RAGE

If you like Doom & Fallout, then how could you not like Rage?

More than a decade after its initial release, Rage unfortunately hasn’t aged too well – technical difficulties, mediocre gameplay and a forgettable story make this game only recommendable to players who have run out of other first-person-shooter campaigns to play

There have been plenty of videogame series that – most likely inspired by the popular Mad Max movie franchise – are set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland: Popular ones like Fallout and Borderlands or more niche titles, like Fuel. However, one game was seemingly especially fond of the movies, not counting the official Mad Max 2015 videogame by Avalanche Studious of course: Rage. Incorporating a wasteland with roaming bandit clans, highly weaponized cars and weird characters, this 2011 game was also the first AAA release to be built on the id Tech 5 engine – which resulted in the graphics being particularly praised back in the day. But more than a decade later, Rage naturally cannot rely on its visuals being similarly impressive anymore – and what’s left is a game that, played for the first time in 2025, is – at best – extremely mediocre.

First, let’s talk about the technical state of the game however, as Rage exhibits numerous problems such as crashes or performance issues that sour the experience even before actually getting to play the game. Most notably, even on more than capable PCs, Rage won’t run smoothly unless you apply some of the fixes advised in the PcGamingWiki: This includes manually creating a texture cache (!) for the game, as it’s unable to automatically do so by itself (!!). In my case, even with the fixes applied, Rage still didn’t run smoothly in certain locations – but while noticeable, it wasn’t distracting enough for me to consider it even anywhere near unplayable. What’s more infuriating, however, is that the 64-bit version of the game disables Steam achievements for some reason – which means you’re stuck with the 32-bit version, if you care about them. In short, expect to spend some time on technical workarounds before playing Rage.

Moving on to the actual game, I feel like there’s little reason to play Rage unless you really want to play a game in a Max Max-like setting – or have ran out of other first-person-shooters campaigns to play. While Rage isn’t a bad game per se, it simply doesn't offer anything outstanding enough to choose it over other contenders for your time.

On the bright side, while the graphics obviously aren’t as cutting-edge as they used to be – the last decade hasn’t been devoid of technical advancements after all – the art direction is still decent enough to provide some generally nice views – even if most of the game is obviously stone, dust and scrap. This extends to the enemies as well as the guns in your arsenal as well – they all fit well together in this vision of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. So at least it’s not the graphics that have aged terribly, some low-quality textures aside – unfortunately the same thing can’t be said about the rest of the game.

In terms of gameplay, Rage offers a world made up of different levels – a few big but empty zones to use your car in and a few small “dungeons” filled with enemy encounters you go through as part of the main story. As such, you’ll spend most of your time on foot, engaging in typical first-person shootouts, with automatically regenerating health and conveniently placed obstacles to use as cover from enemy fire. You’ll only really use your car during (simple) races or to get to the various “dungeons” – while the game offers numerous car customisation options, you’ll never really need them unless you plan to engage with the racing side-content a lot. Rage also offers you various new cars over the course of the 10-12h story, which makes investing into “older” cars quite pointless.

To expand upon the shootouts, Rage features a surprisingly large amount of guns, as well as different ammunition types – you might also use the shotgun as a tool for launching mini-grenades, for example. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop enemy encounters from becoming incredibly repetitive, as the combat areas are boringly designed – mostly corridors or large rooms with similar architecture – and the various enemy types not behaving much different in practice. As the game goes on, the only way that combat gets more difficult is by enemies using armour and thus gaining more health – instead of encountering smarter enemies or types that require you to change your strategy. As it is, every Rage fight simply is about staying in cover, picking off enemies one by one and occasionally switching to close-combat weapons if a melee fighter appears. It doesn’t help that the AI isn’t particularly smart then, mostly staying in cover at one place and occasionally firing at you.

Especially players with a lot of first-person-shooter experience are thus quickly going to realise that Rage doesn’t bring anything new or exciting to the table, which different the game from other titles. It’s solid enough to still be entertaining but honestly, there is not much of a reason to play Rage these days unless you’ve ran out of other first-person-shooter campaigns to play.

This is only emphasized by the story of Rage, which was already criticised back in the day – flat characters, no proper villain and a cookie-cutter plot as well as a quite basic presentation make Rage a narrative experience you’ve immediately forgotten about as soon as you closed the game. The plot only really serves as a red line to guide you through the various areas of the game, it might as well be replaced by a marker that tells you what enemies to shoot next – this does extend to the only story DLC of the game, The Scorchers as well, of course. A shame, considering the art direction of the game could’ve easily served as a backdrop for a more intriguing tale.

Concluding, the technical state of Rage unfortunately makes applying fixes more mandatory than optional – and even when it runs, the 2011 game unfortunately isn’t much more than yet another first-person-shooter, although set in a post-apocalyptic world. While the game isn’t actively bad, it’s simply too mediocre to recommend a playthrough these days, as there are much better alternatives to play – like the aforementioned Fallout or Borderlands franchise, for example. If you’ve “experienced them all” however or simply are quite interested in Rage’s particular vibe – there’s definitely worse games to play too. In that case, at least wait for a sale however – while not an expensive game to begin with, it does get even cheaper quite often.

A potentially excellent 360-era corridor FPS that is trapped inside a empty, bland, forgettable and unfinished open world game.
RAGE was suppose to show off the id Tech 5 engine with large beautifully rendered environments but the actual game is at its best when you're partaking in the linear corridor shootouts. The gunplay here is *chef's kiss* good stuff. Aiming feels natural. Enemy animations especially when they get shoot is incredibly detailed. The guns are enjoyable to use with fun alternative ammo types. If RAGE was a 10 hour linear campaign it could have been as well remembered as other similar FPSs of that era like Metro 2033, Metro Last Light, The Bioshock Trilogy, or DOOM 3. It's a shame it tried to an open world experience. As an open world wasteland experience it's nowhere near as deep, rich, or atmospheric as the Fallout or STALKER games. As a FPS with RPG elements it struggles to have the satisfying systems found in games like Borderlands. RAGE still gets a thumbs up from me for how good the gunplay is but it could have been an all time classic if id software quite literally "stuck to their guns". The RAGE series will forever be the series that has amazing gunplay in forgettable open worlds with car combat plus a pseudo Mad Max post apocalyptic setting that feel especially redundant now with the well received Mad Max game.

its a little too easy and the world is empty but I think its a solid mid game some of the mini games are goated as well.

Imagine if Borderlands and Fallout had a child... with an extra chromosome.
The graphics are bad. The story doesn't make any sense - for the parts that are explained at least. You're just woken up in your cryo pod and thrown into the world, some guy saves you for no reason, will not explain anything, and just straight up gives you fedex quests. Oh and there are lazy jumpscares.
This game seems to have a small but dedicated community, but to be honnest I cannot justify playing it over Fallout or Borderlands. It just seems lazy, or not finished, or not polished, idk.


---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☑ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☑ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☑ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☑ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

For first time players, it does not hold up in 2025.

Bought this on Ps3.
Keep in mind it's no GOTY but .... I loved it.
bought it again for 12$.
this a fun game with a cool story and universe.
Rage 2 was fun but never was able to recreate the original.

Still looks great for its age. The textures are low res though.
Had around 10 hours of good fun shooting bandits, mutants and the authority. Definitely worth it if you can get it for cheap.

I played this when it first came out on Xbox 360. It was fun replaying on steam in 2025. The graphics held up well, the story is good, the combat is really good. You can tell the developers put a lot of care into it. Now this does play like a classic ID tech demo, with lots of hand holding during the story, but I still loved it!

For me there is plenty of action, get to drive different vehicles and also some quiet times.

Not bad. I got this after beating Rage 2 and wanted to play the first one again. The world and characters are amazing and some insane animations. The rest of the game feels outdated. Im not a huge fan of the controls. Rage 2 controls were a lot better. I would give this game a big thumbs up except it reminds me of the Jak and Daxer series and they mightve did it better. I will say Rage 1 and Rage 2 feel completly different. In 1, every bullet counts and you have to take cover. In 2, You quickly become overpowered and lightning fast. I will say the quests in Rage are pretty lame but the wonderful world makes up for it. I would love to give it a high score but it is way too outdated and slow. Once thing I notice thats only in Rage, is the bad guys limp if you hit them in certain areas. They also take cover and have good teamwork. In Rage 2, they would slide on the ground and do a fake death thing.

There is a lot to do in Rage but Im not sure if its worth the current price. It just feels like a lot of work to make it fun.

If you buy this game and just press "play" its the worst game ever and should be buried next to E.T cartridges, but with Idtweaker and reshade and some mods and experimenting with cfg files and textures still gonna pop and the sound still gonna bug out... its actually a fun 7.5/10 game, reminded me of metro exodus, but 8 years too soon. Oh and for me it only took 14 years to finally stop crashing! Runs at stable 144fps on 5800x3d with 4070super.

Great game, only wish there was more content. The mechanics are surprisingly polished, the combat is fluid and fun, even the vehicles are fun to use and drive around. Unfortunately, there just isn't enough to do. Even doing all of the side content, you can get through the entire game in about 15 hours and after that there's just nothing to do. There are plot elements that are never explored, there are environments teeming with characters and design elements that are visited only a handful of times and then abandoned, it truly feels like one of the best games of its time but it's just not enough. It's like getting a taste of a delicious meal that's just not filling enough.

ID Software so yes its really good. Remember buying this when it first came out and it was so far ahead of everything else. Still holds up today. Highly recommended.

Old school fun! I like anything ID does really.

Y'know what...its not as bad as people make it out to be, bit weird and jarring at times, but it is most certainly not the worst. 7/10 tbh, I like the Idea behind the game

Still one of the best id shooters despite the flaws, mainly technical in nature.
I love that staple Doom³ gameplay flow left generally untouched. Driving is fine and adds up to the worldbuilding, even though the locations are relatively small, especially compared to the sequel. Crafting is almost up to the point in every aspect. However it is the gunplay that has certain issues, like formally the best weapon having the worst feedback and some ammo types being generally unused. Still a nice debut!

Completed the game on Ultra-Nightmare multiple times, finally purchased the game to collect as much achievements as possible with the worst armor lol.

Pity that the game (and the engine version itself) was optimised with ridiculously weak 7th gen consoles in mind. As Carmack stated soon after the release, 'the consoles were a mistake'. Tinkering with id5Tweaker and launch options is quite educational tho.

PS: Damn Abbott, round 5 is too tough!

This is a weird one.

It's not really that great of a game, far from it. It's got clunky combat, despite being presented as an open world it's essentially on-rails, the quests and especially side content are about as barebones as it gets, the story is pure, flat cardboard.

So why a positive review?

It's got a unique charm I've really yet to see replicated. There's a sort of artistry to its world that brings to mind standalone painted pieces, with every area and perhaps every vista uniquely its own visual language. The character designs are creative and appealing, with emotive stylized animation to fit them.

Ultimately though, what really saves this game is it doesn't overstay its welcome. Without running you back and forth through recycled content, these other appeals get their chance to shine without wearing you down and making you resent that less-than-spectacular game design.

As such a distinct and charming experience, I think this game deserves a go. Just one. Heck, you don't even have to finish it.

rage does work with steam deck

The game is not bad, but i like womens, not scary rude guys with guns.

There is fun to be had in this game, though it is very repetitive.

Great game. Has certain charms that Rage 2 lacks, I think I personally prefer Rage 2 even though it's a bit generic compared to the first Rage.

I played this before on console and I did not like it, but I gave it a shot on PC and once I got more weapons the combat became so rewarding especially on the hardest difficulties. If you like the post apocalyptic setting but you'd like a more linear traditional shooter experience without rpg or heavy exploration elements I highly recommend this game

Good game though they wrote themselves intro a corner with that ending

Rage is a fun exciting game that I really like to play.

And here I thought this was a Troll 2 situation, where Rage 1 didn't exist. But just like Troll 2 and Rage 2, I like it.

There's something that so many games and movies and media get wrong: The explanation for why a character is a badass. The Rage games have a great explanation: You have a high-tech suit and nanomachines SON and your enemies don't. So when you take 8 bullets and survive but your enemy doesn't, I believe it. Why games like Doom and Halo have the Doom guy and Master Chef feel like Super Meat Boy is beyond me. They feel like absolutely pathetic characters just begging to be put out of their misery. Maybe people don't think about it and just play on "normal" mode?

I respect the devs that don't kill you in 1 shot on the hardest difficulty; Where there are actually gameplay elements to work with so you can figure out how you want to deal with things.

iD's best so far!! As John Carmack says: "You don't know what you've been missing!"

If there was more attention given to the game world and sound, it could be a powerful game like the Mad Max movie, a crazy world.

This game is kinda ass, but that's why its so good.
The story is so mid that id Software said "fuck you" to it for the sequel. The game/gunplay is surprisingly fun and stupid that you can't really complain. The driving and racing is actually quite fun, and the experience has so much soul, something that you can't find in alot of games anymore.

This games gets my recommendation.

It's actually a pretty fun game. The graphics still hold up but it's nothing special in terms of story telling. Gameplay especially the gunplay is fun af especially in combo with the Wingstick. 8/10

not a bad game, really enjoyed the weapons and just wish there was more story or stuff to do post game

There is so much to say about this game, to summarise I would say if you can get through the really bad first hour then you'll find a mediocre story with fun gameplay and driving, quite impressive AI and a mixed bag of graphics/audio. You can finish it in about 10 hours if you just do the main story but there's a decent amount of side content, it's not going to be the best experience you've ever had but it will be a nice change of pace from all the 40+ hour games coming out all the time. Overall a mixed rating, majority is pretty good but there are glaring issues especial with the story

Now for the fine details

The first 20 minutes of the game are mind-bogglingly bad, not even 2 minutes following the intro cutscene you abruptly become an errand boy for some random guy you've just met - and in the 30 seconds of exposition dumping on the way to his settlement half the audio cuts out between sentences due to some weird audio issue with vsync that can't be fixed with in-game settings. Unless you're getting a quest there is quite a lot of audio issues with NPC dialogue just being cut off halfway through, I probably missed a good quarter of the story because of this

Once you get to his camp you are automatically assumed to be skilled and trustworthy enough to take out an entire bandit camp ensuring the safety of the settlement despite not showing any sort of combat experience prior to this

After clearing out the camp and you go to the next settlement, do another errand for them which involves finding someone (the next settlement immediately trusts you to find a missing person) and turning on a radio tower while killing some dudes along the way and I kid you not, the very next mission is returning to the exact same place you just killed all those dudes and they've all respawned - same guys, same spawns

Truly a laughable introduction to the game even for 2011 standards, the same year we got Portal 2, Skyrim and the train mission from Battlefield 3

The gameplay feels like a mashup of doom 3 with mad max aesthetics and elements of the OG bioshock with ammo switching and a few other things. The shooting feels great and the driving segments are good fun (even when the car audio bugs out) - really great weapon variety including pistols, machine guns, snipers, crossbows, rocket launchers to name a few all with their own set of ammo types as well as other gadgets like RC bomb cars (basically a black ops RC-XD), boomerangs and other stuff to turn the enemy into paste

The animations are great down to the weapons, NPC's and the enemies, bandits and mutants will climb around the environment while you shoot at them and intelligently take cover and show damage when wounded, authority guards will take cover behind shield users and they react to your damage pretty convincingly. In the final mission there were some mutants using guard rails to jump between different platforms and that was really cool to me. All the conversations you have with NPCs have unique animations and the facial expressions look really good even now, didn't see a bad animation the entire game

I think the LOD's are busted because some textures look fantastic up close where as others look 240p in the same space and its very jarring sometimes, for example a characters face will look really crisp but they will have an armband that you can't tell if it's drawn on/a tattoo or if it's an actual piece of clothing

The main big bad of the game "The Authority" are set up to be this ominous, powerful presence but their impact is barely felt throughout the game despite your apparent importance to them. The stakes aren't clearly communicated and nothing really happens to the characters you interact with nor the places they live again reducing their impact

The side mini-games are a fun addition like the knife game, the RAGE Frenzy card game, racing and that holographic board game with the dice. Not Yakuza level minigame fun but great to have

The ending is probably the least satisfying ending I've ever seen in my entire life, the other reviews here are accurate you literally press a button and see a 30 second cutscene - game over. No closure that anything you did has any sort of real impact on the world or the resistance effort, it's not clearly explained what even doing this action will result in other than we've got more data woohoo

They should seriously put a seizure warning on the Feltrite AR rounds

It did not age well, but it is a fun shooter and a must play if you like mad max likes

The game of my childhood, RAGE, is truly deserving of praise and a reboot. However, the sequel was nothing more than a disappointment, a true shame.

This is NOT fps game, it is third person race crap... So annoying

Outdated in too many ways

Игру так и не починили с 2011 года. Даже немного доломали в 64-битной версии. Стрелять вроде бы весело. Техническое состояние отвратительное до сих пор.
Если ты не против посидеть с гайдами по настройке и моддингу, игра может стать весёлой. Если ты против, игнорируй игру.

imagine if jak 3 and fallout had a one night stand this is that love child

had this game on PS3 back in the day, good game that give you some jumpscares from time to time

Out of memory. Horrible gun sounds.

RAGE didn't seem to know exactly what it wanted to be. A Fallout scenario (with very little freedom of movement) meets a little bit of Doom (just without the scary factor) and very few customisation options. The makers of the Doom series tried their hand at an apocalypse end-time shooter with semi-free exploration of the game world. To this day, I don't know a single person who has at least tried out the game - and unfortunately rightly so. Although the Wasteland initially appears graphically convincing, the story missions can be summarised as follows after a over-lengthy intro: Drive to point X, shoot everything that moves, loot everything and everyone and drive back to collect your reward. Side missions recycle previously visited locations and offer no replay value. There is simply not much more to do, as the game world is quite small and almost empty. The gunplay is also unsatisfying unresponsive and doesn't feel right. The selection menu during the game is also confusing and hinders the flow of the game. Sooner or later, the inventory is cluttered with literally superfluous junk. The focus on crafting also hardly plays a role, as you can buy everything you need relatively easily from the merchant. And money is obviously not in short supply in the wasteland, despite the apocalypse. You can and must switch between different types of ammunition as the game progresses, especially later on, as otherwise it is almost impossible to hold your own against the opponents. The enemy types are also not very varied and serve as bullet sponges from the second half of the game at the latest. But the worst thing about the game are the save points. These are non-existent in longer sections, even on medium difficulty. You die - you repeat the entire level. Which sadist at id Software managed to get away with this will probably remain a well-kept secret. At some points I really had to force myself to finally play through missions after several failed attempts. This brings me to the next point: There is not much to say about the storyline itself. Its rather thin. Surprising twists, interesting or even memorable characters are sought in vain. And for those who have struggled through to this point: The ending then comes quickly and unexpectedly, almost as if id Software had run out of ideas and finally put the dilemma behind them. However, you have to give them credit for the fact that they tried to make something new and most of the ingame locations have been designed with great attention to detail. Instead of reinventing the wheel, id Software should have stuck to its strengths: Linear level design but with a strong story. So: Is the game a complete flop? Not necessarily. There was potential, and you can feel it. However, it is immature, unpolished and still feels unfinished in parts. With a little more time, creative energy and will, id Software and Bethesda could have created something really special here. As it is, however, the game will probably remain a curious, failed side note in the portfolio of a once iconic gaming giant for all time.

fantasitc gun play and variety, Every gun is viable with the right ammo. If only the story was Deeper, maybe if it had a proper direct sequel with a similiar linear storyline. The racing sidequests are a lovely feature to upgrade vehicles. would love to have seen more side quests to expand on the environment, If only its launch was more steady. 8/10

The great controls and useful weapon upgrades help make Rage's shooting parts a lot of fun, but the storyline fails to create any real tension and the game's characters, friendly and hostile, never do or say anything memorable.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3388481575

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3388485466

It plays incredibly well. And looks GREAT in 4k for a 2010 title. But dear god this is one god awful mess of a video game. No wonder it did terribly at launch.

Its alright for what i is, not a great game but certainly not a bad game
i did enjoy this more than i expected to but i can see that despite my enjoyment of this game, it definately wont be for everyone
The setting or the type open world is a lot like Mad Max, Borderlands or even Maze Runner, a desert like wasteland with some civilized towns, a bad military and hostile bandits, mutated crazied indeviduals and weird clan dudes
Overall a alright game, its not the best Post-Apocolyps FPS i have played, that hounor goes to the Metro and Fallout games, but i had fun with it

Good story and plenty of action

Fantastic game that still holds up after many years.

Great adventure in Mad Max like universe. Even in 2024 it feels great to play.

Back when the competition was Borderlands 1 and color schemes tended to be "brown, brown and why not some more brown?" While a tad outdated looking in 2024 and not the most fluid of controls, I still give it 5/5 and recommend to anyone who has yet to play it.

RAGE TO THE (MAD) MAX!!!