Now Mad Max-style raiders run rampant and a techno-fascist group called The Authority is trying to kill or subjugate everything in sight – the connections to the events of Rage are thin and distant enough that Rage 2 is effectively a soft reboot.
You definitely don’t need to have played Rage to understand the simple concept of a future Earth where an asteroid impact destroyed just about everything that wasn’t sheltered underground in Arks, which are basically Fallout’s vaults (without the sadistic experiments). Regardless, I haven’t played a single-player shooter this energetic and satisfying in its moment-to-moment action since 2016’s Doom it’s clear that developers Avalanche and id transplanted some of that game’s successes into this large-scale shooter, making its action feel markedly different from and more vibrant than a Far Cry or Borderlands game.Rage 2 picks up the story of the 2011 original, brushes off seven years of accumulated dust, and declares it still good under the Five-Second Rule.
A small touch of tedium from repetitive “kill everything” missions and a relatively lifeless open world? Sure – but no actual rage. The joy of unlocking a great new ability that changed the way I move or fight in interesting ways? Definitely. Excitement from thrilling gunfights? Yes. I never felt any rage while playing Rage 2.