EA Will Publish Id Software’s Next FPS

Not much news has slipped out of Id Studios since the announcement of a totally new game engine last year, but not surprisingly, this year’s E3 conference has brought precious more tidbits of news.  At Electronic Arts’ Monday press conference, Id founder John Carmack announced that his studio had selected EA to publish the upcoming title Rage over its old standby, Activision.

As an independent game studio usually battling the likes of EA, the announcement came as a surprise,  which Carmack acknowledged. “I’ll admit that, if you asked me years ago, I still had thoughts that EA was the Evil Empire, the company that crushes the small studios,” he told Gamespot. “I’d have been surprised, if you told me a year ago that we’d end up with EA as a publisher.”

Id will use the same EA Partners program that developers like Crytek and Valve leverage for their own games. It will allow the studio to harnesses EA’s significant marketing power while retaining its own intellectual property.

Rage, which will use the Id Tech 5 engine demonstrated last year, will be a road-warrior-style first person shooter that puts players in an outdoor environment with vehicles and weapons. The studio has not yet announced a firm release date for the title.