10 Best Video Games Of 2019 You Haven't Played

8. The Surge 2

The first Surge always showed promise, but for as much as it was "sci-fi Dark Souls", the game's reputation and structure struggled to put enough of an identifiable spin on that assumption.

Enter The Surge 2 - easily the finest non-FromSoftware Souls game of them all, and a game that top to bottom, is loaded with tweaks, inversions and subversions of the "Souls formula".

XP - while you can bank it at a bonfire-like checkpoint - can be multiplied over time if you challenge yourself not to save. Great limb-based targeting is twinned with a crafting system that gives you specific components based on which part of an enemy you've severed - tying in with vertical and horizontal attacks, that mean you're always fighting mindfully.

Defence is also directional, and even dodging is shaken up through jumps and ducks alongside lateral movement.

All of that is just the tip of the cyber iceberg, as while Code Vein and Remnant: From the Ashes were solid enough Souls clones with sex appeal and firearms respectively, The Surge 2 feels like developers Deck13 genuinely care about advancing the fundamentals.