Despite sporting the enhancements of id Tech 5, Rage seemed to be lagging behind at Bethesda's BFG 2011 media event last week. Its generic, post-apocalyptic wasteland setting has become a familiar one in recent years, but it's the simplistic and overly linear shootfest within that's the most dated element of the game. Nonetheless, the team at id Software seems to be aware that a glossy throwback shooter isn't going to cut it in today's over-saturated FPS market and has challenged itself to set Rage apart.

The most obvious sign of id stepping out of its comfort zone is in the game's multiplayer design. Believe it or not, there's no deathmatch in the classic Doom sense. In its place is a fine-tuned vehicle-based mode, implementing the game's dune buggies. Multiplayer is expected to be a fairly compact experience, with up to six players able to take part in a few gametypes on a sparse offering of five maps. "If you add game variations just to add game variations it confuses people," said one of the designers during the hands-off multiplayer presentation. "People don't know what to play."