—General Cross, Rage 2
While it lacks the multitude of popular culture references found in the Gearbox franchise it imitates, Rage 2 unites the atmosphere and aesthetic style of Borderlands with the shooter mechanics of the reboot Doom series. The weapon wheel, for example, resembles the one presented in the 2016 Doom; the Nanotrite injections into Walker's arm (found in the Arks) also resemble a specific animation in the same Doom game. Since Bethesda and id Software are responsible for the Doom and Rage franchises, this imitation borrows from a cousin franchise—even then, proper execution can salvage lack of novelty, and there is only so much novelty possible before there is repetition of some sort. What was once new to an audience can be replicated or expanded upon until it becomes a normal aspect of gaming (or literature, cinema, or television) that does not tend to stand out for uniqueness except in execution.
Highlighting the nuances of homage and imitation, still, Rage 2 does have some of its own direction. In contrast with Borderlands, which explores other planets and alien technology, here, a future Earth has been reduced to a recovering wasteland by an asteroid called Apophis. This is indeed the same Apophis you might have read about which once sparked worry over whether it would collide with Earth in real life in the year 2029. In the aftermath of the fictional crash, a faction called the Authority attempts to seize power, aiming to cleanse the world of unmutated human survivors to position its members as the successors to humanity. The bizarrely limited main story that ensues is matched with excellent gameplay to mixed results.
Production Values
For a 2019 PS4 game—one released shortly before the PlayStation 5 brought the console line to its latest generation—Rage 2 features fairly smooth and detailed graphics. Bursts of color light up the desert or marsh wastelands of post-Apophis Earth, from the blue glow of Feltrite to the pink arrows guiding you to map-pinned objectives when driving the Phoenix to the various hair dyes on bandit enemies. In rare instances, visual glitches flare up, like a misplaced mission marker that led me to reset the game, and once, a high number of bandits in a camp did slow down the frame rate. But overall, my time in the post-apocalyptic world was not marred by poor aesthetic performance.
I said in the previous paragraph that Rage 2 does indeed separate itself from Borderlands in certain ways. One is the distinctly lesser amount of frequent jokes and absurdist exclamations on the dialogue and voice acting front, which helps provide the title with its own identity despite the many parallels between the franchises (although the AI voice for the Phoenix vehicle is not unlike Claptrap's). There actually is relatively little voice acting you come across outside of story missions without voluntarily speaking to NPCs. General Cross's speech to his minions in the introductory cinematic is because of this all the more a standout for the delivery, intensity, and length of his address.
Gameplay
Rage 2 stands primarily on its shooting and ability-based combat. Thankfully, it benefits immensely from the long history of first-person shooters tied to id Software and Bethesda. The small array of firearms expands with mandatory and optional progress in the game. If you like the 2016 Doom, you will likely love the gunfights! Distinguishing the title from these roots, killing enemies replenishes an Overdrive meter that, when activated, regenerates health and increases weapon damage for a short duration. Like many other things, Overdrive can be upgraded. A handful of separate, special abilities or objects, some requiring a recharge period upon use, can be found throughout the landscape by finding Arks: sealed vaults from the old world. Examples of their contents include a double jump (this can be improved to enable hovering while suspended in the air), a ground slam ability, a deployable energy shield, a rocket launcher, and a pistol that shoots combustible ammunition (and you can manually ignite the bullets after they contact an enemy). There is even a weapon that fires darts at an enemy which then propel them in whatever direction the player's cursor indicates. Each weapon or ability can be upgraded to have enhancements like additional features or shorter cooldown periods.
To upgrade the base power of each weapon requires a substance called Feltrite. This blue material clings to walls and meteorites in crystal form, and it can be found in some boxes in addition to being dropped when human enemies are killed. At first, you have to use the Focus mechanic to manually pull Feltrite to Walker unless you walk over to it, though an enhancement draws in loose pieces from the surrounding area automatically. Feltrite can also unlock new levels for Nanotrite powers like the ground slam, while a separate resource is used to unlock specific enhancements to that Nanotrite ability corresponding to each purchased level. I particularly appreciated how the double jump can be improved to allow you to float in midair, aiming down a gun's sights, and extend the air time by a second for each enemy killed. You find the resource necessary for unlocking such features around the map in special chests. By the end of the game, any player who has thoroughly explored the map will have a large number of completed icons show up. Quite unusually, speaking with NPCs tends to just add points of interest to the map that can already be discovered by roaming around; you do not need to return to the quest "giver" to receive the rewards. The independent "Trade Activities" activated from a job board in each major hub disappear from the map once completed without being reflected in any log of finished side quests (you can keep returning to the boards for more).
Unless you are content to walk, dash, or sprint, around the map to such objectives very slowly, besides fast traveling to one of a small number of specific locations, the only means of navigation is a vehicle. Paying $10 summons a vehicle from a menu screen, but it must have been unlocked. Only the Phoenix is available at first: a car with mounted guns that, when it takes damage, can be repaired by standing in front of the frame and using Focus. Unfortunately, the Phoenix can be slow to turn, resulting in overshooting an intersection or getting inconveniently caught in some part of the environment. A particular location you have to visit repeatedly for the story has a very narrow roadway leading into it, with twists and turns and trees on all sides. This is one of the more counter-productively designed parts of the game. You can simply walk along this path, but it will take much longer! Also, because the Phoenix's forward-facing guns have such a limited swiveling range, the sluggish turning of the vehicle can be especially dangerous when enemies have their firearms or missiles aimed at the vehicle from multiple directions. But like Walker's weapons, Nanotrite abilities, and "Projects" (mostly passive abilities), vehicles can be upgraded, more specifically by using Auto Parts from opening certain Ark Chests, defeating convoys that roam the map, or visiting merchants.
Upgraded or not, vehicular traversal is the best way to go from one marked location to another. Bandit outposts, mutant hives, and special bosses are also scattered about, becoming visible on the map either when you venture near them or pay for their location to be revealed by select vendors. Just be careful with the difficulty level. These locations offer resources like Feltrite and money, making them instrumental for improving Walker's abilities. Unconventionally, completing optional objectives increases the level associated with one of three allies depending on the region of the map, all three of which must be leveled up to proceed with the final mission. You are free to choose some of these tasks over others, as long as the total level of each ally is raised to 5.
Story
After Ranger Erwina Prowley is killed in the prologue by the Authority's cybernetic General Cross, surviving Ranger Walker sets out to rally three of the late leader's friends to defeat General Cross by enacting a plan called Project Dagger. Walker travels around the wasteland aiding the three to build up to an assault on Cross's stronghold. Sadly, this is about the extent of the primary narrative.
Intellectual Content
Because it lacks thorough story and dialogue development, the game has little explicit philosophical exploration despite subtle acknowledgment of pre-Apophis classism, as the Arks were meant only for the "elite", and infrequent acknowledgment of how focusing on science beyond what its nature entails could lead someone (like Cross) to think morality does not exist, since it cannot be empirically observed (as if empirical observation even proves that what is observed exists!). Leaning less into the philosophically charged and artistically creative layers of the satirical humor in the best of Borderlands does not stop the title from taking shots at Elon Musk with references to a figure named Elton Tusk from before the asteroid collision. For the most part, however, the issues it brushes up against are more meta or tangential instead of pertaining directly to the story or major themes of the lore, like the nature of imitation and homage as one work of art parallels another (yes, the similarities to the more mainstream post-apocalyptic franchise are very strong). Surprisingly, Rage 2's recurring prominence of female bandit enemies is among its most significant thematic elements, a glaring example of a more modern shift in gaming antagonists (other recent games like Black Ops IV's Zombie Mode and Borderlands 3 also regularly feature male and female enemies).
These bandits are the typical human opponents found across the map, including at random points along roadways. In fact, it often seemed like I faced more female enemies than male! At this point, the less implemented but validly progressive thing to do is precisely to normalize casually fighting or killing female enemies in gaming. While liberal pseudo-egalitarians might object, they seem quite content to tolerate violence against men in media, whether it is morally legitimate violence or not and even if it is intended to trivialize male victimization, to the point that some see it as unremarkable. The false "feminists" (aka, not actual feminists) of the present day tend to overlook their gender bias in this instance while irrationally decrying equal violence against women in gaming as somehow sexist against women. Publisher Bethesda has been quite progressive in the legitimate sense as of late, with its other games Doom (2016), Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, and Doom Eternal, all games I have reviewed for the Switch platform, each featuring female villains.
Conclusion
A video game can capitalize on the strengths unique to the medium, the interactivity and gameplay mechanics, without having an incredible or even particularly developed story. Clearly, lacking a strong narrative or explicit philosophical exploration hinders a game from reaching its greater potential as art; all the same, it is possible for a work to be a great game independent of these characteristics. Rage 2 does just that. As an open world, post-apocalyptic shooter, it is excellent in its best moments on the level of gunplay and presentation. The story falls short of anything deep, well-constructed, or particularly unique, but that is also a flaw of the first and third main entry Borderlands games it treads alongside. In this case, it is evident from the quality shooter elements that the gameplay received much more care during development. Trivial sales might have damned the franchise to discontinuation, but there are more hours of quality shooting and exploration to be derived from Rage 2 than the repetitive map locations suggest early on.
Content:
1. Violence: Between shooting, explosions, and special melee attacks, severed body parts and blood are part of combat. For a story mission, the playable character has to stick their arm into the dismembered stomach of a woman named Gulo.
2. Profanity: Words like "bastards" are sometimes included in dialogue.
3. Sexuality: Sexual wording appears in the name of some bounties or seeming allusions to sexual acts in their descriptions.
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