Story Is Very Important in ‘Rage 2’

Most of Rage 2‘s pre-launch marketing and media has focused on its over-the-top tone, its zany post-apocalyptic world, and its DOOM meets Mad Max gameplay. There hasn’t been a lot of focus on the game’s story, leading many to believe the sequel will be light in this area. But that isn’t true. According to developer Avalanche Studios, story is very important in the game, and has been since development of it started.

Speaking to the Official PlayStation Magazine, the game’s narrative director Odd Ahlgren and its senior narrative designer Loke Wallmo, talked about the studio’s focus on narrative with the title, noting “Bethesda and id [Software] have been pushing the story from the very beginning.”

“They knew that they wanted a strong story component in the game, and pushed for that from the beginning,” said Wallmo.

The pair continued, touching upon how the game connects its open-world sandbox gameplay with its story, and noted that everyone you meet in the game, like in the first Rage, has a specific backstory and personality players will remember them for. In other words, minimal random NPCs.

“Most people you meet, most stuff that you see, even enemies that you never really talk to, they have a backstory and they have a reason to be there, and they have a reason to behave in the outrageous way that they do,” said Ahlgren. “Most of these things are explained if you look close enough.”

“We’ve sort of spread it out all over the place so it’s kind of like more of a sandbox,” added Wallmo. “You’re going to a certain place and you find something there and it has a context and story.

The narrative designer continued:

“Something that I think RAGE put a lot of focus on that we’ve tried to maintain is the crazy characters that show up and have their own motivations for doing things and asking things of you. That’s something that we want to spread out through the world a little bit as well. There’s a strong part of that in the main story of the game, in the fight against The Authority. But that also echoes out throughout the rest of the world as well.”

So, if you’re more of a story over gameplay type of gamer, don’t worry, while Rage 2 will certainly have a lot of the former, it doesn’t emphasis gameplay to the point that story is backseated.

Rage 2 is poised to release on May 14 via the PS4, Xbox One, and PC, priced at $59.99 USD. For more news, media, and information on the upcoming game, be sure to peep all of our previous coverage of it by clicking right here.

Thanks, Gaming Bolt.

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