[Update] Watch 15 minutes of sci-fi zombie beatdowns in a new trailer for The Surge

The video also demonstrates the game's narrative elements, but we're here for the fights.




Focus Home Interactive has released a new 15-minute gameplay trailer for The Surge, "a hardcore action-RPG with a focus on tactical melee combat." The video showcases plenty of bone-breaking brawls, but also gets into the game's conversation and scavenging systems. 

"Combat in The Surge doesn't use 'light' and 'heavy' attacks, but rather horizontal and vertical attacks. The reason for that is because we can target specific body parts of our enemies," Adam Hetenyi, the head of game design at developer Deck 13 Interactive, explains in the video. He then demonstrates the principle—or rather, has his underlying do so—by hammering an unarmored part of an enemy (his head, I think) and then connecting much less effectively with an armored bit.   

But it's not all about the fighting. "In The Surge you'll be able to find and interact with a number of NPCs. Some of them you'll be able to help, others will be able to help you," Hetenyi says. "In either case you'll be able to speak with them to find out more about what's going on at CREO." That's the shadowy company whose industrial/RND complex you'll be tromping through as you work to figure out what's gone wrong.

Still, fighting is clearly the name of the game here. The demo may be meant to show off The Surge's narrative elements, but that basically amounts to a suspiciously Janice Polito-sounding disembodied voice copping an attitude and then serving up a fetch quest: Not exactly the height of storytelling nuance. On the other hand, that's not really what we're here for, is it? 

The Surge is expected to be out later this year. Find out more at thesurge-game.com.