GTA IV to use RAGE engine?

By Ellie Gibson Published 16 June, 2006

You know, the Table Tennis one.

Why, look who's here! It's our old friend Internet Reports, with a brand new rumour for us to mull over - and this time it revolves around highly anticipated next-gen title Grand Theft Auto IV.

According to Mr Reports, the game is being built using the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine - or RAGE for short. It's the same engine that powers the excellent Xbox 360 title Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis, don't you know.

Up until now, the Grand Theft Auto games have been created using Criterion's Renderware engine. EA bought up Criterion in July 2004, and since then Rockstar has had to fork over royalties for every GTA game sold. So it seems logical that they'd knock up the next one with their very own engine instead, if possible.

But is the rumour true, or is Internet Reports up to his old tricks again? Well, we're still waiting for word from Rockstar, so we'll just have to wait and see. Grand Theft Auto IV is due out on PS3 and Xbox 360 on October 19th, 2007.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (31) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Darren #1 6 years ago

    OXM360 reported this story earlier but seemed to think that all the characters in GTA IV will be as detailed as those of the Table Tennis! If they are I'll eat my hat! /LOL

  • InfiniteFury #2 6 years ago

    Oh good lord, it begins...

  • Hunam85 #3 6 years ago

    Renderware...

    /shudders

  • gizmo #4 6 years ago

    Renderware seemed pretty good to me...

    GTA, Burnout 2.

  • fergal_oc #5 6 years ago

    don't forget fight night round 3 was built using it...

  • nickthegun #6 6 years ago

    I thought that table tennis started life as a tech excercise for the GTAIV engine. Cant remember where I heard it, but I thought this was pretty common knowledge.

    Or has the matrix been resetting itself again

  • Darkedge #7 6 years ago

    interesting - lets wait and see

  • Baronen #8 6 years ago

    Aha! It all makes sense! I knew Rockstar couldn't release such a non-violent game as Table Tennis without a hidden agenda.

  • rudedudejude #9 6 years ago

    I hope GTA4 brings some good new elements to the table, I'd go crazy if it was the same old 'ahhh, I've got no cash, better make an empire and get my revenge'.

    And I hope they fix the vanishing vehicles and everything else when you turn around with this new engine.

  • projectmayhem #10 6 years ago

    i thought this would have been a given. rockstar have been working on this engine since SA basically, so they needed to put something out to test the waters a bit, as it were... so table tennis is rockstar saying "does it work".

    but i wonder, will table tennis be available inside the gta game, a-la snooker in SA?

  • nickthegun #11 6 years ago

    "And I hope they fix the vanishing vehicles and everything else when you turn around with this new engine.

    It will almost certainly be more persistant, but I would imagine there will be some kind of ceiling since, inevitably someone will try and make The Eiffel Tower out of Firetrucks and bring the engine to its knees.

    I dunno. I hope its pretty persistant but, to be honest if it was like a real city A) someone would eventually clean up your mess and B) if the carnage I caused in San Andreas is anything to go by, after a few hours of play the streets would just be clogged with burned out cars, dead gangsters and crashed jumbo jets, which would kinda take the fun out of it.

  • markypants #12 6 years ago

    October 2007... i thought it was out this year!!!! NOOOOOOOO!

  • York #13 6 years ago

    I just hope I can shoot the characters of Table Tennis.

    To death.

    Aggresively.

  • HarryB #14 6 years ago

    well Amped 3 did it, why can't GTA?

  • HarryB #15 6 years ago

    just because the engine is the same doesn't mean the games will look like each other....do not expect table tennis characters for everyone or you will be disappointed.

  • HansGr00ber #16 6 years ago

    I wonder if we can bitch-slap hookers with a table tennis paddle...

  • kgthatsme #17 6 years ago

    or make them use ping pong balls in the strip clubs

  • asphaltcowboy #18 6 years ago

    I don't care as long as they do something to make it look good!

  • HarryB #19 6 years ago

    it'll look good but not as good as table tennis, not possible in such an open game.

  • urban #20 6 years ago

    makes sense...when oh when will we see screenshots.

    i hope they try ALOT of new stuff in this one..i dont want to play a new physics new graphics gta.

    i want involvement that knows no bounds

  • Hunam85 #21 6 years ago

    Why not have a story where you dont make lots of cash and become a king pin, say gotta do all this stuff while maintaining a 'normal' outset of life, it'd be interesting, to have a mechanic like that, and obviously you'd not want to get caught killing people...

  • Bezzy #22 6 years ago

    <ul>I dunno. I hope its pretty persistant but, to be honest if it was like a real city A) someone would eventually clean up your mess and B) if the carnage I caused in San Andreas is anything to go by, after a few hours of play the streets would just be clogged with burned out cars, dead gangsters and crashed jumbo jets, which would kinda take the fun out of it. </ul>

    It's a good point. In sand box games with a lot of emergence, you really want to have systems in place which bring the world back to some kind of recognizeable equilibrium, so that players can start off again from a stable launch pad. If it escalates forever, it'd basically become confusing and unmanageable (both for the developers, trying to make sure the game doesn't get broken, and for the player whose mental model of the game becomes too complicated for them to percieve any logical consequence in the system).

  • Swannzie #23 6 years ago

    Makes sense, why keep paying those goons over at EA when you can use your very own engine which is ultimately better.

  • Steroyd #24 6 years ago

    Why not take a page out of Animal Crossings book.

    The city you start in starts small and basic and then it evolves over time (using a real-time clock would be a nice touch), then over online your mates can come in and see what you did to your custom city.

    And have a storyline revolving around the evolving city.

  • Freek #25 6 years ago

    It's a multiplatform engine, doesn't mean they'll be porting over Table Tennis though.

  • DaveTheHutt #26 6 years ago

    It's incredible that a table tennis game has hit No.3 in the XB360 charts... Surely this had to be an experiment to test the strength of the Rockstar name as a brand in itself?

    I mean, I know it's a pretty decent little game, but if this had been released by, say, Activision would it have gone anywhere near the level of coverage and sales that it has?

    Hutt out

  • miiiguel #27 6 years ago

    The cloth swing of RS p. Table-Tennis players' t-shirts is amazing!!!!

  • tengu #28 6 years ago

    "It's incredible that a table tennis game has hit No.3 in the XB360 charts..."

    Not really, it's a lot cheaper than all the other 360 games out. Doesn't hurt it's been getting good reviews too.

  • Skooch #29 6 years ago

    "Why not have a story where you dont make lots of cash and become a king pin, say gotta do all this stuff while maintaining a 'normal' outset of life, it'd be interesting, to have a mechanic like that, and obviously you'd not want to get caught killing people..."

    Because that's too much like real life, which we gamers know is not all that interesting, and why we can play for hours on end until our thumbs bleed! :)

  • DaveTheHutt #30 6 years ago

    My point is, would this have done as well if it wasn't "from the people who brought you GTA"?

    I suspect it wouldn't have.

    Hutt out

  • miiiguel #31 6 years ago

    DaveTheHutt: Have you played the game ?
    It's definitely a very good game "per se".