Mad Max's Avalanche Studios, id Software working on Rage 2
The resemblance between Bethesda's Rage 2 and Avalanche Studios' Mad Max may not be coincidental.
Did the Rage 2 teaser trailer look a little familiar to you? Perhaps that's because it uses the same Mad Max template almost every post-apocalyptic game does these days.
Then again, it might be because Avalanche Studios - the team behind 2015's Mad Max - had a hand in developing the game.
No, seriously. If you visit Bethesda's official Rage 2 website and scroll down to the fine print, you'll find the following copyright notice: "2018 Bethesda Softworks LLC, a ZeniMax Media company. Developed in association with Avalanche Studios, trading as Fatalist Entertainment AB." (Thanks to the folks at Resetera's comments page for spotting this.)
Bethesda working with Avalanche on this project makes a great deal of sense. Even if we ignored Mad Max, this team is well-versed in the style of gameplay Rage is aiming for.
Rage 2's official site describes the game as "a true open world FPS experience where you can go anywhere, shoot anything, and explode everything."
Id Software, developer of the original game, is also working on Rage 2. The studio confirmed this in a tweet, seen below. It's not yet clear whether this is a co-production between the two, or if one studio is taking the lead.
Avalanche first broke into the gaming scene with the popular open-world series, Just Cause. They also developed Mad Max with Warner Bros - a game which has a post-apocalyptic setting that will have served as good practice for building Rage 2's world.
The outstanding question is whether Avalanche simply lent assistance to Bethesda, or took the lead in Rage 2's development. Hopefully we'll know for sure when Rage 2's gameplay trailer launches tomorrow.