New details on id Software's open-world shooter-cum-racer Rage has surfaced via this month's issue of Game Informer, painting a picture unlike any previous id game.

A whole host of details are revealed in the article, including the following features:

• An engineering system to craft devices including sentry turrets and RC car bombs, if you have the blueprints and parts.
• Your health regenerates--a gift connected to your history.
• Races and missions are available from hub towns.
• Vehicular combat is a big part of racing, with power-ups and ammo placed around the courses.
• Weapon upgrades, such as a scope and aiming stabilisers for a crossbow.
• Alternate ammo types, including a crossbow bolt which allows you to briefly control victims before they explode.
• Stealth is an option in combat too.
• A gladiatorial game show named Mutant Bash TV offers big prize money.
• A car parts system allows boosts to areas such as acceleration, traction and suspension.
• Other car upgrades include bombs, a magnet to draw power-ups, tire shredders and EMP shields.
• Multiplayer modes are currently not finalised.
• One weapon is a three-tipped boomerang called the 'wingstick,' which will return.
• The PC version will offer higher resolutions, more anti-aliasing and faster texture page-in times, but the three versions are essentially the same.

Rage is currently being designed for controllers because "the largest chunk of our market's going to be on consoles," id's John Carmack explained, echoing comments made by CEO Todd Hollenshead earlier this year. "I mean, yes, you can use the mouse for it but it's critical that the controller be the way that we design the game."

Ideally, id would like to ship the Xbox 360 version on three DVDs, but is facing difficulties splitting the game into three parts. "We've got two large wastelands on there," explained Carmack, who added that "we can cut it into two pieces" but "couldn't make an arbitrary cut." Meanwhile, he reveals Doom 4 is "structured" so that it is "almost certainly going to be cut up to 3 DVDs versus one Blu-ray [disc on PlayStation 3]."

Early-game Rage spoilers follow, so avert your eyes if you are of a sensitive disposition.

As had been previously revealed, the player character is one of the lucky few who escaped a terrible disaster--an asteroid strike--safely in suspended animation inside an 'ark' deep underground. An earthquake cracks your ark open early, and you awake to find the crew dead and databanks ruined, so you stumble out into the wasteland.

There you find the tattered wastelands living in fear of a mysterious group called The Authority, who for whatever reason offer a hefty bounty for turning in ark survivors. Your mission naturally involves discovering just who The Authority are and what they want.

Rage is due to arrive on PC, Xbox 360 PlayStation 3, and Mac "when it's fun and when it's done," which definitely won't be this year but might be before 2011.