Rage 2 update brings New Game+ and some bloody hard new modes
Rage against the machine, again and again.
Do you remember Rage 2? It had this whole wacky pink-neon punk vibe going on before launch. For a hot second, I was pumped to become some mad blue-haired lass battering the wasteland with a baseball bat. Turns out, nah, you're some future cop called Walker (who in a cruel twist, drives around more than they walk) out to ruin the party for everyone. Rubbish.
Avalanche Studios probably aren't gonna rebuild a whole game just for me. But they are going to try to tempt folk back with some bloody hard new modes, a truckload of quality-of-life changes, and stickers.
Doom might've been the word of the day at today's Quake Con, but it wasn't the only Bethesda game to get some love. This week, Avalance dropped the second big update for open-world bandit blaster Rage 2.
There's now a New Game+ mode, letting you bring all those big guns back to the beginning for another blast. Weirdly, it's got this whole Call Of Duty prestige thing going on, giving you wackier stickers each time you beat the campaign. I'll be honest, I'm not sure how that works in singleplayer. Who are you bragging to?
As per, each successive run ramps up the difficulty. If you're a real Mad Max wannabe, you can always crank up to one of the game's two new takes on Hard Mode. Ultra Nightmare difficulty is, shockingly, probably quite tricky. If you'd rather only get splattered the one time, mind, there's also Ironman Mode which'll wipe your save after a single death (you'll still get back up with a defibrillator, thankfully).
Some of the other big-sticker updates are a little less immediately exciting. That hasn't stopped them trying in the patch notes, bless them. Disable tutorials! No more pop-up pauses! Flashlight! That all seems perfectly lovely, can we stop screaming? Please?
Finally, your main man's voice can now be tossed out in lieu of BJ Blazkowicz's gruff (yet thoughtful) barks. I guess if you think Wolfenstein: Youngblood is a bit naff - as did Matt in his review - you can plug that in and pretend you're playing a different Wolfy. Without the Nazi gibbing. Actually, that sounds rubbish.
Rage 2's big free update is now live on Steam and Bethesda's own launcher. From the looks of things, the big dogs are on their way, with two expansions due later this year: Rise Of The Ghosts in September, and a second unnamed in November.