14 DAY TRIAL // id Software is eager to become one of the companies that defines how gaming works and one of the conduits for its transformation will be the new Tech 5 game engine, which is currently revolutionizing the way the development team at the company works and will probably do the same for the wider video game industry, according to one executive from the company.
Matt Hooper, who is the design director at id Software, told Gamasutra during an interview that “Even with Doom, we've always done this - disruptive technology. It's technology that comes in and completely changes the way you build and make games... every new iteration of the tech, especially when it's so fundamentally different, turns everything on its head, the way the artists have to work.”
Hooper says that the new engine is specifically made to allow artists to move quicker when introducing content, with a smaller technical component to their work.
This is one of the reasons why the upcoming Rage will be moving away from the corridors that have become a signature for id Software titles like Doom and into wide open vistas.
Hooper says the team saw what the new technology could do and decided that an open world would better suit it and would show what it can for other developers who might then be interested in licensing it.
RAGE is the new shooter that is under development at id Software. The game will combine first person action and racing elements in a post apocalyptic setting that looks at the same time beautiful and disturbing when rendered using the new game engine.
Not much is known about what id Software wants to do with the plot of RAGE but it apparently involves an asteriod that makes the Earth a more inhospitable place, with survivors fighting over the remnants of civilization. RAGE got the most awards from the critics that saw the game at E3.