Rage

Instead of further capitalizing on one of their long-established IPs, id Software hopes to reinvent the first-person genre with their upcoming title Rage. We had a chance to check out a new demo on the show floor at E3, and id made a point to highlight a suite of new locations, missions, and features.

As a quick refresher, Rage unfolds in the distant future after Earth has been decimated by a massive meteor. Before impact the governments of Earth came together to bury “arks” with enough people to repopulate the world if need be. You play as the sole survivor of one such ark and return to the surface to find that more of the world’s population has survived than originally thought. Earth itself, however, has changed drastically. Mutants roam the surface and clans of bandits instill fear in well-intentioned survivors. An omnipresent force called “The Authority” has begun to assert influence and becomes the main antagonist of the game when their nefarious plans come to light.

Our demo starts off with us visiting a shack in the middle of the wasteland owned by Crazy Joe. Joe needs you to restock supplies from the larger town of Wellspring and informs you that mutants are lurking nearby. He seems to believe The Authority has been experimenting on them – the reason for their increasingly disturbing appearance and behavior.

As Joe warned, a band of mutants attack the second you step from the meager shack. The first you take out with a bladed weapon called the Wingstick – decapitating him on the spot. The others require short work with your pistol. After clearing the area, you hop in a nearby buggy and head the direction of Wellspring. Bandits in similar buggies try to halt your progress, but are fairly easy to take out with the machine guns mounted on your ride.

Arriving in Wellspring it becomes apparent that id is working hard to make each location unique. Wellspring has a distinct blending of western and Asian influences. The settlement itself was founded on a well and the inhabitants purify water to sell to travelers. Without the water the town would be left high and dry. As you enter Wellspring you are met as a stranger, but as the story progresses people will start to change their behavior towards you, recognizing your accomplishments and achievements.

Before we can secure supplies we find out that the local well is under attack. Members of the Ghost Clan are threatening to poison the water supply and destroy the settlements economy for decades to come. Being a good samaritan, we agree to help. Climbing down into the depths of the well, we are warned that the Ghost Clan in particular is very acrobatic and are known for dynamic traversals – meaning you never know what they are going to vault over where they will drop down from. We equip some electro bolts on our crossbow and use it to shock and kill a pair of the clan members standing in a pool of water – an easy and clean execution. Testing out other deadly gadgets, we use an RC car equipped with a bomb to take out another trio of unsuspecting victims. Reaching the “kill room” – the designated meeting area for the clan – we deploy a personal turret to help clear the area.

After eliminating the threat and stopping the assault on Wellspring, we jump to a different area to check out the Wasted Clan and secure a few parts for our ride. This clan is comprised of a bunch of gearheads who enjoy modding cars. They are much more colorful in terms of both their appearance and speech. Battling our way through a garage, the firefights take place in tight corridors and more expansive areas. As we reach a dead end a buggy bursts through the wall and a clan member starts whittling away at us with a turret. Taking him out from behind cover takes a few tries, but when we do the pieces we need for the buggy are ours to claim.

The last location we demo is an area called Dead City. Dead City is drastically different from Wellspring or the Wasted garage, full downed concrete buildings and little else. The city is populated with mutants that we must fight through in order to find a research facility that houses information on The Authority. Immediately upon entering Dead City mutants begin to pour into the street. They are easy enough to take down, but a towering foe twice the size of an average mutant armed with rockets is more of a challenge. Once he falls the ground begins to shake. Before too long a beast several stories tall emerges from behind a building, and the screen fades to black.

What we’ve seen of Rage thus far looks promising. As we’ve yet to get hands-on time with the game we can’t comment in that capacity, but id’s pedigree in the FPS genre leaves us little to worry about.