When I read that Rage 2 is free to hold in the Epic Games Store this week, my first thought was, “Doom Eternal? But it just came out last year!”. My brain forgot that Rage 2 existed so thoroughly that it did an auto-correction for another sequel to Id Software.
This is probably unfair, because apparently Id’s open-world collaboration with Just Cause developers Avalanche has paid off, and Rage 2 is a pretty good game. If you have an EGS account or are willing to sign up for one, it’s probably worth considering.
This is what Matthew had to say about it when he played it in 2019 and found it a happy time.
Rage 2 expands on the first game’s post-apocalyptic world in which most of the earth’s population was wiped out by asteroids. You wander among the remnants of humanity in a dune wagon, pulverize enemies with a shotgun and follow simple and satisfying quests. This is not groundbreaking work, but it is Id Software’s attention to detail in terms of how the shootybangs feel.
I did not play it with release because I was put off by the attempts at a gonzo, Mad Max / Borderlands-style fiction. That was perhaps the first sentence of Matt’s broadly positive Rage 2 review, which mentions Watson Whoopinkoff and Flitwick Mcdimbledick, two of the NPCs. It looked like it was going to be loud and funny.
Now, however, is it free? Suddenly, a mediocre open world with an above-average shotgun feels like an excellent way to spend ten hours. Grab it in the Epic Games Store any time between now and February 25 at 4pm if you feel like it.