The whole genesis of the game came in 2002/2003 when George Miller wanted to make FURY ROAD and also wanted to expand the universe like "The Matrix Trilogy" via other mediums with an anime and video game. When the film got shelved in 2003 due the Gulf War and filming in Namibia was ruled out so did all the other plans. However in 2007/2008 pre-production ramped back up and while Miller ditched the anime idea he was still adamant about the game.



Sometime in 2008 Cory Barlog left Sony Santa Monica and moved to Sydney and joined KMM to set up a studio and also work directly with Miller in expanding the FURY ROAD movie and Mad Max franchise into a video game. Since the studio wasn't ready Warner Bros. took the development duties to Avalanche with Miller/Barlog working on the story and Barlog becoming the game director.



In 2010 though production on FURY ROAD grinded to halt because the red desert of Broken Hill became lush green fields due to rain and flooding. Although Miller never really wanted to film there and had prepared to shoot in South Africa. Development of the game continued.



2012. Development of the game had been continuing on at this point and then for some reason...Barlog left the project. His Twitter at the time made it seem like he was canned by Avalanche/WB/KMM and Avalanche for some reason publicly went on record to say Barlog was never there or involved with development of a Mad Max game. Development continued and finally in August 2012 filming began on FURY ROAD in South Africa.



The plan was that the game would release next to the movie since the game was an extension of FURY ROAD and since filming of the movie kept getting delayed so did the release of the video game. The extra time helped but it also proved a problem since the original plan was the game would be released for 360, PS3 and PC but with next gen on the horizon and FURY ROAD not scheduled to release any time before 2014 Avalanche had to begin work on "next gen" versions.