available energy to be used to activate grafts, which can provide passive perks. There will be a myriad of pos
sible combinations as the various pieces are disconnected from each other: they can create heavy, very durable armor, but such as to slow the movements, as it will be possible to have lightweight pieces for no mobility constraints.
The choices made during the test led us to a heavy configuration of the character, which has kept us strongly attached to the dashboard mechanics, which is therefore essential regardless of the armor type to avoid the opposing strikes.
Souls like, but up to a point
The three bars that will form the upper left corner of the interface are those of life, stamina and overcharge. After a series of shots, our character will recharge it and if we have to exceed a certain value in the presence of a damaged enemy we could use the finisher, which will also guarantee a loot bonus.
In the interview that followed our test, we learned that the difficulty curve is relatively high in the first phase of the game, but then, contrary to what usually happens, it should be somewhat flaky, with some points that once get some equipment and a certain experienc
e, it will seem easy. This is not to make the dynamics of creating the armor which, if always dependent on the player’s attention and his abilities, would be particularly frustrating, it could become an important rock to overcome. Also from the interview we have been able to find out the number of areas that will be the game map: five, very different and all linked together, which together form a network similar to that seen in Lords of the Fallen.
Graphically, we are facing a good but non-stratospheric product, especially considering the map size. Unfortunately, on the technical side, The Surge during the rehearsals of some fellow journalists, literally broke under their hands, with a bug that by hand reduced the actions that could be executed and then inexorably interrupted. We do not think we can even propagate to the final build, but we just mention it for reporting purposes.
