RAGE 2 PC Performance Review

Introduction – Fixing the APEX engine with Vulkan support  

I know what some of you may be thinking, RAGE 2 has an Avalanche game, shouldn’t we expect a release with similar quality to Just Cause 4? Yes and no, RAGE 2 may be based on the same APEX game engine, but both titles are fundamentally different, with RAGE 2 shipping with the backing of Bethesda and the assistance of id Software throughout the game’s development. 

id Software had a huge impact on RAGE 2’s development, bringing the game’s APEX Engine to the Vulkan graphics API while packing in FPS gameplay that’s similar to DOOM (2016), both of which make the title very different to previous APEX-based titles like Just Cause 4. This is great news, as Just Cause 4 (PC Performance Analysis here) launched with a mountain of issues.  

RAGE 2 may be a sequel, but its gameplay is basically a merger of several other successful titles. The FPS gameplay of DOOM, a large open world with vehicular traversal that’s similar to Mad Max and a story that follows on from the Original RAGE. With RAGE 2, the question is, can these winning elements from other games by packaged together and into a satisfying whole? 

On the PC-side Bethesda has its ongoing partnership with AMD, and with id Software assisting Avalanche in RAGE 2’s development, we can be sure that Vulkan API support was pushed by both parties, helping Avalanche get the most out of their engine when using modern graphics hardware, especially on Radeon graphics cards. The Low-level API can also be used to reduce CPU overhead, a factor that could prove incredibly important when creating such a large open world. 

In this analysis, we will be looking at how RAGE 2 performs on a variety of PC hardware configurations, assessing how the game runs on PC when compared to the game’s console counterparts while also looking into the underlying features that are offered by the game. Let’s get started!