Just finished
The Surge 2.
The nanite plague has infested Jericho City, the city has been walled off, and all sorts of cyborgs and nanite-infested abominations now occupy it. There are pockets of survivors, some of which have started a cult that worships the nanites (that they call it the "Spark"). Your passenger plane is hit by some sort of nanite swarm and it crashes in the city. Time to chop up some ne'er-do-wells on your way to working out WTF is going on!
For those not familiar, The Surge series is basically science fiction Dark Souls. Instead of resting and leveling at campfires you do it at med-bays. Instead of collecting Souls you collect Scrap. The level design is fairly tight, with lots of hidden areas and paths that to find that give you shortcuts back to a central hub. So far, so familiar to DS fans.
Where it differs is that to get better armour (rigs) and weapons you basically hack them off the enemy. This is a fun mechanic. See an enemy wearing something interesting or holding a cool looking weapon? Smack them in the arm until it reaches break-point, and then hack it off when prompted. You usually kill him or her or it (if it's a robot or nanite abomination), and get a template of the part of a rig that was there and any weapon they were holding. Want their helmet? Aim for the head. And so on.
As well as this there is an implant system and a drone that you can give various capabilities. As you level up you get more Core energy, meaning you can equip more implants, or more powerful implants. A big part of success is not just having the right sort of weapons and rig for your playstyle, but also the right implant combo for your build.
Some aspects are an improvement on the first game, some not.
There are more weapons, rigs, implants, upgrade options, damage types - this is all good.
Alas, they have changed the blocking system to be directional. I struggled with this, I just seem to lack the coordination. There was a part of the game where you had to fight large sword wielding robots and dodging wasn't really an option due to their sweeping reach. I forced myself to git gud and I eventually succeeded with the quest, but trying to do that with faster enemies? Nope. Luckily you can easily gear yourself toward lighter, faster builds, so for most of the game I relied on a dodging glass cannon build.
So is it any good?
Well, I liked it more than Dark Souls (oh no, blasphemy!). It's a little janky at times, but less so that DS1 or 2. And the setting is refreshingly different. And there is a plot that makes sense, if a little wacky.
I'd definitely play a The Surge 3 if it were made. Alas, the company made the badly received Atlas Fallen next. I guess after making 3 souls-likes (they also made the original Lords of the Fallen) they felt they needed a break.
[BTW, there's a New Game+ mode that adds some new stuff to the plot. You even get to take part in events before the plane crash (I guess it would have spoiled some of the mystery if they let you see it all before the first playthrough). So it's worth just starting a NG+ to see that. The particular ending I chose resulted in my dude having weird glowing eyes in NG+ for some reason. Groovy.]
I actually found the change in pace in the kingdom combat quite welcome, but I just didn't think it was implemented very well.
