The Surge - Interviews and Previews

Eye spotted two interviews for The Surge.

Vice:

What lessons has the team taken away from the experience of making, releasing, and reading the feedback to Lords of the Fallen? That game was loved in some quarters, but criticised too, and you obviously want the next game to be bigger. Is there anything you know you didn't quite realise on Fallen that you're definitely making up for with The Surge?
Yes, a lot. Firstly we were of course happy that so many people played and enjoyed Lords of the Fallen; we would never have dreamed that this would actually happen. But with a lot of gamers come a lot of opinions, and of course criticism. So we tried to listen to this as much as possible, and mix it with our own observations and ideas. Take the level design, for example. It's a bit open at the beginning of Lords but then it becomes rather linear. With The Surge we're creating levels in a completely different way, all revolving around game design and story to create a vast world that opens up as you play. You don't just "revisit" locations you already encountered, but you need to "dig deeper" later in the game to harvest its full potential. Attentive players will always find the path leading through the levels; but every level consists of a lot of different layers that can't be explored on the first visit. You'll need to come back there later with your newly acquired powers and skills to unlock all of the secrets. Well, at least most of the secrets. Unlocking them all will be really tough. If you just try to find the fastest way through the game, you'll most likely become beaten up rather badly by the final opponents.

Gamewatcher:

GameWatcher: Can you talk about the exoskeleton the player wears? How does that affect him? Presumably it makes him stronger and harder to kill…

Jan Klose: Basically it makes it much easier to do stuff than you would be able to otherwise. It’s a physical enhancement. You can move and jump very quickly, and it also has armour parts so you can’t be hurt that easily. The exoskeletons have different functionalities, so you can equip the one that you think is best for the situation you are in. When you see an enemy and you see they are wearing something you want, you can kill them and take their armour. It’s a cruel, basic system of the game, but they are also very mean to you, so you won’t have a guilty conscience doing that! You will also meet good characters who you can do deals with and complete side quests for, so it’s not all just you and the monsters.

And then there are also these two previews.

Escapist Magazine:

The combat is quicker than Lords of the Fallen. Much quicker. Even basic dodges can carry you half the length of a room, so getting distance on deadly enemies isn't that hard - but they're either deadlier or faster to compensate. There's an extra layer of combat to manage that I thought was really clever, as well. When you have an enemy locked on, you can then target their individual limbs and parts - letting you try to bypass your enemies' most armored bits. Which limb you destroy using custom finishing moves also determines what loot you get from enemies. Limb targeting gives the game's fight-die-repeat gameplay some extra staying power: If you die and go back, you've got another shot at a complete set of gear from those enemies. In the example we saw, an untimely death to a wandering security robot let the player pick up a few extra parts for a full suit of heavy gear.

The Sixth Axis:

Your time into facility is likely to be haunted by voices of others, coming through to you via the radios. You’re not the only survivor and others are trying to escape or simply keep moving forward. The chatter of two such survivors being cut short as some big, dreaded thing descends upon them once more neatly foreshadowed the boss character in the demo.

Admittedly, it’s not particularly horrifying as a giant many limbed ring with jet thrusters to fly comes in to attack, but it looked to be a typically exacting challenge to beat. It’s purpose in the facility wasn’t clear, but it certainly didn’t like any living humans passing through.