Thoughts on RAGE 2 (Patreon)

There was good reason to be excited about Rage 2. The game’s made in collaboration between id Software - makers of the bombastic shooter DOOM - and Avalanche Studios - the smart Swedes behind the joyful Just Cause games. 

So an open world shooter with the playground destruction of Just Cause and the sizzling shooting of DOOM sounds pretty good, right? 

Sadly for us, Rage 2 doesn’t meet either of those goals - with a lifeless map to trawl through, and shooter mechanics that fall way below id’s previous outings. Lemme talk about the two halves, and then how they come together. 

Open world structure

Rage 2 has a very simple structure.

There are three main characters - ex soldier Marshall, town mayor Loosum, and mad doc Kvasier. Each one has a few main missions for you to do.

Then there are hundreds of side missions dotted across the map.

Encampments filled with enemies, ala Far Cry. Sentry drone mini-bosses. Convoys to take out. Simple exploration puzzles. Vehicle races. Bounty hunting. That sort of thing. Soon, you’ll realise that there’s only a handful of distinct mission types that are repeated over and over again - and most (but not all) come down to one thing: kill all the bad guys. 

The goal of the game is to do all of the main missions for the three characters, and a handful of side missions to raise your level, and then you can go kill the boss and finish the game. 

In a way, it’s a bit like Breath of the Wild. You can do stuff out of order, explore the whole map at once, and do as much content as you want before ending the game (though, you can’t walk to the final boss immediately). 

But the details aren’t quite there. The map is flat and lifeless, and not calling out to be explored - so you’re more likely to just jump from icon to icon on your map, instead of stumbling onto stuff serendipitously.

And the stuff you do find is all very samey and simple. For example, you’ve got these Arks. There’s about 12 of them on the map and they give you new powers and weapons. They’re a bit like shrines in Zelda. Except, instead of a cool, well-crafted puzzle, it’s just a simple tutorial for the new ability you unlocked. 

Doing any of this stuff gives you one of Rage 2’s many currencies, which fund Rage 2’s obscene number of skill trees and upgrades.

Every weapon can be upgraded, and each one has a skill tree. Every inventory item can be upgraded. Your vehicle can be upgraded. All of your super powers can be upgraded, and each one has a skill tree. You’ve got three normal skill trees. And you can upgrade your character with tiny 5% boosts to your stats.

Sometimes it’s fun. I like looking forward to new things, and imagining how powerful I will be when I’ve unlocked everything the game has to offer. And I have to admit it’s a powerfully addictive loop (do missions, get loot, unlock new powers, try them in missions, get loot...) that kept me going for about 15 hours. 

But it’s also feels hollow and repetitive. It’s almost like a clicker game, where you’re playing a progression system, instead of a game. The only thing that makes Rage 2 different to a clicker, really, is the intrinsic fun of the gameplay in between the progression system...

Combat

A progression system alone isn’t enough to keep me playing a game until the end. I soon realise that I’m trapped on a treadmill of upgrades in those games, and leap off before I get too addicted. 

What kept me going, then, was the combat. 

This game is a lightning-quick knockabout power fantasy where you fire off snappy assault rifles and booming shotguns, dart between cover points with a double jump and a slide, and unleash super powers that can send enemies tumbling like rag dolls. 

It has shades of DOOM (obviously - this game is made by id) and Titanfall 2, and when you’ve unlocked some cool Crysis-style super powers (like a move that lets you slam down from up high to create a seismic wave of destruction) and other perks (hit back grenades in mid-air! Pause in mid-air while you shoot!), combat feels slick, fluid, and fun.

However, there’s a few things holding it back from DOOM-level greatness:

One. There’s barely any reason to change weapon.

One of the amazing things about DOOM (and other good shooters) is that the different enemy types call for different weapon types. So you’re switching through your entire arsenal of weapons to deal with different threats. A rocket launcher is good against slow enemies, but the plasma rifle is better against fast-moving foes. The shotgun is good against the pinky (but only in its back) and the gauss cannon makes light work of Cacodemons. You’re constantly changing weapons, and tactics, to deal with the threats at hand.

RAGE 2 doesn’t have this. All the enemies are pretty much the same, and your basic assault rifle will make light work of everyone you meet. With a few cheap upgrades, the assault rifle becomes massively overpowered and a dominant strategy for almost every situation. I played through 90% of the game with it, only switching to the shotgun for a few crowd-control situations, or the rocket launcher for some bosses. I didn’t even touch the other guns after unlocking them.

Weapon choice and enemy design creates second-to-second tactical decisions in shooters of positioning, prioritisation, and weapon preference. If a gun is dominant, works from afar and near, and all enemies are fundamentally the same, there’s no need to worry about any of these things. 

Another issue I had is that Rage 2 is just really easy. I ended up having to play on the hardest difficulty (nightmare) because normal and hard weren’t giving me any challenge - and even that was a walk in the park. (I’m willing to bet this might be a bug). 

Part of this is just because you’re so overpowered. You have loads of weapons, grenades, and super powers. You’ve got instant health kits and a one-use revive system. And even an overdrive mode where you’re basically invincible and all your guns do, like, double damage. 

It also ties into the upgrade system. If you never upgrade, the game probably would be quite tricky. But as long as you do a few side missions and collect some loot, you’ll have enough cash to make yourself almost unbeatable.

Story and Style

The game’s style just feels like it’s all been done before. 

Giant convoys of rusty vehicles, storming through the sands? That’s Mad Max: Fury Road. Ramshackle towns filled with drifters and mercenaries? That’s Borderlands, and Fallout. A post apocalyptic world that’s spattered with pink paint? Ouch, sorry Rage 2: Far Cry New Dawn beat you to the punch by a few months.

The game’s going for an in-your-face edginess, I guess? But with immediately dated language like “You’re basic”, “Hashtag”, and “Clapback”, and weird character design (the bad guy looks utterly ridiculous), I found it more cringe-y than funny. 

Rage 2 also made me realise how silly a lot of game writing is. In the game’s towns there are NPCs who give you missions. Almost every mission boils down to “go to a place on the map and kill all the enemies there”. But the devs had to come up with unique flavour text for all of these missions. 

It became a fun game of trying to see exactly how they managed to rewrite that basic command into dozens of different variants. Try it yourself next time you play one of these games: it’s often more fun than the game itself. 

Conclusion

In my livestream for Rage 2, I said that devs should only make open world games if they have a good reason to make one. They’re really hard to do well! So, if you haven’t got a compelling reason (story structure, sense of adventure, focus on discovery, open-ended mission types, etc), just stick to something more linear. 

Rage 2’s unique weapons, super powers, and movement capabilities would be well suited to a Titanfall 2-style shooter with distinct levels that ramp up in complexity as the game goes on. But the open world dilutes everything, adding unnecessary travel time between missions and an utterly broken difficulty curve. 

You’re either doing missions that are too high or too low level for your current capabilities, or upgrading your character to the point where you’re too powerful for anything that stands in your way. Leading to the gameplay I witnessed of just waltzing from mission to mission, killing everything with an assault rifle. 

There was potential in Rage 2, but I feel like it was squandered by simply chasing after the most over-done type of world design.