Rage 2: Story Summary

You aren’t required to have played the original Rage to understand the story of Rage 2, but the two games are certainly connected. The sequel takes place 30 years after the events of the first game, in which Nicholas Raine and the human resistance overcame the nefarious Authority. If you’re here, you’re probably looking for a Rage 2 story summary, let’s dive in.

The Authority, an alien race who landed on earth along with the asteroid which turned it into a deserted wasteland weren’t entirely defeated, though, as we immediately discover in the opening sequences of the second game.

The Authority is back, and they’ve emerged to take back control of the earth, which is still in a ruinous state despite the awakening of other members of Project Eden. That said, the world is healing, with new areas of jungle and tundra replacing barren sandy desert in places.

Trade is starting to flourish between makeshift towns, but society is rather lawless and large areas of the world controlled by thuggish Goons. It sets the stage for a new adventure in a familiar but fresh open world.

Final spoiler warning for this article! Do not read on unless you’ve either beaten the game already or you’re absolutely sure you’d rather just read the plot here. OK let’s dig into Rage 2 story summary.

Rage 2 – Prologue

Rage 2’s prologue scene throws us straight into the action, as the Ark soldiers of Vineland city are being overrun by the returning General Cross and his army of mutant creatures.

Vineland is basically destroyed in one fell swoop, and almost all of its most accomplished Ranger soldiers are killed, wounded, or captured, leaving Cross and his force unchallenged to take the earth for themselves.

Thankfully, we’re here to put up one hell of a one-man-army resistance and after picking up a fallen Ranger’s armored suit, Ranger Walker is born. With the aid of the last remaining Rangers and his/her buddy Lilly, Walker drives Cross out of Vineland, but the quest is only just beginning.

To properly defeat General Cross, Walker has to initiate Project Dagger, a protocol put in place by the now deceased Erwina Prowley. Prowley was the Ranger’s leader, who had actually raised Walker since childhood, but she’s killed by Cross in the final moments of the prologue.

Luckily, she left a hologram message explaining to Walker the existence of Project Dagger and handy step-by-step as to what he needs to do. But not before Walker is introduced to Ark pods, which outfit him/her with Nanotrite Abilities, special powers that enhance performance in combat.

Rage 2 – Recruiting the Projects

To execute Project Dagger, Walker is tasked with seeking out three individuals that will be familiar to anybody who has played the original game:

John Marshall, former leader of the human resistance who now resides in a small trading town called Gunbarrel.

Loosum Hagar, once the resistance member who taught Nicholas Raine how to use a wingstick, she’s now the major of Wellspring town.

Dr. Kvasir, the morally ambiguous scientist who defected from the Authority and has the technological know-how to beat the Authority once and for all.

And so Ranger Walker sets out across the open world to introduce himself to the three “Projects” and recover the various materials required to execute Project Dagger.

The story missions can be completed in any order, but Walker won’t be able to enter the Authority’s HQ and make his/her assault until the Scrambler (Marshall), Xerxes III tank (Hagar), and Dr. Kvasir’s special virus are all located.

Players have to work their way to level 5 before proceeding with the main sections of these story quest arcs, which is achieved by completing open world objectives like destroying bandit camps and road blocks, and destroying Authority sentry towers.

Each of the main stories culminates in breaching an Authority base, bunker, or research station in search of key items that will either activate or uncover the missing items required for Dagger.

Rather than discussing all of the missions within the Projects’ respective story arcs, we’ll just detail the important beats.

Hagar

In Wasteland celebrity, Walker is tasked with gaining entrance to the “winner’s club” so that he can bug Klegg Clayton’s computer.

Clayton is a wasteland tycoon who’s suspected of having dubious dealings with bandits, possibly (read definitely) for the purpose of driving Hagar out of Wellspring and replacing her as mayor.

After defeating all the enemies in a televised deathmatch and winning the Chazcar derby, Walker gains entrance to the club to speak with Clayton. Clayton invites Walker to his office but disappears whilst talking on the phone with someone.

As Walker plants the bug it soon becomes apparent that Clayton is onto him and he’s forced to battle his way out of the building against mutant enemies.

In Hagar’s final mission “Beneath the Surface,” Walker is tasked with locating the Xerxes III tank’s core to make it operational. While investigating the underground bunker in which it’s located we’re privy to a cutscene in which Clayton is dealing with General Cross.

As it turns out, he was working with Cross in an effort to overthrow Hagar. He actually thought Cross was going to let him live? What a fool. For his failures, Cross has him killed on the spot.

Marshall

Marshall’s main quest arc tasks Walker with finding out what happened to his best spy, Gulu, who left an SOS message right before she was overrun by Immortal Unshrouded Goons.

Walker later finds her already dead on arrival, but she’s at least left a voice recording of the coordinates to an abandoned Authority base on a LoCus device, which she then swallowed and left for Walker to rip out of her stomach. Yuck!

From here, Walker is able to locate the Authority base and work his/her way to the data point to download the information necessary to complete Marshall’s Scrambler device.

Dr. Kvasir

Moving on to Dr. Kvasir’s missions, in Double Cross, Walker encounters General Cross in a 1v1 duel for the first time while investigating an Authority research station. He defeats him, of course, and extracts the DNA sample required for Dr. Kvasir’s virus, but is Cross really dead?

He seems to laugh off the assumption, and you’d be right in thinking probably not.

Rage 2 – Project Dagger

Armed with the three components of Project Dagger, Walker is ready to bury the Authority once and for all. As explained by Hagar, Marshall’s scrambler will take Walker past Authority’s security measures, the Xerxes III tank will protect him/her when the shit hits the fan, and when General Cross is close enough the virus will finally wipe him off the earth for good.

And so the final waltz begins with all going according to plan as Walker brazenly drives into Authority HQ. Mutants attack once Cross contacts Walker and declares that he knew all along that Walker would be on his way.

“Did you really think we wouldn’t notice two General Cross’?” he asks. Um, yeah, good point –pretty awful plan!

But Walker marches on and eventually blasts his way through the onslaught of mutants protecting Cross’ HQ to find Cross himself. This time, Cross isn’t banking on his own combat skills and mounts an enormous monster that looks like a super-sized version of the Crusher mini-bosses encountered throughout the game.

After a lengthy battle dodging Cross’ missiles, pulse waves, and laser beam attacks, as well as waves of mutants, Cross is defeated. The monster slumps forward and Cross emerges beaten and exhausted. Walker, who earlier had promised Cross he’d wrap his hands around his neck, gets his opportunity to throttle the General before injecting him with Dr. Kvasir’s virus.

Cross knows his time is up, but he thinks he has the last laugh as the virus is sure to kill Walker at the same time. Realizing Dr. Kvasir has done a bit of a dirty, he too slumps to the ground trying to breathe as Lily rushes to his rescue.

Just as she arrives, Walker seemingly suffocates and blacks out as Lily carries him away.

Rage 2 – Epilogue

But he’s not dead! Walker awakes to Dr. Kvasir professing that he knew Walker wouldn’t die because of a Nanotrite concoction he whipped up. Lily almost kills Dr. Kvasir, but he worms out of it by convincing her they still need him in case somebody was to do the same and attempt to bring General Cross back.

Sequel tee up, anyone?

We’re then taken to a cutscene with Marshall and Hagar who explain that Dr. Kvasir hid the fact that Walker would also die from the virus but was able to provide a vaccine.

We’re then told that there’s still plenty of work to do across the Wastelands of Rage 2 before gameplay restarts and allows us to tick off any remaining activities left on the map. And so ends our Rage 2 story summary.

And that’s our Rage 2 Story Summary. For more useful tips and guides on the game, be sure to check out our wiki page.