The Surge screenshot of a duel between titans

The Surge is a recently released sci-fi action RPG developed by the studio behind Lords of the Fallen. Much like its predecessor The Surge features tactical melee combat against enemies that can easily obliterate you, a variety of weapon choices and fighting styles, a sharp difficulty curve that will test your mettle from the very begining, as well as a relatively mixed critical reception.

Given all of the similarities with Dark Souls there is a good chance some genre fans will have an absolute blast with The Surge as well, but testing that hypothesis has not been exactly easy given that it requires you to first spend €50 on a game that seems to have divided the community 50/50. As such, I am very glad to say that the developers have now released a free playable demo onto Steam!

The demo includes all of the same content as the full game, though you are limited to the first few sections. It might not sound like much, but according to the developers the demo "features hours of unlocked content" so don't worry, it won't just be the tutorial! Naturally, should you ever decide to purchase The Surge your progress will carry over and you'll be able to pick up exactly where you left off.

For those of you that don't know much about The Surge, you'll find one of the CGI trailers right below. It obviously doesn't feature any gameplay, but it'll give you a good idea of the tone and style The Surge is going for. Enjoy!