R
age 2’s obnoxiousness is baked into its very DNA. It’s unapologetic and uncivilised, stuffed to the gills with lairy lawlessness in a way that comes across as a little bit needy: neon graffiti scuffing up every environment and hot punky pink squirting across… well, everywhere you look.
Id’s Doom-like meaty gunplay paired with Avalanche’s open-world opulence certainly sounded good on paper, and we were genuinely excited at the prospect of the union. These are two vastly different studios with vastly different expertise and pedigrees, but in the end these differences make Rage 2 feel like two vastly different games.
On one hand, there’s id’s tourniquet-tight combat, as gleefully violent and gruesome as its ever been; and on the other, there’s Avalanche’s big, atmospheric set pieces. The two never seem to come together, and before long the repetition of the superficial busyness starts to fray at the seams. The main campaign is too short and the free roam and side missions are too dull, making the game feel hopelessly unbalanced, as though all the action is front-loaded.