Combat in The Surge 2 is dynamic and extremely challenging at times. Similar to Lords of the Fallen and Dark Souls, the game is in third person and will feature various sci-fi inspired Weapons and Armor that provides different stats.
Combat
Combat for The Surge 2 explains the basic combat mechanic of the game and the associated actions that you can execute. Combat in The Surge 2 is very similar to Dark Souls or Bloodborne. Players have a Stamina bar which can be used to attack, dodge and block. Different Weapons have different attack patterns and moves that difference them from each other. Depending on your impact, your strike can knock enemies to the ground, launch them in the air, stagger them, or not impress them at all.
Body Parts and Killing Blows:
When you are pointing the camera at an enemy, you can use the “Lock Target” button, allowing you to follow all his movements. You can then use the “Cycle Body Part” button, which allows you to cycle through all the enemy body parts and attack them.
By continually attacking a specific body part, you can damage it until the bar is depleted. Then, if you have energy available, the interaction button will be shown on top of the enemy head. Hold the interaction button, you will perform a killing blow cutting the enemy in that part.
There are four type of body parts:
- Un-armored: They are circular and light-blue. They are the weakest parts. You can quickly kill an enemy by attacking unarmored parts. When you perform a killing blow the enemy won’t drop any items for that part. If you cut an arm holding a weapon, you will still get that weapon. (You still get Tech Scraps)
- Armored: They are shown as a yellow shield. They provide more protection and are harder to break. When you perform a killing blow, the enemy will drop the schematics of the part and components. (It will still provide Tech Scraps)
- Armored body parts with attachments: They are shown as a yellow shield with red in the inside. They are the most protected part and the hardest to break. When you perform a killing blow, the enemy will drop Implants and implant crafting components. (It will still provide Tech Scraps)
- Un-armored body parts with attachments: They are circular and light-blue with red in the inside. They are not armored and therefore easy to cut. When you perform a killing blow, the enemy will drop Implants and implant crafting components. (It will still provide Tech Scraps)
Enemies that are not killed with a killing blow don’t provide any items but still provide Tech Scraps.
Health and Death:
Health refers to the amount of Health Points a player has. When players are hit, your health will be reduced. Players can restore health by using injectables or First Aid Stations that are scattered around the map.
Health can be upgraded by spending Module Points at a Medbay.
When health reaches zero, the player dies and all the Tech Scrap he has will be dropped at the same location.
There is a timer displayed on the top left corner. If the times runs out, the Tech Scrap will be lost permanently. Defeating an enemy will add 20s to the timer. Being close to your lost Tech Scrap will slowly heal you, picking it up will fully replenish your health.
Stamina:
Stamina is the energy of a character that is used to perform various actions such as attacking, blocking, jumping, and sprinting. This makes Stamina an important aspect of combat as it limits your actions. If the stamina has been completely depleted, your character won't be able to attack, block, sprint nor jump until it is replenished. Stamina will quickly replenish if you stop spending it for a brief period of time.
Every attack in a combo has a perfect timing window. If you time your attacks properly, they will cost less stamina. The stamina bar will flash upon success.
Stamina can be upgraded by spending Module Points at a Medbay.
Energy:
Players can utilize a resource called Energy that fills up by hitting enemies or blocking incoming attacks. The energy bar is divided in sections, each section grants 1 energy point. When a section of the bar is filled, the player can spend it on or to perform killing blows.
After 25 module points spent on energy, you get an additional battery slot.
If you stop hitting enemies for a period of time, a sound will start playing and a section of the bar will begin to flash. If you don’t consume or spend the energy, it will be lost.
You can find Battery charges dropped on some locations or dropped by some enemies upon defeat. When picked up, they provide with 1 energy point.
Energy can be upgraded by spending Module Points at a Medbay.
Melee Attacks:
Unlike The Surge 1, all weapons in a type mostly share the same moveset. Although some attacks of specific weapons have extra effects.
- Horizontal Attack: Attacks from the side that deal moderate damage and consume moderate amount of stamina. The move will affect by which body part you're locking on.
- Vertical Attack: Slower, higher stamina consumption but deal more damage. The move will affect by which body part you're locking on.
- Charged Attack: By holding attack key until it's ready (can tell by the sound effect & flash). Could be one powerful attack or a quick combo, the move depends on ①the weapon type, ②it's horizontal or vertical key you hold to initiate the charge, ③which body part you are targeting. It has high energy gain, can break shields.
- Slide Attack: Attack while running.
- Evade Attack: Attack while evading. The attack move only depends on your evade direction(must have lock target), doesn't matter horizontal or vertical.
- Jump Attack: Attack while jumping or falling, can break shields. Holding both direction and evade key will perform a quick jump, easily lead to a jumping attack, but if your character collide with enemy before reaching certain altitude, he/she'll land quickly and can't initiate the attack.
- Parry Counter: Completely directional parrying an attack enable a powerful following counterattack.
- Vertical Evade Counter: Tap Jump/Evade key(they do the same job) when enemy is doing horizontal attack, it automatically decides whether to jump or crouch. Successfully evading the attack enable a following counterattack (same move as Parry Counter). You can also attack without evading any attack, but it'll only deal minor damage to enemy and stagger your own character.
- Backstab: Can be performed from the back of an enemy at close range, when you see a circular red mark on it. Deals high damage. Invincible while performing it.
- Combo: Linking attacks create a combo. Linking attack at the right moment (slightly before the previous attack completely ends) will significantly reduce its stamina consumption. Most weapon types(except for double-duty) have 2 sub-type, they'll have different 3rd or 4th(gloves) normal combo attack (horizontal-horizontal-horizontal/vertical, vertical-vertical-vertical/horizontal, etc).
- Knee to know : while stationary pressing the evasion button followed by a quick press of either attack button will cause you to do a slight hop up while doing a knee attack which at the time doesn’t seems to do much as it seems to bounce off enemies (further testing required)
Directional Parry:
While maintaining the block, press the right stick into one of the four directions (up, down, right or left) to mirror the enemy's attack direction, right before the enemy attack connects, to do a parry. It will totally nullify the attack, avoid the excessive stamina cost and stun the enemy, being able to just attack and do a heavy counterattack. Every weapon type has an special animation and its own damage multiplier when doing this counterattack.
(ESTIMATED VALUES, JUST DID SOME TESTING. SEEMS CONSISTENT ACROSS WEAPONS FROM THE SAME TYPE)
Spear: x4.3
Staff: x3.2
One-handed: x3
Heavy-duty: x2.9
Boxing-gloves: x2.7
Twin-rigged: x2.5
Hammer: x2.1
Single-rigged: x2
Double-duty: x2
Combat Drone:
After you have defeated Warden Garcia Boss, you will acquire a combat drone. There are many modules for the combat drone, by pressing the combat drone button you can deploy it and by pressing the combat drone button again it will perform an attack.
This may be used to lure distant enemies or to kill enemies that are out of reach.
Anonymous"Armored body parts with attachments: They are shown as a yellow shield with red in the inside" - I thought the red inside referes to my damage output. In my case I am wearing a helmet with a "damage unamoured -3%" meaning my damage to unamoured parts will be less. Like a penality for wearing the helmet. The way this wiki presents - there is no real difference between a blue shield and a blue shield with a red tick inside.
- Anonymous
The knee attack is actually kind of useful. It works sort of like a directional parry. If you do it to them while they're attacking, it stuns them and turns them around for a backstab attack.
- Anonymous
this doesnt seem clear enough, so to elaborate on Knee to know:
it works as undirectional parry if timed correctly (same timing as directional parry), parrying even those attacks that cant be parried directionally (those attacks that dont show direction with analyzer implant)
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