Carmageddon may be notorious for its gleeful violence and outrageous sense of humor, but the racing series created by Stainless Games was also hugely ahead of its time. In an era when the concept of open world games was still decades away from the limelight, Carmageddon allowed players to explore its maps freely, completing races not just by coming first, but also by eliminating opponents or slaughtering the pedestrians roaming the map.

Carmageddon's freeform nature proved hugely popular in the late '90s, yielding multiple sequels. But the formula barely changed in the ensuing years, to the point where it arguably began to stagnate. The most recent Carmageddon, 2016's Carmageddon: Max Damage, was a faithful recreation of those old games using modern tech, but it failed to ignite player imaginations as the original did two decades prior.

Carmageddon: Rogue Shift, the first Carmageddon game in this decade, has a new developer in the driving seat—and one with a very different racing strategy. Carmageddon: Rogue Shift modifies the anarchic racer with an all-new roguelite structure, designed to ensure that no two races ever play out the same way.

Previously developer of the zero-gravity racing series Redout, 34BigThings was acquired by Embracer Group in 2020. When the studio was offered the chance to work with the Carmageddon license, it jumped at the opportunity. 

"In one of the cofounders' cases, [Carmageddon] was literally the reason he got into game making," says Giuseppe Beppe Franchi, Head of Design at 34BigThings. "It was big for us."

34BigThings did not always intend to make Carmageddon into a roguelite. "We started out with, I would say, a slightly different vision. Something that was more open and more freeform," Franchi says. But the studio felt this approach led to a game that struggled to stand out from its predecessors. "We had to focus, and introducing a roguelite element was an idea to shake up the formula a little bit."

Carmageddon: Rogue Shift takes place in 2050, and sees players taking part in a cross-country death race to a spaceport where they can escape the game's post-apocalyptic Earth. As racing specialists, 34BigThings wanted to bring the sense of speed and physicality seen in the Redout series to the terrestrial driving of Carmageddon.

"We wanted to make it fast," Franchi says. "We didn't want to lose that, because we think it's kind of one of our signature things as a studio." Alongside Stainless's original Carmageddon games, Franchi cites combative racers like Blur and Split/Second as key inspirations. "The feeling of going fast and wrecking things definitely comes from Blur and Split/Second."

As part of this, 34BigThings wanted players to feel the physicality of the road underneath them. "What material your tire is in contact with is going to, you know, determine the slipperiness [of the surface]. If you're trying to cut a corner, what's on the inside? Is it mud? Or is it grass? Or is it sand?" Franchi says.

Carmageddon: Rogue Shift's journey takes place across a series of handcrafted courses. But players will be able to select between several routes across the landscape at each stage of their journey. 

Whichever paths they choose, the challenges ahead will be fierce. Like the earlier Carmageddon games, Rogue Shift's racetracks are bristling with hazards and obstacles—including its own version of pedestrians, hordes of undead creatures known as Wasted.

Some versions of the original Carmageddon featured zombies (or robots) instead of pedestrians to comply with regional censorship laws. But Franchi says that Carmageddon: Rogue Shift's Wasted aren't present because the studio fears censorship or backlash: "If we decided to keep the original Carmageddon formula, we would be facing less backlash from the gaming community," he explains. Instead, it's because 34BigThings wanted to bring Carmageddon's human traffic more directly into the game loop, turning them into a more active hazard that has a direct influence on play.

To this end, there are two kinds of Wasted in Carmageddon. There are regular Wasted, which Franchi says act as "bowling pins" for players, who can mow them down to build up a speed boost. But there are also special Wasted that pose a direct threat to your car. "We have dangerous Wasted—like Wasted that explode, Wasted that actually fight back, fire projectiles, and that scream and disappear in a puff of smoke, pushing you back," Franchi explains.

Alongside these Wasted, you'll also face off against rival racers armed with mounted weapons, and a hostile police force known as Enforcers that will try to run you off the road. These latter opponents were added to ensure that players are still challenged even when they're in first place. "We're actually increasing police presence if you are dead ahead and you don't have opponents around you, so that's a chance for you to still fight and accumulate points and boosts," Franchi says.

Finally, each area of Carmageddon: Rogue Shift's world is overseen by powerful vehicular bosses who you'll need to take down in order to reach the spaceport. As for how 34BigThings has incorporated boss fights into a racing game, Franchi says the studio has taken several different approaches. "Some of them you have to destroy within a time limit. One of them you have to outrun, so you actually have to win the race before it crosses the finish line. And one of them I won't spoil, but you basically have to survive," he says.

Reaching the spaceport against these odds is a tall order, and like all roguelites, you probably won't succeed on your first run. But also like other roguelites, failure is built into the experience. Each unsuccessful run will see players unlock new abilities and items to boost their chances on the track, accruing power in various ways to keep them in the race for longer.

One of these is a series of perks. While Carmageddon: Rogue Shift is a more dedicated racing game than previous entries in the series, its upgrade system is designed to reflect the open-ended goals of Stainless's original Carmageddon games. This lets players create builds that improve their racing capabilities, enhance their ability to eliminate rival racers, and increase their capacity to mow down hordes of Wasted. "Of course, we have groups of upgrades that, for example, if you mount two upgrades of the same type on the car, they're going to have stronger effects," Franchi says.

Perks aren't the only way to improve your chances on the track. Carmageddon: Rogue Shift also features 13 weapon classes for players to discover, ranging from mounted shotguns all the way to railguns. Most of these weapons are new to the series, though Franchi says there's one weapon returning under a new name that "aficionados will definitely recognise."

In addition, new vehicles unlocked across the course of Carmageddon: Rogue Shift open up new tactics and ways to play. "One vehicle I'm pretty proud of [is] one of the fastest, but it's very slippery. It's very hard to control. And we gave it automatic turrets so you can focus only on racing," Franchi says. "You can make some pretty amazing builds with it."

Indeed, 34BigThings designed Carmageddon: Rogue Shift to have a dramatic power curve, one that players can exploit to game-breaking effect. "We made peace with that. Like players are going to break our game anyway, so why not embrace this approach and encourage it?" Franchi says. He then cites an example of this game-breaking power: "We have upgrades that multiply the number of missiles you fire, for example, and you can synergize that with another upgrade that increases the amount of damage you deal for every projectile you fire. So when I say that you can create some pretty crazy combos, that's what I mean."

Roguelites are hugely popular right now, having elevated games like Balatro and Ball x Pit to massive success. Yet while poker and Breakout have proved highly compatible foundations for a roguelite experience, few developers have tried to infuse roguelike progression into a racing game.

But Franchi believes that Carmageddon: Rogue Shift achieves a similarly thrilling synthesis, and hopes the combination can revitalise the series for a new generation. "It's something fresh, I think," he says. "Part of the excitement of launching this game is that we're trying something that is very fresh, especially on an IP that has lain dormant for so long."

Carmageddon: Rogue Shift is out February 2 on the Epic Games Store.