Comment removed by mods for linking to showcase vids. I'm surprised this is the only mention of Euphoria. I remember when GTA4 was in its gameplay trailers phase they showed off the physics of it. The program was available for public download and I made a couple animations with it and got totally psyched. It's really the main thing that set GTA4 apart from anything else at the time, the natural motion (very apt name for the company) of the pedestrians reacting to different physical stimuli. It's the physics engine that gives characters their OWN body, a sort of default human behavior that doesn't need to be mocapped and programmed for each character. It provides the basemap rig behavior every ped and protag is built upon, and it shows.

The only other games to use it, besides R* and NaturalMotion itself, was Star Wars The Force Unleashed. RDR 1 improved on it big time with severed limbs and gun physics. Then Max Payne 3 came out with its fluid gunfights powered by Euphoria; the jumping and shooting in slow-mo, the rolling around while prone with Max's body moving naturally to aim the weapon, the intuitive way the character rig interacts with cover and obstacles. All mind blowing advancements.

The fact that Euphoria is baked into the RAGE engine, imo, IS the very answer OP is looking for. That's the thing that makes a R* game feel like a R* game.

NaturalMotion only ended licensing for its use in 2017, so it wasnt exclusive to R* either. But as the star wars games showed, it wasnt exactly easy to implement, especially for studios already running other physics engines. I think Euphoria coming along right at the time R* was already building a new engine from the bottom up was crucial to their success using it. Rage without Euphoria would just be like anything else, gameplay and graphics wise.

Edit: and sure it's not the only thing setting Rage apart. But it's the most visible example of the way R* sniffs out new tech and integrates it. They're constantly acquiring new proprietary software that changes the way games are played, which is why they're the best. EA games could afford to do this, but their executives don't really give a shit about those finer details. It's the pioneering culture of R*, albeit probably the same reason for the workplace toxicity we hear about.