Rage 2 - Rise of the Ghosts DLC Review!
Rage 2 was released in May earlier this year, allowing the player to take the lead as main protagonist Ranger Walker, while exploring the vast wasteland and clearing out goons, the immortal shrouded and way more. The game has now received its first major DLC release, being Rise of the Ghosts, which launched on September 26th for PC, Xbox One and PS4 along with the Deluxe Edition of the game or via digital in-store platform purchase.
The story line revolves around an old Bandit clan, that was actually present in the first Rage release and who have now returned with a new leader with a rather twisted idea on creating and maintaining an idea around an enhanced bloodline. It is your job to of course to hunt the leader down and shutdown this operation as quick as possible.
The main question on most peoples minds is "Where the hell do I find the start of this DLC". The way to start the DLC journey is to travel from any Outpost and while you are leaving the given outpost, a radio message will come through with a lady asking for help and saying that an Ark has appeared. She will proceed to send the location to Ranger Walker. Once arriving at this location, this will send you right into the DLC portion of the game with an opening Cut Scene.
There is a brand new portion of the map that gets opened up when you start and is referred to as "The Overgrown City". This new area has plenty of activities that await you, a new Metro Station base and most importantly, it has some really new bizarre enemies that you will start to encounter right off the bat. All your vehicles are ready to go and you do have various traders and side mission givers at the new Metro Station Base that will be more than happy to assist you on your journey against the Ghost Queen.
The expansion also sees one new Weapon and Ability being added to the mix, which can be discovered in Arks, throughout the new territory. The Feltrite Laser Launcher burns through enemies like lava and is highly effective when you get swarmed by huge mobs of them. You recharge the weapon on power platforms that are scattered around the map when you need them. The new Void Ability allows you take control of an enemy and then you can throw that said enemy at other enemies as well. The new weapon and ability are a lot of fun to use and there are plenty of upgrades that you can build them up with by completing various missions around the map in order to receive the credit towards those upgrades. There is also new launch pads that have been introduced that can be used in combat situations and I have to say they are loads of fun, because you get shot into the air and you can use your current abilities in conjunction with the launch pad to cause some major destruction.
Furthermore, the Boss fight with our Queen Goon Iris was some two-parted goodness. She has the same abilities as you do, being a Ranger herself and she is not scared to use them either. You have been warned! The fight is two parted, with the second part being a little more challenging and requires you to mix and match those weapons and abilities to defeat Iris in true wasteland Ranger style while holding true to Ranger code!
The overall performance of the new DLC runs perfectly well with very few bugs occurring. I did not experience bugs to the point where I needed to reload a past checkpoint before I could progress through a door or anything. The game looks absolutely beautiful and the vegetation throughout the Overgrown City is really well done and sets the mood perfectly. The PC version which I was playing ran smooth and I had the game maxed out in 1440p with no weird FPS drops or anything, so from that stand point, smooth sailing indeed even when the fights got real busy and a lot of activity was occurring on the screen.
In conclusion, I would say that the overall story was really good and getting to know the reasons behind Iris's madness was intriguing. The new weapon and ability are great additions to your current arsenal already. I felt the new map portion was large enough and had plenty of area to cover and locations to discover. The general length of the DLC story content honestly is not very long, but with adding in the hunting down of your new weapon and ability Ark, exploration and completing side objectives/quests, I would have to say it achieves a real well balanced feel.