play station official magazine

068

The Authority are far

from the disorganised

wasteland gangs – a

true sci-fi menace.

RAGE 2

H

aving played the first game,

we’ve got some burning

questions about how the new

one relates to it. We’re particularly

keen to know more about our special

abilities, and one returning group of

baddies who we’re excited to see

again. After all, the setting for Rage

2 may be anarchic, but we’re firmly

on the side of the lore...

OPM: Can you tell us more about the

Ranger Suit your character wears? It

reminds us of Doom’s Praetor Suit.

Tim Willits: [In the original] there was

the Ark Suit. It

allowed you to have

your defib, your

Ark Suit upgrades,

and that was kind

of integral [to

Rage]. Magnus and

I took that fiction

and extended it.

[...] The Rangers,

they originally

started as people that were in the

Arks during the Authority War, so

their suits were very important to

them and it integrated well with

their nanotrites. So because you’re a

child of parents who had nanotrites

you can wear this high-tech suit that

has a lineage back to the original

game. And at Id we love making

armour suits, yes.

OPM: So what’s with the nanotrites

in the blood?

TW: In the fiction they were injected

to help the original people that were

buried underground to survive

hibernation, to help them heal

themselves, to survive this wasteland

world. But as we progress the game

into the future the people have

learned to weaponise those and we

get the slam and the pound and stuff

like that. So that’s kind of the

evolution of the nanotrites in your

body, which is kind of a symbiotic

relationship with the suit.

OPM: What was the approach with

reintroducing The Authority from the

first game?

Magnus Nedfors:Well it’s a great

enemy – that style of super-powered,

high-tech military-style enemy faction

is... it’s a traditional, classic great

enemy. They were super-fun to play

against in the first game. It was like

“hey, let’s keep those guys” because

it’s a nice setup. It’s part of the

universe, they exist in this universe,

it was part of the first game – the

nice mix between wasteland and

science fiction like that like post-apoc

style but you also have these science

fiction elements from The Authority

that they bring into the world. That

contrast is really nice. So when you

go out from the broken world into an

Authority base it’s

very high-contrast,

and a nice way to

create two very

different

environment types

to be in. And we

never knew what

happened to them

in the first game,

you never got to

fight the main enemy at the end of

that game. We felt like you need to

meet that guy now.

TW:And they have a good

juxtaposition in the wasteland

because they’re like Magnus said –

very high-tech, very sci-fi, very

organised. Whereas the wasteland,

you know, mutants and bandits,

they’re very disorganised. [30 years

on] they’re much more organised

now – but their buildings are made

out of recycled parts and old

buildings, whereas The Authority’s

tech is new.

armour on the stronger convoy

leader. From there we stumble on

two Arks – pods containing

upgrades dropped from space –

which each have their own

combat area to fight through.

Peppered between all that action

we clear gang hideouts The Bridge

Of Ned and Stilt Town, both

offering little stories to uncover

and fresh combat challenges.

Rage 2 is brimming with things to

stumble upon, all of which you

can take on your own way.

PICK AND MIX

Out of the merging of Avalanche’s

and Id’s philosophies come

new ideas, for example the way

nanotrite abilities interact with

the gunplay. These are cooldown-

based power-ups bound to o,

and give you a lot of freedom in

how you approach any combat

situation. You can upgrade and

enhance the abilities as you work

through the game and discover

new Arks. Tapping o gives you

a simple dash, but you can then

combine that with other moves

too. Using a melee attack as

you dash forward makes it more

powerful, of course.

Another move you can get,

which we had bound to o and

w, throws out a void grenade

that sucks in enemies and objects

before spitting them back out.

Use it near yourself and you’ll be

launched into the air. Dash into it,

and that momentum comes back

out the other end for a big boost.

You can also throw out a regular

grenade then use Void to draw

more enemies towards the

explosion. Other abilities include

a barrier that you can use

defensively or zap enemies with

if you knock them into it, Shatter

(a force explosion that pushes

enemies back and damages

armour), and a ground-pound

ability. Naturally, the higher you

ground-pound from, the more

damage it does.

Combining these abilities is

intuitive – using them together

just makes sense. There are little

flourishes you can do here and

there, such as voiding yourself up

to get height for a solid ground-

“WE NEVER

KNEW WHAT

HAPPENED TO

THE AUTHORITY

IN RAGE.”

TIM WILLITS

STUDIO DIRECTOR,

ID SOFTWARE

MAGNUS NEDFORS

GAME DIRECTOR,

AVALANCHE GAMES

MAKING AN ENTRANCE

How Rage 2 picks up from the first game...

Gyrocopters and hoverboats permit

many more approaches to areas.