Co-Op in RAGE is set across nine missions that are “flash backs” of the history of the RAGE universe. Completing each mission unlocks the next one. The missions themselves are completely devoid of any of the outdoor exploration elements of the main game, instead they are relegated to the indoor dungeons. You’ll revisit maps and areas you saw in the single player game, but slightly tweaked and redesigned for co-op play. These sections are purely action based - there’s no inventory system, no crafting, and no strategy to your loadout.
There are scoring elements layered on top of the gameplay in co-op which adds some replayability and gives it a bit of an arcade flavor. You and your teammate work together to build up a multiplier and earn points for any action. Shooting enemies in the head, double and triple kills, and even co-op actions like defending a friend from an enemy or reviving them earns you extra points. Speaking of reviving, the game’s defibrillator mechanic is simplified in co-op and if a partner goes down and can’t defib himself, you can bring him back with a nice shock to the back, reviing him and hurting any enemies in the area around you two.
The missions themselves are fairly short, taking anywhere from 10-15 minutes to complete. Which is good too, because there’s absolutely no save or checkpoint system. Each mission has a limited number of defibrillator revives, and once they are used up and both players are down, it’s game over. Thankfully the missions do have a nice variety, whether it’s a mission where you need to work together to disarm bombs or one where you race through a gaRAGE gathering as many autoparts as you can before time runs out. Of course these are mixed with your standard shoot everything that moves type missions as well.
RAGE might have an incredible amount of talent and technology behind it, but it just can’t make up for the fact it’s without an identity. RAGE is the perfect example of a game that tries to do too many things, but isn’t able to do any one of them very well. While RAGE meets our graphical expectations, nearly every other element; the shooting, the open world gameplay, and the RPG elements, all simply fail to live up to the potential game its predecessors were able to be.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Legends of the Wasteland is a 9 mission separate co-op campaign.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.