I’m not a huge fan of racing games, but you know what I am a fan of? Cars smashing into each other. Cars blasting one another with wild weapons. Cars exploding into piles of twisted metal. It’s a visceral element that some racing games feel like they are missing, mostly because they have licensed cars that aren’t allowed to show damage. This is why I’ve always gravitated towards more action-oriented driving games like Burnout, Driver, or my personal favorite, Twisted Metal.
While I’ve been waiting for a reboot of all these series, the announcement of Carmageddon: Rogue Shift caught my eye. I didn’t play the original as much as other series, but I still remembered it fondly enough to be excited for the return of such a legendary franchise.
Let’s get this out of the way right away. If you came to this hoping for classic Carmageddon, Rogue Shift isn’t your game. This game is about driving through specific tracks, rather than open worlds, where you win just by finishing first, instead of having the option to eliminate all the racers or pedestrians on the map. Also, the pedestrians, who contributed to the controversial reputation of the original, have been replaced by zombies littering the road to be run over. These changes will likely disappoint fans of the classics, but if you can take the game on its own merit, there’s plenty of fun to be had.
Right off the starting line, it took me a bit to get the hang of Carmageddon: Rogue Shift. Turning felt a little more touchy than I’m used to, making me constantly oversteer into walls or other cars. But after I got a few races under my belt and a couple more cars unlocked, things started to click, and boy, did it feel good. Once you get the hang of it, races become breakneck battles for survival with great little audio-visual touches that emphasize the carnage. A DOOM-like soundtrack blasts as the camera shakes with each slam, slowing down to zoom in when you wreck another car, making it feel like an epic stunt show as shrapnel blasts in every direction.
Littered around the race tracks are repair and ammo pickups that you’ll have to consider as the event goes on. Your car has a health bar that persists between races, so keeping that topped up becomes critical as the carnage continues. Fortunately, if you run out of health, you’re given a small amount of time to grab a repair pickup before exploding, creating some white-knuckle moments of tension. Ammo is equally important, as it allows you to blast your way through the competition. Weapons range from basic things like shotguns and machine guns to more exciting options like rocket launchers and lasers. Each of them comes with its own stats for power, clip size, lock-on time, etc, so finding the one that works best for you is just as key to success as scooping up all the ammo you can.
When you blow up an enemy, it will leave behind ammo and repair drops, which can add another interesting layer of strategy. There were many times where I found myself in my last stand with the countdown clock ticking away, and instead of looking for repair pickups on the road, I desperately chased down an enemy and side slammed him to wreck him and recover that sweet HP from its flaming wreckage. The enemies do eventually respawn, unlike you, so don’t think that you can have an easy victory through firepower alone.
In a decision that makes the game feel a bit more like Burnout, you also have a boost meter, which is filled up by plowing your way through the zombie hordes. Importantly, you can’t just use boost any time; you need to fully fill up a tank to be able to activate it, so always be running over zombies when you can. This gets complicated by the fact that there are other creatures mixed in, some of which explode or launch projectiles. This added layer of obstacles provides a nice addition, spicing up the normal track layouts with more dynamic elements for you to react to.
The ‘rogue’ in the title comes from the fact that this reimagining of Carmageddon uses a roguelite structure. Each run, you’ll select a car that comes with its own distinct driving style and starter weapon, and you’ll make your way through a series of branching paths, racing and upgrading your car on your way to defeat the bosses that stand in your way. You’ll earn two forms of currency on a race, Credits and Beatcoin, for winning the race, performing specific actions like drifting, and completing race-specific objectives. Credits are used for upgrades within a specific run, while Beatcoin is used to do more permanent unlocks between runs.
Various shops show up between races, and here is where you can develop your build options. Each shop displays a pool of options based on what you’ve permanently unlocked using your Beatcoin, breaking down into either weapons or perks. Early perks are really straightforward, like percentage boosts to your defense or weapon power, but later ones are more complicated, like decreasing lock-on time for you and your opponents. These perks are an interesting idea, but I rarely found them monumental enough to change my playstyle. I was always more compelled to spend my Beatcoin to unlock permanent upgrades rather than adding any more perks to the store, because those felt more like meaningful progress to me.
While I think this structure is a fine change-up of the standard racing game formula, I do wish there were a little more variety as you go. There are only four types of races you can come across, and two of them are nearly identical. The standard race just requires you to finish in the top three to progress, while elite races require you finish number one, but offer greater rewards. To mix things up a bit, there’s a survival race, which is just you and the track, trying to make it through the course under a specific amount of time, and without getting wrecked.
Finally, there are boss fights, which usually require you to destroy specific boss cars (or creatures) before the clock runs out. When these work, they feel really cool, like an epic car chase in a Mad Max film, but sometimes the layout of the ammo pickups on the course makes these a chore. Since the most meaningful way to deal damage to them is with your weapons, missing an ammo pickup feels like a critical error that eats up precious time in the fight, and not in a fun way.
Given how good the driving feels, I was hoping this game would follow the majority of the racing genre and provide online multiplayer to test your mettle against other players, but Rogue Shift is strictly single player. It’s hard to fault a game for something it’s not, but perhaps I wouldn’t be thinking about it if there were more variety in the game as it is.
The moment-to-moment of Carmageddon: Rogue Shift gives the game such a solid base that I wish there were a bit more built on top of it. There’s a true thrill in launching yourself off a ramp, dodging an exploding mutant, and firing off a salvo of rockets at the car in front of you, sending its burnt-up husk flying in the air as you cross the finish line. Despite the good game feel, I found myself wishing the roguelite structure of it all felt more sticky. There wasn’t enough variety in the race types to give me that “one more run” feeling, which is the hallmark of a truly great roguelite. Perhaps some future updates will add what’s missing, but for now, there’s still a great deal of fun to be had with Carmageddon: Rogue Shift, provided you go in with the right expectations.
Review code provided by publisher. Carmageddon: Rogue Shift is out now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.
