id Software defined the first person shooter with franchises like Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake, and their latest intellectual property, Rage, is continuing that innovation in unexpected ways. After more than five years of development, the title hit stores this fall and has been praised for its expansive apocalyptic setting and inventive gameplay that combines vehicle combat and role-playing elements with the type of visceral action the studio built its name on.

Rage is an engrossing experience for fans of the genre, and helping realize that vision were seven Full Sail graduates who worked on the game at id’s Richardson, Texas headquarters. This includes Jeffrey Farrand (mobile team programmer), Christopher Hays (build team programmer), Jon Lietz (weapons team programmer), Juno Madden (tools programmer), Dan Martinez (programmer), Steven Serafin (technical producer), and Grant Shonkwiler (technical producer), who visited our campus shortly after the game’s release to speak about their involvement during production.

“To be a part of a project this massive in scope is pretty overwhelming,” Grant Shonkwiler says. “You don’t realize when you’re sitting at your desk how big a game like this is, so it’s been great to see how much people really enjoy what we made because a lot of work went into it.”

The most striking thing when you first boot up Rage is the visuals, from the attention to detail in its vast landscapes to the fluid character models. For all the destruction and mayhem contained within its world, this is one beautiful game, where any screen shot could be a postcard. Both the single player and multiplayer modes run at 60 frames per second, giving it a realistic fidelity that even took the team by surprise.

“The first time I saw Rage, my mouth dropped,” Jeffrey Farrand says. “It’s ridiculous the amount of detail that went into creating the environments and enemy animations. It’s so far beyond anything I’ve ever worked on before.”

“It’s funny because my first day at the studio I looked at someone’s computer screen, and thought ‘Oh wow, that’s a cool background picture, where is that, the Grand Canyon or something,’” Juno Madden adds. “Then he just picked up a controller and started moving around in that world. It blew me away. I didn’t realize it was the game.”

Those impressive visuals are supported by equally dynamic gameplay, with Rage delivering a gut-wrenching campaign that throws swarms of enemies at the player in ways not seen before in a shooter. These aren’t your typical mindless drones, the artificial intelligence has enemies moving and reacting like flesh and blood opponents who will do anything to stay alive and take you out – instinctually climbing walls, skirting along railings, and dodging fire.

“The ways in which the enemies run around and traverse the world is very dynamic and something you just don’t see in other games,” Steven Serafin says. “It really pulls you into the experience when 30 mutants are running and jumping at you like that. I’ve never seen anything else like it.”

Thankfully id’s games are known for their weaponry, and the developers outfit players with the tools to match the intensity of these enemies, from the standard lineup of guns to specialty items like the “wingstick” and alternate ammo. Jon Leitz was one of the programmers in charge of Rage’s diverse arsenal, and explained the attention to detail his team spent in giving them a palpable sense of power and menace.

“It took a lot of time and iteration to get each gun feel right,” Jon says. “We really worked to make the enemy hit reactions realistic, so when you shoot someone in the leg you see them stumble, or if it’s in the chest, they fly back. The audio also played a big part, and we went through 25 different shotgun sounds before we got one we liked. I think that attention to detail is really what sets us apart in the end.”

Rage is one of those rare games that succeeds in reminding players why they fell in love with the shooter genre, and each area in which it innovates can be attributed to the hard work of the different artists, programmers, and designers that seamlessly blended its mechanics into a cohesive package. Now that their long months, and even years, of hard work are behind them, these grads are enjoying hearing the reaction from the company’s loyal fans, who have been waiting a long time for id’s latest masterpiece.

“It didn’t really hit me fully until I was watching TV and saw the commercials for it,” says Chris Hays. “Then my family would call me and say ‘I just saw your game on TV.’ It took it from something I just did at work, to something that I see outside every day. That’s when it was really amazing for me.”

“What it comes down to for me is it’s a realization of a dream,” Dan Martinez adds. “It’s an absolutely surreal feeling to have gotten through the production and come to the light at the end of the tunnel – then go to a midnight release with over 200 people, and having them recognize you because they follow you on Twitter. That’s unbelievable.”