14 Aug, 2011
DOOM often evokes some great memories from back in the day, when first-person shooters were a brand new thing on the market. Now with games like Call of Duty, Halo, and Half-Life, the genre has since received a lot of attention since the days of Wolfenstein 3D. id Software created a genre that many a fan can’t even imagine life without, and they are set to bring out the big guns with their next big title: Rage.
It’s curious how to classify this game. It’s got shooting, it’s got driving, and it even has RPG elements. Starting to really sound like it should be Gordon Freeman behind all that, right? Wrong. John Carmack is getting ready to make big changes to the FPS genre even more as id prepares to launch Rage with shiny new owners Bethesda. Maybe that’s where all the RPG elements came from.
So how do you ever hope to revolutionize the genre, once again, and try to appease what id calls “the greatest fans in the world”? The man who has some answers is Tim Willits, Creative Director of id Software, and he let a couple of cats out of the bag in an interview with CVG.
At its core, Rage is going to be more than “just ‘run and gun,’” said Willits. It’s going to be a classic id Software-style shooter. “We have many different aspects that make it more of a complete experience,” he said. “We have of course the driving elements with racing and vehicle combat, we have a story, we have an economy; we have these really unique characters that are really over the top.”
You shall not pass and all that. Right. Got it.
Of course, just because id is one of the “founding fathers” of the genre doesn’t mean it will reinvent the wheel again. Or does it? As one of the most popular (and immensely crowded) genres of all time, everything from zombies, hand-to-hand combat, and co-op play has been done time and time again. What new things will Rage actually bring? Well, said Willits, it’s running on brand new technology. Specifically, that’s the id tech 5. Willits described it as a “mega texture system” where every area visited has its own unique personality, style, and setting. If you were thinking all the corridors will have the same look, you’d be wrong. “…you’re not running into the same space corridors for 20 hours,” said Willits. “…it really brings a visual look that you can’t get anywhere else.
“The game is also truly cross platform, so whether you’re 360, PS3 or PC, you’re going to have the same experience. It also runs really fast, it’s a 60 Hz game and at first, not many people know quite what that means but it’s very fluid, you feel very connected to the experience. You decide to turn left, right, shoot, jump and it happens instantly so that connection to the game is really important to hardcore FPS fans and then of course it adds just the variety of gameplay that you just don’t get in a lot of other games today.”
People dig variety, and perhaps that will be the magical formula that Rage is looking to perfect. After all, things do get boring after a while if you’re shooting the same thing in a corridor that looks pretty much like that other corridor you just came out of. Or was it the same one all along? Rage also hopes to improve the variety in the post-apocalyptica setting, but some fans are worried it might quickly become just another Fallout with nifty looking cars.
...Nigel West Dickens?
Not so, said Willits. While the setting might be of a similar taste, it won’t be the entire point of the game. Survival is not the key here. “…it’s all about story, action and gameplay and of course player choice, that is really the foundation on which Rage stands upon,” he said. “The post apocalyptic setting is nice because it allows us to ground things in reality. We have muscle cars with machine guns on them but it allows us to also have some sci-fi elements so we’re able to be very over the top, very technically driven and allows us to have things like wing sticks, which is the greatest weapon in any game ever.”
And to have “the greatest weapon in any game ever,” you must populate the world in which there will be viable targets to test said greatness. We can all relate stories of horribly boring AI, the kinds that die quickly and have predictable attack patterns. Well, Valve changed that up, but we won’t go down that avenue right now. “The really neat thing about AI in Rage is that it’s not your average stand there, shoot and die sort of AI,” said Willits. “If you have an ammo type that’s in your shotgun, the AI knows and they also know about each other, the AI can actually become wounded, crawl around and actually try to get away, shoot from the ground (etc). I mean, we have some really cool AI that is very robust and very smart so I think that people will be very happy with the dynamic AI that we have on Rage.”
Whether the robustness or smartness will translate into NPC backup, we don’t know. We should very much hope so. When’s the last time you died on an Expert-level campaign in Left 4 Dead 2 because Rochelle couldn’t determine whether to heal you or glitch on a garbage bag? No, we didn’t experience that. Not at all…
Monsters? Say it ain't so!
With all of this wonderful AI and new variety in environments, of course fans must be asking if this will also translate into your ever-growing and ever-present arsenal of death dealers. FPS games have evolved from providing standard pistols, shotguns, and rocket launchers to snipe rifles, secondary ammunition, and boomsticks that would make any gun nut die of a sudden heart palpitation. Rage is looking to provide merriment with a myriad of ammunition types and some new weapons, like a crossbow. “The crossbow is also great,” said Willits as he described other weapons in Rage. “It has standard shot, electric bolt shot, which allows you to fry people if they stand in water, we have mind control darts where you can take over and control people with.”
Move over Alexander the Great, because your little tree branch whatevers don’t stand a chance against these crazy bows. Fans are going to feel the love, and id Software wasn’t shy about expressing their gratitude to fans, old and new alike. “We have some of the greatest fans anywhere in the world and our fans have always supported us and we in turn have definitely listened to what they want,” said Willits. “They want a core FPS shooter. When you are hunting mutants in Rage and you are down in the sewers, and you have the shotgun in your hand, you are right down there with every id software fan wants to be.”
With all the mutual love between fans and id alike, it’s hard to imagine a world without an FPS genre, but as history would have it, all great things come to an end. To id, the FPS looks to continue to change, and will continue to be the most popular genre if it isn’t already. “The FPS genre I feel is the very best genre because it places you i.e. the game player into the experience like no other type of genre does,” said Willits. “But even the word genre is even a bit too constricting, and I think that people should remove labels from games and let games just be games.”
Game on, baby.
Bring your Rage on October 4th to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.
Read the full interview with CVG here.
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