I am hoping against my better judgment that this game turns out really good. I might get it around launch if I can finish Tears of the Kingdom and Elden Ring (I can only have so many open world games on my plate...)
The Surge was okay. Surge 2 (PS4) punched above its weight but suffered from PS3-era structure and limitations. Moving to open world isn't an automatic win, but it seems like they've retained the core of previous games' combat. Specifically, the limb targeting was really neat in Surge 2. It was a unique combat system that was a genuine evolution from Soulslike combat and it appears they're keeping it and expanding it to Monster Hunter-style part damage/targeting. I can dig it. The one thing they NEED to do is to include human enemies that use the same weapons/skills as the player. One of the best aspects of Surge 2 is that -- other than a few drones/robots -- all the enemies used weapons that could be used by the player and the enemy was constrained to the same moveset/stamina limits as the player would be. So as you used the weapons and learned the combos, it also gave you insight on how to block/counter enemies using those same weapons. This wasn't obvious until you began playing the game more and learning the directional blocking. Surge 2 is seriously one of the most underrated action games... it's sad.
I wonder if the map will be full enough with various enemies and things to do, that often ends up being the shortfall of these B-tier games. They don't tend to the have the budget that supports a huge map with a huge variety of enemy types, but maybe this bucks the trend. The drop-in co op could be a big selling point. Wonder if solo players will have a Dragon's Dogma "pawn system" or a similar NPC buddy system to bring someone along, not just for the combo possibilities but also for the banter.
The map does appear to have a lot more than deserts... forests, snowy mountainous regions, underground stuff, various towns with different architecture. When it was announced, it pushed this theme of "restoring the world", like raising up ruins and stuff. I'm curious how permanent these restorations will be, and how much of a difference they'll make. I'm tired of "static" open worlds that are full of quests but the map itself doesn't change in any notable way. Oh sure, you might defeat a generic Bandit Camp and then your banner/emblem gets slapped on the door, but you usually don't get to see cities develop or factions grow. I can only speculate because the "restoring the world" aspect has been shown off the least in trailers and previews.
All that said, Focus Entertainment has so many good games out on current consoles and more coming out soon. I hope this is good
www.gematsu.com
