Member-only story
The other day, I saw a story that employees of Avalanche Studios were unionizing, and that their management had released a statement officially entering into collective bargaining. “That’s cool,” I thought. And then I found myself wondering what the heck they’ve been up to for the last six-ish years.
Although they technically have three teams, with two of them focused on smaller efforts like The Hunter, Generation Zero, and Ravenbound, their main studio hasn’t released a game since 2019’s Rage 2. I loved this game when it first came out, and in a lot of ways it felt like it was made exactly for me as one of the eight people who was actually yearning to see what happened after the original game’s non-ending.
But it wasn’t without some controversy. It drew online ire for its depiction of cleft palettes and a couple of minor NPCs that read like strange gay stereotypes. It didn’t have any of the technical pedigree of iD Software, developers of the original game, instead relying on Avalanche’s own engine. It has a much wackier tone than the original, with garish bright colors and silly humor throughout. Although it’s not the longest game, it still followed the classic “go to icons and do thing” design template that some gamers were already super tired of.
