Hey guys! This is Jan Klose, CEO and Creative Director at Deck13. You may know us from Lords of the Fallen, but we’re back with The Surge, our new action-RPG.

We know we haven’t talked about The Surge much since we announced it earlier this year, but today we’re here to tell you a little more about the world, combat and upgrade system, and talk a little about what inspired it!

So without further ado, here are five things you absolutely need to know about The Surge:

The world is inspired by the worst-case scenario for today’s problems

Earth, in a dystopian future where robotics and mega-corporations work hand-in-hand in an effort to preserve what’s left of Earth’s fragile climate. Quite frankly, the real world is what inspired us most.

I mean, take a look at recent trends in technology, robotics, AI, renewable energies… but also the political, environmental and economic development in the last 30 years. Where will all this end? If it were to end badly… welcome to The Surge.

There’s also an element of philanthropy we’ve touched upon in the story; where corporations fronted by internationally lauded characters claim they’re working for the greater good, but each year encroach more and more into the creepy. Drones to deliver goods, advertisements that seemingly read your mind, where would that all go in a few decades?

Setting the world in a dystopian industrial future allows for awesome combat!

Using a near future scenario, we can pick up a lot of trends from the real world and play with them, and we love that! Working with the fusion of people and technology also lets us do great crazy stuff gameplay-wise.

And it’s so focused: It all comes down to a stronger core mechanic which is the tactical close combat. Cut off limbs, and upgrade yourself with a mix of cybernetics, bone, flesh, and gadgetry. This is a gritty future – it isn’t robots vs humans, it’s cybernetics and man-kind rather inelegantly gnawed, sawed, and nailed together, trying to improve what it is to be human… or, rather, making the human manufacturing machine more efficient.

In The Surge, most of what you see isn’t designed for combat, but when push comes to shove… a shove with hydraulics behind it is going to win.

Slice and dice your way to upgrades

The player’s progression is strongly bound to his most important asset: The Exo Suit he is wearing. This rig allows him to move with more agility and perform stronger moves, but you can also attach armour parts and weapons to it and improve its power level, and manipulate it in a variety of ways.

So instead of having some “fantasy” values that for example boost your hero’s strength all of a sudden without an apparent explanation, you are “really” modifying your character in The Surge, by improving all the technology that’s working in a fusion with the human body.

It’s going to be tough, but you’ll learn quickly and the rewards are worth it!

The game will be difficult, yes. There’s a huge element of risk/reward. You need to analyse your enemies, find their weak spots, and then take a counter measure of your choice to confront them and bring them down. And yes, you are going to die a couple of times in the process.

The difference to Lords of the Fallen is that we take more time introducing the different features for the player at the beginning of the game. Not in a lengthy tutorial, but as you are advance in the game, the features that will help you overcome your enemies will come one by one so that you can grasp the whole toolset of possibilities and not miss on some of them just because they were introduced poorly.

Our experience with PS4 has allowed us to push the boat out

Yes, it’s great to do another game on the platform. We’re using our own engine again, but because the console hardware stays the same and we’re further developing our technology, as well as our experience with the PS4, we can do even greater things this time. We can take what we’ve learnt and then add another layer. That’s very exciting from a developer’s point of view, and it’s rare that you get such a chance. We want to make the best out of it.