The Surge 2 Boss Guide - Warden Garcia

The Surge 2, in the same vein as other Souls-likes, is a very challenging title. While the game spares no expense in making you look and feel as badass as possible, pulling off all those sweet action-packed moments comes at the price of high difficulty. With volatile enemies at almost every corner and an unforgiving landscape where there is certainly an ambush that awaits you in the dark, The Surge 2 can be a very tough nut to crack, especially if you’re using its mechanics the wrong way.

The hardest aspects of The Surge 2 are of course found in its bosses, all standing in your way of the eventual truth that haunts Jericho City. For this guide, we’re taking a look at the tutorial gatekeeper, Warden Garcia, and how new players and beginners can beat him and successfully pass The Surge 2’s first major barrier.

Location and preface

Warden Garcia is found in the JCPD Detention Center, the very first area of the game. He is all that stands between you and freedom, as you awaken from your coma two months after the plane crash in Jericho City. Beating him opens up the rest of the game for exploration, and also gives you the ability to use drones in combat.

While he is a tutorial boss, he should not be underestimated for two reasons: one, he can be very challenging because he is accompanied by a drone. And two, his use of a single-rigged weapon is a bit different from how the weapon category actually works. His move set allows him to dish out burst damage in fewer swings or attacks, and as such you have to be very careful in your placement and timing.

Preparation

Since he’s the first boss, there’s very little in terms of preparing that can be done. However, you’ll know he’s near once you reach a long, well-lit corridor. After pressing a button and sprinting down the corridor before the door closes, you’ll see a short cutscene of his men being mauled by the Delver, a nanite monstrosity that wreaked havoc in the JCPD, allowing you to escape.

Before approaching the corridor, make sure that you have your injectables filled. At the start of the game, you can have up to two, so it’s good to fill this up before the boss fight. You also want to have the path to the corridor opened up directly from the Med-Bay through a shortcut, allowing you to bypass the side rooms and enemies in them.

You can choose from four possible weapons to fight him with: the HL-1 Defibrillators (Twin-Rigged), Empty INF-Labs Chassis (One-Handed), the Salvaged Gouger (Spear) and the Equalizer (Heavy Duty). While each weapon can work very well against him, I’d recommend either the Salvaged Gouger or Empty INF-Labs Chassis for some range, as his Single-Rigged weapon has decent range to it. Alternatively, if you feel a lot more confident in attack speed, you can also go for the Defibrillators at the cost of having to be very near whenever you’re dealing damage.

As a side-note, you can also favorite all of the above weapons, and you can switch between them using the Up button on the D-Pad.

Once you’ve decided, head to the end of the corridor to meet him and begin your first boss fight.

Constant harassment is key

Warden Garcia will almost always start his chain of attack with a jumping slash at you from across the room, and he does this before you can even reach him. It’s one of the easiest attacks to time, and you can dodge to the side of it for a good opening. Better yet, if you time it perfectly, an up-directional block will stun him outright, allowing you to deal back a ton of damage.

Warden Garcia is surprisingly mobile for his get-up, which consists of heavy AID armor. However, he will always have one body part unarmored, usually one of the limbs. If you prefer, you can choose to focus on the unarmored body part for easy staggers and more damage. That said, cutting off his weapon arm will reward you with his Single-Rigged special weapon and an achievement. It’s up to you.

The fight mostly consists of Warden Garcia dealing two or three attacks in a row while you’re in his range, but they are all relatively easy to time and deflect, if you’re going that route. You will want to always keep him within a dodge away, just so you can keep tabs on his attacks. It can get a bit hard since he tends to move around constantly, but you can also bait out the weaker attacks this way. Attack whenever there’s an opening, preferably a cross combo, then backing off quickly so as to not drain your Stamina.

Ground pound and the annoying drone

There are two main attacks that can severely put you in trouble with Warden Garcia: his ground pound, and all of his drone-based attacks. The ground pound is unblockable, but with the directional analyzer implant you’ll know when it’s about to hit as a special marker appears when he does it. If you get hit directly, it deals a ton of damage; if you’re near its shockwave, it staggers you down as well. This attack is the main reason why you always want to have your Stamina up, as it allows you to move out of harm’s way with just one dodge. However, you should always time your dodge as he is in the air, and not before he jumps up so as to not draw the aggressive enemy tracking.

The drone-based attacks come in two forms: one when it’s flying free of Warden Garcia, and the other when it’s nestled on his back. For the most part, you can easily dodge or block most of the flying drone attacks, and they don’t deal a lot of damage even if they end up hitting you. However, it’s when the drone is on Warden Garcia that you should watch out. He can do three kinds of special drone attacks when it’s on his back, and all of them deal explosive area-of-effect damage rather than bullet damage:

• Close-ranged combo finisher – Warden Garcia will sometimes perform a three hit combo that finishes with him in a kneeling position. After the final attack, his drone will throw a grenade right in front of him, dealing a ton of damage. Unless you managed to deflect all of his attacks here, it’s imperative that you dodge out of there as soon as he does the kneeling pose in order to avoid the grenade, or risk it dropping on top of you.
• Backflip escape mechanic – at times when he finds himself being outdamaged and cornered, Warden Garcia may immediately backflip away from you, and in mid-air his drone throws two grenades from where he was standing. This is a pretty big bait that should be avoided, as most players’ intuition would be to immediately dodge in rather than out. Always dodge out if he does a backflip away from you.
• Constant grenade throw – this move only happens if he’s a certain range away from you, and as such you want to always be within attacking range to prevent him from using this move too much. In some cases, he also does a little spin away from you in the midst of combat, which signals that he will be doing this move. Warden Garcia uses his drone to throw five grenades in quick succession in an arc in front of him, from right to left. You will know when he’s about to do this when you see him raise his hands quickly. You can either dodge to both sides to avoid it or dodge back, but never dodge forward, as the range on these is quite big.

Easiest deflection openings

Warden Garcia can be a good source of practice for directional blocking, as some of his attacks have a pretty big wind-up to them. The charged straight attack from a range is a great starting point for deflections, as it’s relatively easy to time properly. As for the other attacks, the Single-Rigged weapons always start slow from above in comparison to the sides, so you may want to focus on blocking vertical attacks rather than horizontal.

Other helpful tips to remember

• Dodging through the server cabinets will destroy them immediately, clearing up the level and allowing you to keep your eyes trained on Warden Garcia and his drone. Try and destroy all of these first before dealing with him.
• The Defibrillator’s cross combo will stagger him on his unarmored body part, which is pretty useful if you want to beat him as painlessly as possible. However, this puts you at a bigger risk of counterattacks, especially from his drone.
• If you managed to die, don’t pick up your dropped tech scrap immediately. As long as it’s on the ground, it releases a healing shockwave which is useful for negating the damage done by the drone while it’s flying. The best time to pick up the scrap is once your health is extremely low, as picking up tech scrap fills your health to full, or if its timer is about to expire.
• Dodge backwards if the attack comes from either of his sides, and dodge to the sides if it comes from above. If you time the latter perfectly, you’ll find yourself behind him, which is a great opening for a counter-punishment.
• The two pillars near where you enter can be a great place to take a breather. That said, watch out for the grenades, as they can pass through the pillars to drop on top of you.

Aftermath

Once you finally beat Warden Garcia, either by cutting off his limbs or just allowing him to simply die, his drone will transfer to you, allowing you to finally use one of the game’s main mechanics. Afterwards, head towards the intact staircase near the JCPD main entrance to trigger your first interaction with Athena, who asks you to pick up her toy. A chest then appears, which contains her toy. Pick it up, and continue upwards to meet Brother Truman who will introduce you to the Children of the Spark and catch you up on what happened to Jericho City in the past two months.

Stay tuned for more guides on The Surge 2. The game is now available for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Check out my review for The Surge 2 here.