'Mad Max' coming to console and PC

Unveiled as a surprise announcement at Sony's Electronic Entertainment Expo presentation, 'Mad Max' promises a vehicle-based wasteland in which to take on post-apocalyptic bandit gangs, targeting Xbox One, 360, PS3, PS4 and PC in 2014.

'Brutal on-ground and vehicular combat against vicious gangs of bandits' is laid in players' paths, who will be 'challenged with treacherous missions as they scavenge the dangerous landscape for supplies to build the ultimate combat vehicle,' reads Warner Bros' official spiel.

Comparisons to 'RAGE' and the original, grimy look of 'Borderlands' are inevitable given the source material, but the developer behind 'Mad Max,' Stockholm-based Avalanche Studios, has built a strong reputation on explosion-filled archipelago action game 'Just Cause 2' and multiplayer scramble 'Renegade Ops.'

'Mad Max' is thought to be one of three projects it has in hand, with another being a sequel of sorts to 'Just Cause 2.'

By elimination, the third is likely a comic book tie-in, and if 'Mad Max' DC Comics owner Warner Bros is again the partner, then it gives a solid stable of characters for Avalanche to work with.

Cinematic release 'Mad Max: Fury Road,' starring Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult and Zoë Kravitz, is expected toward the end of 2013.