No classic deathmatch in RAGE
Combat Rally and co-op episodes instead.
RAGE developer id Software has announced that the game's multiplayer modes are called Combat Rally and Legends of the Wasteland.
Neither is a traditional deathmatch, team deathmatch or capture the flag mode, marking the first time the studio has released a first-person shooter without classic on-foot deathmatch.
Creative director Tim Willits told journalists in Salt Lake City last week that the studio wanted the game's multiplayer modes to be derived from its new gameplay ideas and not simply reheated concepts from its past.
Combat Rally pits six players against one another in something akin to a cross between Quake 3 Arena and Smuggler's Run.
Players drive around trying to shoot one another while simultaneously gunning to reach checkpoint markers. Checkpoints confer score multipliers but are not activated in a linear circuit-based order, so the action flows all over the map.
Legends of the Wasteland, meanwhile, is a series of two-player co-operative missions based on stories you hear told in the single-player campaign.
For example, a character may tell you about the time bandits took over the town of Wellspring and planted bombs on its water supply, only for a couple of guys to ride in and save the day. In one LOTW episode you get to play those two chaps.
Another LOTW episode will be based on the Mutant Bash TV aspect of the main game, where you're forced to gun a gauntlet of mutant waves in Smash TV-style circumstances.
There are eight planned LOTW episodes at the moment, but id may release more with the game, and did not rule out the possibility of others appearing as downloadable content.
All of this is on top of a campaign that id has said will clock in at between 15 and 20 hours long.
Look out for an extensive RAGE hands-on preview soon.
