Article by: Justin Amirkhani

It’s been a long time coming, but id Software is finally rounding out development of its first new game since 2004. RAGE is looking to reinvent the company’s profile showing it’s capable of more than the predictable corridor shooter by breaking out to a wide-scale post-apocalyptic world powered by a brand new rendering engine called id Tech 5. Tim Willits, the creative director on RAGE, was willing to take our questions about id’s past, present and future as well as the company’s new relationship with Bethesda.

So, RAGE is just that, a new IP from id Software. Hopefully everyone knows we’ve been around a long time making first person shooters, and now we’re at it again. Lots of times people have asked us why make a new IP when you have Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein. For us it was really about wanting to do something new and unique from the other titles we’ve done.

When John Carmack was developing id Tech 5, we looked at what it could do and the advantages it had to make a game that would be more than the classic sort of corridor shooter that id’s been known for. So we really tried to break the mold from our previous games, but those who’ve played it can probably feel it’s definitely still an id Software title – it is a first person shooter – but in many ways it’s not a traditional id Software game.

The cornerstone of RAGE is that it’s built on new technology that allows us to uniquely texture the world and create a wide variety of unique looking areas for you to go into. There’s also a lot more emphasis on characters and their different fighting styles. We have groups of bandits, various mutants, and the militaristic Authority. Lastly we tried to incorporate a lot of player choice, giving you the ability to use every weapon you find and we really try to make every new area you go into come with a new toy to play with, be that a new weapon or a type of ammo. It’s a bit of a long answer, but all these parts ultimately consist of what makes up RAGE.

I think the mechanical experience of RAGE is defined by the sum of its parts. It’s not pure run-and-gun gameplay, but it still exists within the game – there are plenty of familiar run-and-gun areas. However, there’s also this racing and driving mechanic that we ran some focus groups through and we were pleasantly surprised by the positive response we got, even from the core shooter fans who aren’t usually interested in racing or driving games. Pretty much everyone felt a connection to it and it complimented the rest of the game well.

Then RAGE is also different in that there’s a lot more emphasis on characters and story and setting, there will be sections where you can interact with characters and learn their history. There isn’t really one thing that defines RAGE; it’s really the sum of its parts as a complete package that makes it so unique.

I think the most important thing we learned making RAGE is that a lot of good narrative comes down to pacing. In our classic games, when we hit the gas we never let our foot off. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for story development or getting attached to characters, so with RAGE we’ve really segregated the hardcore run-and-gun areas from the settlements and the towns so we can take our foot off the gas and let people experience the world. Then we try to make it as rich of an environment as possible and try to put something new and unique in every corner and the new technology really helps with that. A lot of effort has gone into making the RAGE universe, we’ve produced comic books and a novel, plus the iPhone game that have helped get the name out but also offer avenues for players to steep themselves in the world.

With this sort of game there’s no doubt you need to have more method, but I still believe the best way to describe id is “organized chaos”. I’ve always tried to keep a very flat management structure so that everyone on the team feels like they have input and they have opportunities to take ownership of something in the game so they’ll be proud to make it the best it can be. That really helps the overall game because there’s not one person who designs RAGE; it’s a collection of all of us working together. So, the spirit of id is that we’re a lot bigger now but we try and keep that small studio mentality. Hire the best people we can find, give them the tools to do their thing and enable them to do their best. That has always been our philosophy and it’s worked really well for us.