RAGE announced too early? "At the end of the day, it doesn't matter," says id's Willits

Was RAGE announced too early? It "doesn't matter," according to id Software's Tim Willits. So there.

The studio's creative director told VG247 at Eurogamer Expo a couple of weeks back that, regardless of when it was announced or not, it comes down at the end of the day to the game's fun factor. Which he says there's plenty of.

"The thing is John [Carmack, id tech boss] loves talking about cool stuff," Willits said to us in London a couple of weeks back when the early announcement question was posed to him.

"At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. For us, now we're right around the corner and doing these events, the game's looking great, plays great. Whetever you're talking about it early or you talk about it late or you announce this or you announce that or you have this campaign or that campaign, all it comes down to is the game's fun. And the game's a heck lot of fun."

RAGE was announced at QuakeCon 2007 as part of John Carmack's keynote blowout on id Tech 5, but launched yesterday in the US. So far, consumer reaction is too soon to call, but Willits insists he isn't worried if the four year wait has dampened expectations, reiterating it will change gamers perception of the company.

"This game is not much different than when we released DOOM 3, Quake III, Quake II. People's anticipations of what the game is, people's expectations of what id Software does and has done in the pas - yeah, we don't let those things like that stress us out," said Willits.

"But I can tell you I do think RAGE will definitely change people's perceptions of the company. It's a really different type of experience that we've done in the past. Yes, it's a first-person shooter, but it's a lot different. I'm proud of the fact we don't do exactly the same formulate game every single time. Lots of game companies do that all the time, we don't. So it's very exciting to work on something new and exciting."

Our full interview with Tim Willits will go live on Friday morning along with RAGE's UK launch.