Bethesda keeps dropping hints about a follow-up to its 2011 first-person shooter Rage. The latest hints over the past couple days come in the form of a series of tweets, a couple of which point to a reveal on May 14.
— Bethesda (@bethesda) May 10, 2018
As you can see, that’s a picture of Big Ben, the famous clock tower in London, with a splash of pink paint on the face. The hands point to “5:14.”
— Bethesda (@bethesda) May 10, 2018
The 5-14 clue showed up again hours later in the rocket pic above. Again, Bethesda added some pink to the picture, signaling that the pair of images were connected.
— Bethesda (@bethesda) May 11, 2018
As far as we can tell, 5-14 isn’t present in Bethesda’s next hint, an aerial view of a city intersection. But Bethesda decided to really cover this one in pink.
— Bethesda (@bethesda) May 11, 2018
This one is more or less a complete giveaway. Notice the woman waiting to board the bus? Yeah, we know, she’s hard to miss, as she’s wearing an outfit that certainly looks as if it came out of Rage‘s world. There’s also the poster on the side of the bus that reads “Anarchy Tours.” When Rage launched, it used the anarchy symbol in a bunch of its promotional material, and there was even a special edition dubbed the Anarchy Edition.
All of this suggests Bethesda will reveal Rage 2 soon, apparently on May 14. The tweets follow Walmart Canada stock box art that the Rage Twitter account playfully critiqued.
Hey @WalmartCanada here are a few notes. pic.twitter.com/R1od2aTEMC
— RAGE 2 (@rage) May 9, 2018
While it’s abundantly clear that Rage 2 is in fact a thing (unless Bethesda is trolling fans for no reason), it’s still somewhat surprising. Developed by id Software, Rage was released to mixed reviews in 2011. It had solid gunplay and decent visuals, but the post-apocalyptic wasteland was barren, the vehicle driving was subpar, and the story was basically nonexistent. Since id Software is known as a pioneer in the first-person shooter genre (Doom, Wolfenstein, Quake), Rage‘s mediocre quality was all the more disappointing.
Now it seems like Bethesda is giving the franchise another chance to thrive. With id Software developing Quake Champions, it’s unclear if it has time to work on the presumed sequel. Perhaps a different Bethesda studio will take the reins. It doesn’t look like we’ll have to wait long to find out. Check back May 14 for Rage 2 news.