Surgeon Simulator 2's Clinical Trials update lets you compete for a golden heart to put on your real shelf

Surgeon Simulator 2 limb toss — (Image credit: Bossa Studios)

Fancy yourself an experienced Surgeon Simulator 2 practitioner? Well, you'll have a chance to prove it in next week's Clinical Trials update—a five-day scalpel showdown that has very little to do with surgery, but may just land you a grizzly golden trophy for your troubles.

Starting next Monday, November 9th, Clinical Trials' week-long simulated showdown adds a new challenge map each day, only one of which could even loosely be described as "surgery" (in that it does, in fact, feature human limbs). The rest involve stacking cardboard box towers, yeeting hot dogs into a shredder, a balloon penalty shootout and one of those grim vintage arcade games about dropping pennies off a ledge.

Not the sort of thing that'll win you a medical doctorate. But it may, however, land you one bizarre centrepiece for your desk. Bossa is taking video submissions of folks' attempts at each day's challenge—and among controllers, merch and the like, they're also giving away a golden (at least, gold-finished bronze) heart trophy for Friday's fastest fingers.

Granted, it's not unusual for Surgeon Simulator 2 to play loose with its premise. In his review, Luke Winkie reckoned the sequel had "even less to do with surgery than its predecessor," and was all the better for it. I'm not sure parlour game Olympics was what he had in mind when he wondered what a surgery-free Surgeon Simulator could look like, but at least it might land someone a goofy piece of paraphernalia.

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.