Mad Max now coming to a console near you

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Even though Mad Max: Fury Road has blown up the box office and received almost universal critical acclaim, it could be years before director George Miller is ready to rev up the next instalment in his reinvigorated movie franchise.

Gamers looking to take another trip to the Wasteland won’t have to wait nearly as long, though. Mad Max, a video game set in the postapocalyptic world of the Road Warrior, will be arriving on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Windows PCs on September 1st.

But unlike so many movie-to-video-game adaptations, nearly all of which are massive mountains of suck, Mad Max has been more than three years in the making, and exists in its own interpretation of Miller’s chaotic universe. From our handson time with the game at a recent preview event, it combines the look, feel and flavour of Fury Road with a unique storyline and its own bizarre cast of cretins.

“All the films, including the new one, take place in the Wasteland, and our game is taking place in the same Wasteland,” said Magnus Nedfors, design director for Mad Max at Stockholm-based Avalanche Studios. “But other than that, the game is its own entity, has its own story, has its own characters and a lot of unique locations.”

Mad Max begins with the titular wasteland wanderer being stripped of his beloved V8 Interceptor, not unlike Tom Hardy’s version of the character in Fury Road. But instead of getting caught up with a female Road Warrior on a mission to liberate sex slaves, Max just wants to build another car. Because Sidewalk Warrior doesn’t have the same ring to it. This new vehicle, appropriately called the Magnum Opus, will cost Max a lot of blood, sweat and ... well Max never cries, so there won’t be tears. This involves scouring the game’s sprawling open world, searching for valuable parts to upgrade Max’s vehicle while battling the many dangerous lunatics who inhabit the irradiated outback of Australia.

The game feels like a mix of the frantic car combat of the post-apocalyptic shooter Rage, the desolate exploration of Red Dead Redemption, the tactical decision-making of Far Cry 4 and the unpredictable (and sometimes grimly hilarious) destruction of Avalanche Studios’ own Just Cause series.

For the most part, Avalanche was given the rare privilege of taking the core elements of a beloved action franchise and running — or rather driving — with it.

“We wanted to be true to the Mad Max universe,” said Nedfors, “but we have had a lot of freedom as well.” September can’t get here quickly enough.