RoboCop: Rogue City
Fan service it may be, but RoboCop: Rogue City does just enough to stand up on its own merits. There’s not a lot of depth to it, and it retreads a lot of old ground, but the charm just about shines through.
- Developer
- Teyon
- Publisher
- Nacon
- Platforms
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
- Rating
- M: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Incredibly authentic visuals
- Satisfying gunplay
- Fun roleplaying opportunities
- Many mechanics lack depth
- Story is a overly familiar
- Occasionally dodgy facial animations and voice acting
When you’re reviewing a game, you have to think really hard about what exactly it was that the developers set out to do. Sometimes a vision can be executed almost flawlessly, and yet the game itself can be a little disappointing. Teyon, the developers of RoboCop: Rogue City do a fantastic job of recreating the feel of the classic 80s films, and treat the source material with a great deal of respect, but mechanically, the game doesn’t hit the same heights. Rogue City presents itself so well, that a lot of people won’t care, but a lack of depth and some missed narrative opportunities drag the experience down.
Neon-Lit Marvel
If you’ve ever seen a RoboCop film or any number of other action thrillers from the 80s, you’ll feel right at home when you boot up Rogue City. The over-the-top violence, dry one-liners, and anti-corporate satire are all here in abundance. By far the game’s greatest strength is how convincingly it looks and feels just like the films it’s based on. Detroit has never looked this stylish. Burning braziers, roaming thugs, and of course, endless neon are woven together expertly in order to create that now classic dystopian atmosphere. Just taking in the sights of the surprisingly large and detailed downtown areas is a joy. There’s even routine police work to do, like issuing parking tickets and resolving noise disputes.
It’s actually the way the game is structured that I find the most interesting. The story missions are largely linear shooting galleries, with a few secrets to find and extra areas to explore, but the rest of the game takes place either in the police headquarters, where you are free to interact with the other members of the force and take on odd jobs, or in downtown Detroit, a small open area that serves as both a mission hub and a level in its own right. All the side missions take place there, and they update after every big story mission. The game doesn’t have an enormous scope, but I appreciate its density. It’s all just open-ended enough that the world feels big, and that you have some agency, without requiring a dull commute, or feeling like filler.
The violence is totally overblown, just as it should be. Blood goes everywhere, and the environments have a nice way of being torn to shreds as bodies, bullets, and office equipment go flying across the room. The spectacle is definitely there, and the thundering blast of the iconic Auto 9 pistol never gets old. Enemies’ heads explode, limbs are torn off, and Detroit’s gangsters react with terror as you mow your way through them by the dozen.
I also love how tanky RoboCop feels to control. He’s slow, but not in a frustrating way, and his footsteps have a real weight to them. He can soak up a hell of a lot of bullets too. I’ll say more about the mechanical aspect of the combat later on, but rest assured, it absolutely looks and sounds the part.
Burning braziers, roaming thugs, and of course, endless neon are woven together expertly in order to create that now classic dystopian atmosphere.
The devil, as ever, is in the details, and Teyon has evidently put the effort in elsewhere too. Peter Weller reprises his iconic role as the titular metal lawman and does a great job. He can still throw out quips with the best of them, but manages to retain an air of menace when dealing with the many many crooks he encounters while on duty. RoboCop’s character model looks great too, even when they take his helmet off. As for the rest of the cast, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Character models are generally pretty good, but the facial animations are a little wonky. The voice acting is a bit uneven too (excluding Weller), ranging from passable to comically bad. Somehow the guy with only the front half of his faceon his body is the most expressive.
Blinded By Nostalgia
Continuing in the same nostalgic vein, Rogue City’s story is also immediately familiar. Perhaps too familiar. There’s a “new guy” in town who’s apparently looking to spend a lot of money on something nefarious, and the entire criminal underworld is trying to get his attention. Things get out of hand when the Torch Heads (a gang of punk-styled drug dealers) overrun a television station in order to broadcast a message to this enigmatic newcomer, taking several hostages in the process.
It turns out that this mysterious newcomer is someone (indirectly) from Alex Murphy’s past, and his presence spells big trouble for everyone on the side of law and order. The story takes place between RoboCop 2 and 3, and feels like it could easily have been some kind of long-forgotten straight-to-DVD intermediary feature. The story hits all the usual beats, and all the same themes are explored, with varying levels of success. Is RoboCop man or machine? Can he be trusted to uphold the law? Are we heading towards a grim corporate-controlled future?
There’s nothing inherently wrong with tackling these issues, even if they have been done before. I understand that Teyon want to stay faithful to the material, but one or two new twists wouldn’t have gone amiss. People see the police now very differently from how they did in the 80s, and it would have been nice to at least acknowledge this modern lens. There’s also a problem with bland villains and predictable plot points. The “New Guy” in particular is a disappointment once his true nature is revealed. Despite this, the writing is solid, and there are plenty of moments that pack a punch.
There are some interesting dialogues to be had with perhaps the most interesting narrative element: the therapy sessions with a police psychiatrist. You can discuss at length who you think you are and how you feel, and the writing is surprisingly solid. It is all ground that the first film went over pretty thoroughly, but it’s done well enough here that I didn’t mind. What I do mind is that none of what you do during these sessions has any impact on the story, or vice versa. If choices you made during missions could be discussed, or you could talk about something that unlocks bonus story sections, it would have felt a little less like an aside.
There are a lot of fun moments though, especially the side objectives in the downtown area. It was during these that I found myself really starting to role-play as RoboCop, dispensing justice as I saw fit, and enjoying some really nice character moments (like when an ex-junky police informant has to comfort the child of an officer who is missing and presumed dead). These missions give you a bit more freedom to make choices with appropriate narrative rewards. The game is also pretty reliably funny. The antics of the various vagrants and ne’er-do-wells got a few laughs out of me, and Weller’s dry delivery never fails to make me smile.
You’re Coming With Me
Once the game lets you off the leash, you can get down to the real meat and potatoes of police work. Gunning down anyone who gets in your way. The combat feels absolutely fantastic, but while it never got boring by a long stretch, the sheen does start to fade after a while.
It’s an issue of substance primarily. You’re given a lot of options in combat, but none of them feel like a tactical necessity. Sure, you can throw gas canisters and computer monitors around, which is great fun, but sooner or later you’ll realize it’s a lot more efficient to just shoot people between the eyes. Enemies don’t vary their tactics enough to make clever strategy worthwhile, they mostly just run up and start blasting. At times, Rogue City almost feels like a rail shooter, as you march inexorably toward victory, popping away at largely static enemies with almost no power to stop you. Even the slow-motion moments you get when you kick a door in get old once you’ve done it a few dozen times.
You’re free to pick up weapons from fallen enemies, but honestly, the wonderfully punchy Auto-9 is the only way to go. It gets even deadlier once you unlock the ability to upgrade it, with an interesting system where you can add various plugins and have to balance their positive and negative effects. It’s almost a puzzle game and I found myself enjoying it more than I expected. I sort of wish there was more of it.
You do have to vary your approach a little bit as the game goes on, and new enemy types like snipers, and even the odd ED-209 are let loose, but it isn’t quite enough to keep things fresh for the entire run time, despite the best efforts of the cool side-missions and excellent locations.
You’re free to pick up weapons from fallen enemies, but honestly, the wonderfully punchy Auto-9 is the only way to go.
One other area I felt was a bit of a letdown was the detective mechanics. I know they aren’t what the game is really about, but you don’t actually have to work anything out for yourself. All you do is scan whatever glows green and progress happens. I guess it helps with roleplaying, but it just isn’t much fun marching around a crime scene pointing Murphy’s mechanical peepers at stains, documents, and other criminal paraphernalia.
A Must-Play For Fans
Rogue City is such a remarkably authentic adaptation of the RoboCop license that recommending it to fans is a no-brainer. As for the rest of us, I wouldn’t say the game is doing the bare minimum, but there isn’t anything terribly substantial to get your teeth into either. It’s got a lot of style, but not quite enough meat on the bone to back it up.
That said, there is still fun to be had. The firefights feel great, the writing is solid even if the plot doesn’t do anything new, and Detroit has a lot to explore. Frankly, the game exceeded my modest expectations. It is, at heart, a love letter to everything RoboCop, but it’s more than just fan service. It’s a solid shooter with lots of charm, and I think that makes for a nice change. It’s refreshing to play a game with some soul to it, even if it is a little rough around the edges.