Developer: Deck 13
Publisher: Focus Home Interactive
Platform: Xbox One, PS4, PC
Tested on: PS4
The Surge – The Good, the Bad and the Augmented DLC – Review
The Surge first came out in May 2017 and was well received, certainly by fans of the Dark Souls genre. We then got the chance to review the game, which you can check out here. Recently a new DLC was released called: The Good, the Bad and the Augmented. This DLC will turn the dystopian future of the main game into a more Wild West environment. Warren will be able to become a typical cowboy with the extra gear that the DLC adds. We got a chance to review this DLC and hit some enemies in their purdy lil’ faces.
Story
In the Good, the Bad and the augmented, Warren will take on the role of a cowboy, a highly “tech” cowboy in this case. You will be able to play separate episodes which are a bit like challenges with mini-stories in the test chamber. Each mini story is related to the environment; one moment there was a “train accident” and the other you’re trapped in a mine. The supervisor will tell you what happened and will make comments on the continuation of the story. He will also say what “cowboy Warren” is thinking.
Graphics
The DLC doesn’t really change anything to the good graphics of The Surge except for making the environment more Wild West like. All enemies also still look generally the same except for the extra gear that the DLC adds. This gear can go from cowboy hats to more native looking masks.
The environments are well designed and go from the “future Earth” look from the main game to the Wild West look perfectly. It might have been cool if they made the drones also look a bit different to fit in, but that’s just details.
Sound
Music in the DLC is slightly different but is still more atmospheric than over the top. One thing that you get in the DLC that you don’t get in the main game is Mr. Supervisor. He’s the one that narrates everything that happens in the test chamber. All the story parts, you get from him. His accent also changes, into a more Wild West one, when you start the episodes. The voice actor did a really good job.
Gameplay
The Good, The Bad and the Augmented is, just like the main game, an Action, RPG where you try to beat enemies of different difficulties. Only in the DLC, you get a bit more story during the gameplay. Gameplay wise, not a lot has changed. You still collect gear by cutting off limbs with the finishing move, only now you can get cool cowboy hats or different looks for weapons that you already have. You can unlock a ton of other gear and implants by just playing through the episodes. Once you finish an episode, you also unlock extra difficulty modules which reward you with weapons or other gear.
Every episode unlocks a few modules. You can then replay with them selected and they add certain things to up the difficulty level, for instance: one will make all the enemies invisible except for their weapons while another one will make you automatically equip the weapon from the last enemy you defeated, and so on.
Every episode has three parts, two rooms and then a challenger. If you die in one of the two rooms, it’s over. You lose all the things you collected and will have to restart. Before you go into the challengers’ room, they give you the option to drop out with all the loot you collected, however, this will make it so the episode is still not finished. Besides the enemies being deadly, it is often also possible to fall to your death, either it being an enemy that pushed you or you making a misstep. It is quite awful when this happens because even then you need to fully restart.
In the two rooms, before the challenger, there are coins hidden. These are “lucky coins” and can be used to get an extra try with the challenger. So you do get multiple chances when you collect coins. If you beat the challenger and still have coins leftover, they get turned into Tech Scrap. Getting to the challenger can often be frustrating as you might spend a lot of your healing on just getting there and then you still have to beat the challenger. The challenger is also never alone, either accompanied by extras that attack you when you come close or random gunshots and so on. So it is never just one guy you need to beat. So the challenge is really to be able to get to the challenger with enough healing left. However, once you beat him once, it is extremely satisfying.
Once you fully beat an episode, shortcuts will be available when you play again. Which makes it easier to farm and play with difficulty modules. You can get some nice gear and a ton of Tech Scrap by playing these episodes. When you are new to The Surge you will have to unlock the Test Chamber by traveling to Central Production B in the main game first. At this point in the game, you will also only have three episodes available. When you continue to play the main game, you will unlock more episodes.
Conclusion
If you enjoyed The Surge and wished it had a bit more content, so the wait until the sequel is more bare-able, then this DLC is certainly for you. The Good, the Bad and the Augmented has the same gameplay as the main game but with a Wild West theme and some story mixed in-between. You will be able to unlock some cool new gear or some new looks for your old ones. It certainly isn’t easy to beat the episodes, so it will certainly give some extra hours of fun.
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