At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, id
Software’s John Carmack took the stage during Steve Jobs’ keynote to unveil the
game developer’s next-generation 3D engine, called id Tech 5. The new
game engine aims to bring highly detailed and elaborate textures to future
games.
“What we've got here is the entire world with unique
textures, 20GB of textures covering this track,” said Carmack. “They can go in
and look at the world and, say, change the color of the mountaintop, or carve
their name into the rock. They can change as much as they want on surfaces with
no impact on the game.”
At this year’s QuakeCon – an event dedicated mostly to id
Software games and technology – id Software revealed that its new intellectual
property based on its upcoming game engine is named Rage.
id Software is world-famous for its first-person shooter
games, and Rage won’t stray too far from the developer’s core sensibilities.
Carmack described the upcoming game as having the company’s trademark “run-and-gun
action” theme, but Rage will also
feature driving gameplay elements as well – which will be new territory for id
Software.
Interestingly enough, id Software has managed to make its id
Tech 5 game engine run fairly equally across all intended platforms. Carmack
said that the engine will run Rage at
60 frames-per-second on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and the recommended
specification of PC and Mac.
Although Rage will
run at 60 frames-per-second, future uses of the id Tech 5 engine and licensees
will have the option to run at 30 frames-per-second with greater graphical
effects and fidelity.
Rage will also be
id Software’s biggest game to date. The 20-plus hours game will span across two
DVDs on all platforms but the PS3, where the game will fit on a single Blu-ray
Disc.
No release date or publisher agreement was announced. Visit FileShack to download high-definition video
from id Software’s Rage presentation
to QuakeCon attendees.