Bethesda: PC Rage uses Steamworks

By Robert Purchese Published 15 August, 2011

Now there's a name for a police officer.

The PC version of Rage will use Valve's Steamworks tools, Bethesda has announced.

"Since folks are asking," Bethesda tweeted, "we can confirm that Rage will use Steamworks on PC."

Steamworks injects Steam at a development level. The benefits are that a game can take full advantage of nearly anything Steam offers; things like authentication, peer-to-peer multiplayer, voice communications, matchmaking, Steam communities, friends, statistics and achievements.

The down side - at least as far as rival digital distributors are confirmed - is that you can't then remove Steam from the game.

Will any competing digital distributors boycott Rage as they did Modern Warfare 2?

Rage is id Software's sumptuous-looking post-apocalyptic racer-shooter. Tom Bramwell dived in for a meaty two-hour session recently at QuakeCon 2011; his lengthy Rage preview followed.

Behind the Rage curtain.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 9 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Vitor #1 9 months ago

    Awesome - means I can buy a retail copy for less than the Steam price and still activate it on my account. Love steam, but they can never compete with retail on day one prices as the publishers would never let them undercut retail too heavily. Those sales however...
    Edited by Vitor at 15/08/11 @ 10:19

  • FortysixterUK #2 9 months ago

    As usual, with AAA titles, I'll buy it day 1 on the console of my choice, then wait for a STEAM sale to come along and get the PC version for a tenner ! STEAM is ONLY ever good on sale days, it takes an unwise man to buy a day 1 release on STEAM if retail , as it usually does, undercuts STEAM buy £5.00-£10.00

  • tankboi #3 9 months ago

    YES!!!!!! Thank you Bethesda!! I will now buy on day one without thinking. Retail price all the way.

  • arcam #4 9 months ago

    Direct2Drive previously said they'd stop selling Steamworks games until Valve "decoupled its retail marketplace" from Steam's other services.

    Now I look on their site and find: http://www.direct2drive.com/8687/product... so I've no idea if they're still fighting against it or not.

    To be fair, still no sign of MW2 on Impulse or Gamersgate.

  • Buran #5 9 months ago

    "The benefits are that a game can take full advantage of nearly anything Steam offers; things like authentication, peer-to-peer multiplayer"

    I have nothing against Steam or Steamworks (in the means that I can't care less about) but signaling peer to peer online multiplayer as an advantage is ridiculous. Any game with more than 8 players at time needs dedicated servers in order to not suck, but I undertand that id Software has no hope about the future or the multiplayer or Rage (Quake Live is free and lacks popularity, so the odds are against Rage also).

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #6 9 months ago

    Constable Jack Rage: he's a maverick - but he gets results, damnit!

    Excuse me, I'm just off to put my knickers on and make a cup of tea.
    Edited by MENTAL1ST at 15/08/11 @ 10:47

  • Spekingur #7 9 months ago

    Deus Ex HR also uses Steamworks. Why is that not news as well?

  • neems #8 9 months ago

    @Buran - I think they're saying that it's an advantage to the developer, in that Steam sorts it out for them.

    @FortysixterUK - why not simply buy the pc version at retail then? As it's Steamworks it will install to steam anyway.

    The only problem I have with Steamworks games is that normally my box copy arrives a day or too early and I have to wait for steam to unlock, which is a bit annoying if you work weekends.

  • deadstoned #9 9 months ago

    Yey! Was worried it was going to use GFWL for a while. Looks like GFWL is dead to Bethesda :)

  • Der_tolle_Emil #10 9 months ago

    Interesting how EA ditches Steam and yet id software, probably the biggest player when it comes to keeping the PC platform 'open' are choosing to use Steamworks. Of course EA do have Origin but it pretty much renders all their arguments against Steam moot.

    Personally I'm quite a big fan of Steam(works) so I welcome the decision - even though I have no interest in Rage, but maybe demos/reviews will change that.

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #11 9 months ago

    Deus Ex HR also uses Steamworks. Why is that not news as well?

    Good spot. That is news, but we missed it at the time (May).

  • Spekingur #12 9 months ago

    One thing I love about Steamworks titles is that when multiplayer is concerned I don't have to forward ports for every single game. They all use the Steamworks ports and those are all listed at an easily accessible place.

  • jumpdeveraux #13 9 months ago

    Excellent news (and for DE: Human Revolution too). I love my Steam.

  • NeonKitten #14 9 months ago

    Awesome, that's Rage sold to me, then - via a UK retail store rather than at the US$90!!!!!! that Bethesda thinks I should pay because I live in Australia, even though Steam is a US store. Now, all I need is word that Skyrim will be Steamworks too and I'll actually buy it.

    Oh and EA moving away from Steam a good thing? Hardly! SecuROM on everything, manual DLC downloads and installs, no auto-patching until you sit down to play the game... no thanks.

  • vallhall74 #15 9 months ago

    Prepurchased Rage through steam in their quakeconsale...think it was a bargain :) When you have a smile on your face after a deal ..its a good deal.

  • UncleLou #16 9 months ago

    As usual, with AAA titles, I'll buy it day 1 on the console of my choice, then wait for a STEAM sale to come along and get the PC version for a tenner ! STEAM is ONLY ever good on sale days, it takes an unwise man to buy a day 1 release on STEAM

    Heh. I am not entirely convinced your approach is that of a wise man, but whatever floats your boat. :)

  • apoc_reg #17 9 months ago

    Happy with this as I use steam for 90% of my games

  • Rack #18 9 months ago

    Steam is DRM, it's restrictive and inconvenient though wrapped up in certain conveniences. I'll wait for a sale of some kind.

  • TheGuvernor #19 9 months ago


    RAGE is gonna be Game Of The Goddamn Decade!
    I'm fricken' stoked.
    These guys rock!