In a cruel twist of irony, those of us who remember the breakneck mayhem of the original Carmageddon are creeping ever closer to our senior citizen bus pass. This will allow us to ride a slow-moving passenger vehicle that gains no extra points for mulching pedestrians.
Released in 1997, this classic of vehicular combat arrived with some critical praise and instant controversy. Deliberately baiting outrage with its points-for-murder gameplay, it was banned in some countries and heavily censored in others. A huge hit regardless of backlash, it spawned many sequels, ports, and imitators over the years.
Developers 34BigThings (Redout) are bringing the franchise back from the dead for a new generation, adding a roguelite spin in the process. Carmageddon: Rogue Shift is just as fun and addictive as the original was back in the day, though it’s a little too lightweight to be truly great.
In keeping with the setting, theme, and tone of the series, this new Carmageddon populates its tracks with zombies and mutants for competitors to mow down in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Alongside the Roger Corman-produced Death Race 2000, the series has always drawn inspiration from the Mad Max franchise (it started life as a licensed adaptation, but publisher SCI couldn’t get the rights). Rogue Shift manages to capture the blood, chrome, and chaos of those films far better than it ever could in the '90s. Everything has a wasteland punk aesthetic, presenting a world where the need to blow each other up on a high-speed circuit is a believable way to let off steam.
A racing game in the thinnest sense, Carmageddon’s focus is firmly on high-speed destruction derby action. You shoot other cars to scrap while careening around makeshift courses, racking up credits by mowing down the irradiated denizens of this savage wasteland.
Tracks are bonkers obstacle gauntlets, littered with swinging wrecking balls and flailing tentacles. Hordes of shambling undead and giant mutants that explode into clouds of acid conspire to sabotage your pole position.
The handling model can be best described as 'slip ‘n slide'. Every vehicle has a weight to it and you’ll mostly be swinging it around corners, hoping you don't clip some scenery and spin out. It can be frustrating to force a respawn after hitting a wall at max acceleration, but a perfect lap feels exhilarating once you nail it.
Rather than the Mario Kart approach of picking up weapons mid-race, your loadout is fixed. Each car comes equipped with a starting weapon, ranging from machine guns to lasers and everything in between. Your vehicle itself is a sub-weapon, with an effective slam ability that lets you violently shunt opponents into barriers. Seeing rivals explode in slow motion as point multipliers flash up on screen never gets old.
As entertaining as this metal-on-metal carnage is, it is a loop that lacks lasting appeal. That is where the roguelite elements come in. You start a new game and work through a series of randomly generated events, each with their own primary and bonus goals.
Events range from straightforward races, survival, and combat-focused challenges. There are also boss fights against cars packing uniquely destructive offence. The aim is to get as far as possible without being damaged beyond repair. Death sends you back to the start, but not empty-handed. You earn a currency — amusingly called beatcoin — to spend on new cars, weapons and store stock for the next run.
Each cycle offers the chance to try a new rig with a fresh set of stats and weaponry. Upgrades and repairs are available during a run, but difficulty ramps up at a steady pace. Early deaths are almost guaranteed in the first few attempts.
The unlock system does a good job of encouraging replay. It’s hard to walk away after a defeat when a massive truck with a shotgun bolted to it is waiting to be pulled out of the garage.
Yet even with the steady supply of new equipment, upgrades and vehicles, Rogue Shift struggles to hold attention over the long haul. Track fatigue sets in before long, and no amount of random generation can fully offset that.
It doesn't help that the game is solo only. This style of combat racer feels tailor-made for local and online multiplayer. Quick time to kill, rapid respawns, and short tracks are designed for spectacle rather than precision. Not being able to ram a friend into an oncoming pack of exploding mutants feels like a glaring omission.
That absence stings because Rogue Shift has a sense of fluid speed that arguably has not been seen since Switch 2 launch title Fast Fusion, which arrived with a full multiplayer suite.
It’s also a well-optimised version. Frame rates remain stable even during visually chaotic moments, when the screen fills with flying cars and mutant hordes. Undocked play has a surprisingly sharp fidelity, with splashes of colour and blurred neon lighting recalling the impressive Night City driving of Cyberpunk 2077. The only technical hiccup of note was some occasional input lag when docked, which was infrequent and brief.
Conclusion
An explosive return from this 30-year-old franchise, Carmageddon: Rogue Shift is close to being the full package. It's one of those rare reboots that can satisfy older fans while also appealing to newer players drawn to the roguelite loop. It's fast, entertaining, and backed by a teeth-rattling heavy metal soundtrack.
It’s a shame, then, that there isn’t more of it. With no multiplayer and no additional content announced, Rogue Shift starts strong and shows real promise, but it ultimately runs out of gas.
Comments 31
This looks like it could be fun... but the performance issues and no multiplayer in unacceptable... maybe at a STEEP discount.
Was waiting for a review before buying this. Think I’ll wait for a sale.
Seems utterly bizarre that there's no multiplayer.
No couch multiplayer? 😭
@canaryfarmer sadly no.
Had high hopes for this as I'm also someone who's creeping ever closer to my senior citizen bus pass. Carmageddon was one of my favorite games as a kid/teen, and I may give this a try for nostalgia's sake, but I expected more
I love roguelites and have played them in about every genre but for some reason this doesnt seem appealing to me at all, even if the idea sort of does.
Got this on PS5 and am having an absolute blast with it. Hoping that they do add more content to it over time. But I love car combat games and this is just the kind of game that I’ve sorely needed. It’s sad that it’s a dying genre.
No multiplayer?! Multiplayer should be mandatory for a game like this.
We used to play the original at LAN parties in the late 90s, I wonder if they’ll implement multiplayer at a later time?
huge day for 6/10s
This was a weird review to read. A lot of talk about laps and speed and getting as far as possible. The original Carmageddon was an open world sandbox game; one might almost say an exploration game as much as anything else. Is that the case here, or is this new game more like Burnout with weapons?
looks like they made "whatever" and then slapped the Carmageddon name on it.
It's not a real Carmageddon.
@N64-ROX Burnout with weapons is an apt description.
Someone please remake rush 2049
As someone who had the original carmegeddon let's not act like it was a good game. Silly nonsense for 15 year old me sure, well made not especially
I had a chance to play it for 30 minutes on PC. What a terrible, terrible game overall. I'm not even mentioning that this is some random car racing game with zombies and with added Carmageddon title. 3/10 from me, I couldn't play it for more than 30 minutes. It's literally boring and not fun.
Just a reminder for those who don't know: you're running over people (also animals), not zombies in a Carmageddon game! Zombies? Only in a censored version. What an embarassment of a game this is, I can't believe it.
Want to play real Carmageddon? Grab Carmageddon Max Damage on GOG, that's the real deal. Get also 'Overhaul mod' for it and you won't be able to stop playing it. This is a true and fun Crmageddon experience.
Not surprised, atmosphere and aesthetic fair but as usual for me with any racing games, lacking content or VARIETY of it and just gameplay is subpar or content is subpar so to me the genre is just not handling itself well at all even for a niche audience.
Also the roguelite elements have me not that interested and was excited for this one till I came across that.
I'll look it up but I'm not excited for any if ever a racing game again if we get more like we have been seeing so far.
I'll stick to old ones.
As the THQNordic guy I am obligated to shill. No, I don't know why 34BigThings self published this, or why they're still just hanging in the nebulous either of Embracer not really attached to anything besides the Museum itself
This feels like one of those games that should have been called something else but they went with a well established IP because they needed that to help sell it. This is just a completely different game from what Carmageddon games were (at least the fun ones).
The move to zombies reminds me of the worst entry, Carmageddon 64. The Switch 2 version of this game has a lot in common with that thanks to it running at an apparently unstable 30fps, so it doesn't even perform well.
I wanted to get this initially but I just can't. This is one of those games where it's a maybe if it's on sale with a big discount.
@TheWokesterGamer I get that it's a different game and different reviewer, but there's no way on earth this game is on par with Yakuza Kiwami 3.
If this game is a "6", K3 is at least a "7" and If K3 is a "6", this game is at most a "5".
Looks like they put an extra "F" in the name by mistake.
I have fond memories of playing the first one on my first ever PC. Looking back, was it the first ever open world racer (of sorts)?
Zombies instead of pedestrians? That's not Carmageddon, at all.
"It's one of those rare reboots that can satisfy older fans while also appealing to newer players drawn to the roguelite loop."
I don't mean to be nitpicky, but it really doesn't seem to satisfy older fans. I'm an older fan, and I wanted the full-on open map-style of racing with pedestrians rather than zombies.
I've been following this since the announcement, and Rogue Shift has 100% always come across like an entirely different game with the Carmageddon name slapped on it. That's pretty much why I've given it a miss. That and the roguelike bit.
I hope it does well enough at least so that there's a chance we'll get a proper Carmageddon game out of it
Loved the original, and one of the most inpressive parts of the original was that each map was sort of open world with hidden secrets and stuff encouraging exploration.
Seems to be none of that in this remake, or?
You can tell how well a game is made when the cars don’t have shadows underneath.
Anyway, the concept of "Burnout with weapons" sounds undeniably awesome, this might be fun for an afternoon
@JayJ
Lucky you had Zombies in Carmageddon 64.
In Germany, we had little dinosaurs and mammoths!
But it was a very poor and sloppy port anyway.
@rvcolem1 I wouldn't be surprised if the original Carmageddon doesn't hold up anymore these days. But back before GTA3 changed expectations forever it was a spectacular game, and not just for edgelord teenagers. The freedom to go anywhere, the fun of an interesting world to explore (including stuff on city rooftops which you had to get very creative to reach), and an engine powerful enough to display it all crisply without it looking like a murky fog filled mess - it was an unprecedented experience. Everything about it has been done much better now by other games, but in its time it was definitely a good game.
No shadows in this version? Is it really too demanding?
I also have a question regarding which version was reviewed here, because the game recieved a Day 1 Patch after its release that fixed everything wrong with performance previously.
No really, the game acually ran 20fps and below every single time. Somehow, the patch fixed that without compromising too much, but some light sources are darker apparently.
Weird situation really. Maybe it was the resolution?
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