There are at least two very good reasons to get excited about the next game from id Software. #1 it’s the company’s first original title since the release of Quake way back in 1996, and #2 it’ll be the first game to utilise the latest iteration of id’s game engine, id Tech 5. If that doesn’t altogether fill you with enthusiasm, let us refresh your memory with a few facts: foremost, id single-handedly popularised the fps with its titles, thanks in part to the programming genius of John Carmack whose technology has powered titles from Quake III: Arena to Doom III.

Mutants are just one flavour of enemy in Rage...

If there’s one thing the developer knows better than anyone else it’s how to craft a hardcore shooter experience, but the intriguing thing about Rage - apart from being set in a totally new universe – is how it will marry the classic id gameplay with new mechanics and a compelling story. “With Rage we needed to do something different because we didn’t want to do another Doom or Wolfenstein, but we knew that at its core it needed to be a hardcore first-person game.” Willits told us during a demo of the game. “It has many other elements that make it a more complete experience. We have vehicle combat, and racing. We have a whole host of new and rich characters all wrapped around this much more compelling story, than we’ve previously had in other id Software games.”

The story of Rage takes place in a distant future in which an asteroid has destroyed most of civilization – you play a survivor that emerges from a cryogenic stasis pod known as an Ark to find a brutal post-apocalyptic landscape that plays host to bandits, mutants, settlers a shadowy organisation called ‘the authority’ and the resistance that opposes it. If that all sounds somewhat familiar to other post-apocalyptic shooters (think Borderlands, Fallout, BioShock) don’t worry too much, because id hopes - as always - to hook you with gameplay. “If you’re familiar with id Software titles, you know that the moments you’re running and gunning, and those areas you’re fighting bandits… it has that intensity,” Willits assures us. “And with the vehicle combat, vehicle racing, over-the-top characters... yes it’s set in this post-apocalyptic world, but that setting just lays the ground work for the action, and it’s the fun-factor that really propels Rage above anything else.”

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The action retains that 'solid' id feel