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How is it that the long-running RoboCop franchise has suddenly manifested its best adaptation in years? Developer Teyon should be applauded, not just for making RoboCop: Rogue City an enjoyable, substantive game that outshines most other attempts at this IP, but for taking such delicate care of the character and his world, resulting in possibly the finest overall RoboCop narrative since the original film. The subtlest details of the art direction and sound design are a knockout, supported by a solid, if somewhat simple, FPS and action-RPG framework. The resultant package feels custom-built for devotees, overstuffed with tributes at nearly every step of the story, effectively surpassing its occasional misstep or bug.
Peter Weller Shows Them How It’s Done
Set in time between RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3 (but without the former’s ghastly blue fiberglass character design), Rogue City puts players in the heavy boots of Alex Murphy as he cleans up the streets of Old Detroit and resolves its criminal intrigues, all while retaining his overwhelming humanity as the only cyborg cop on the force. In a move which only stirred up attention even further, actor Peter Weller reprises his peerless performance as RoboCop/Murphy, a resonant return that summons the character’s mix of automated law-and-order gusto and sympathetic pathos. He continues to own this characterization, and has yet to be outdone.
Joining him are a cast of what appear to be uncannily effective soundalikes for the other returning characters, and much of the script is well-observed and consistent with the lore. The story sees Robo face off against the bottomless threats to the city, like OCP hatchet men, all manner of mercs and jerks, and the social issues of the decayed urban landscape, while also affording time to rescue a cat or a coach a rookie cop on his first day. RoboCop: Rogue City attends to the micro and the macro, always eager to swap tones for extended sequences where Murphy mass-murders the city’s gleeful, scenery-chewing criminal population. Hey, it’s a RoboCop thing.
Expansive Levels and An Inspired Upgrade System
RoboCop: Rogue City takes place over approximately 20 chapters, some of which play out in discreet expansive levels, whereas others present an explorable hub containing secrets and side quests. The intro sequence sees RoboCop penetrating a bloody hostage situation at the Channel 9 News HQ in a one-off map, but the next takes him to the Downtown Detroit district, to which he’ll also return several times throughout the game. Areas are relatively spacious and, while not always packed with unique interactive hotspots, the amount of hidden content is a surprise, including entire storylines that can be easily missed if rushing through the game, as well as incidental encounters where Robo can issue misdemeanor justice, like a parking ticket.
There’s an additional benefit to taking the time to carefully scour the levels: fueling RoboCop: Rogue City’s interesting system of upgrades. Skill points accrue every time the player hits 1,000 XP, which can then be slotted into gameplay-impacting traits, like damage/armor buffs, new combat abilities, scanner upgrades to assist crime scene investigation, or even a feature which improves dialogue choices.
Rogue City Nails The Finer Details
RoboCop’s trusty Auto-9 gun uses swappable circuit boards which can be found and outfitted with pass-through chips to boost damage, reload time, weapon spread, and more esoteric effects besides. This acts as a minigame all on its own, as boards also contain debuff nodes that need to be circumvented with smart chip placement. It’s a little hard to describe how it all works in text, but it’s fun to experiment with different gun builds, and each board has its own node design nuances.
That firearm is one of the myriad qualities which RoboCop: Rogue City absolutely nails from the jump. Fans are certainly familiar with its powerful default triple-round burst, and it feels appropriately powerful here, with new upgrades sensibly adjusting its feedback. There’s also the perfectly realized “doof-doof-doof” sound of RoboCop’s feet on the ground, an oddly comforting rhythm which never grows cumbersome here (there’s a menu option to reduce it, though). While this game’s RoboCop is definitely quicker on his feet – playing an FPS precisely suited to RoboCop’s actual walking pace could prove to be a slog – his slower gait feels just right, and an unlockable mini-sprint skill offers a way to clear more distance faster while retaining the robotic essence of the character.
Straight-Up Shooting Gallery FPS Action
As a shooter, RoboCop: Rogue City is a good time and knows its way around a busy shooting-gallery-styled action sequence, but it also feels somewhat pared down in comparison to other modern FPSs. Maybe it’s best compared to the classic Max Payne games, in the sense that the combat segues are frequent, lengthy, simple but satisfying, and thread nicely into the narrative, which includes some bizarre nightmare-like glitches. It’s a sense of balance that both games manage to successfully achieve.
In RoboCop: Rogue City, criminals go down quickly so long as players tend to their upgrades, and any one battle can host dozens of targets to take down, most of whom toss grenades and utilize destructible cover while bantering and screaming in pain. It’s not ingenious AI by any means, and enemies will sometimes turtle up behind cover, but they rarely try to flank or outsmart the player. Dropped weapons can be temporarily equipped on the fly, but upgrading the Auto-9 turned out to be so effective and satisfying that we spent most of our review time modifying it and skipping over most sidearms.
Inventive Side Quests With Real Stakes
Outside of the main chapters, Robo spends downtime at the precinct, practicing at the gun range or interacting with fellow officers, triggering mini quests which serve up some of the game’s best scenes. He may be tasked with bringing a get-well card around for other cops to sign, tracing the source of a power outage at the station, or engaging in an intense series of therapy sessions with a newly assigned OCP psychologist. The precinct is closely modeled after what we see in the film, whether it’s the server racks in the basement, the gender-neutral locker room, or the parking lot where Murphy rides off, scraping the car’s muffler on the exit ramp every time.
RoboCop: Rogue City’s more linear chapters still have their own unique twists on room-clearing gameplay. For instance, there are multiple hostage situations where RoboCop can breach a door or a wall before blasting kidnappers away in time. Fail to do it right and a hostage might be murdered, which doesn’t lead to a game over; it’s one of several dynamic story-changing aspects of the game which can result in alternate endings, storylines, or a lesser XP bonus, depending on the hostage.
It could be a dead bank manager, a littering ticket, or RoboCop’s publicized support of a mayoral candidate, but these choices do appear to carry significant weight. Whether that’s enough to warrant a complete second playthrough or not will depend on the player, but we spent 15 hours from start to credits, and a half-dozen or so missed sidequests inspired a load back to a previous save, at the least. It would be nice to have a New Game+ or formal chapter select as well, so maybe Teyon will add these in the near future.
Old Detroit (And Its Boss Fights) Looks A Bit Worse For Wear
RoboCop: Rogue City looks good overall, with decent textures, consistent design, and some destructible environments, but it can also feel a little like a stiff up-rezzed Source Engine game. Mouth capture is unconvincing, enemies often blip out of existence on a kill, and some late-game bugs resulted in a complete absence of audio during cinematic sequences. Certain environments like the OCP Civic Centrum are unmistakably gorgeous, but some places in the Downtown area are full of grungier textures (which fits the atmosphere, intentionally or not), and enemy/NPC models constantly repeat. In so many words: this won’t be mistaken for a AAA game, but the studio clearly made good use of its available resources.
It’s a visual presentation tradeoff which never gets in the way of RoboCop: Rogue City’s strengths. Take the jail riot chapter, which riffs on the Natural Born Killers scene as Robo takes the prison back, inch by bloody inch. There’s a great firefight in a video store that breaks out after helping a character look for a VHS tape, a touchy rescue mission through a burning hotel, and a lengthy battle with a biker gang at a construction site. Combat gets a shot of energy after unlocking new effective skills and upgrading the Auto-9, and most dialogue choices introduce effective quandaries with murky results.
If anything, the game strains the hardest to successfully forge a good boss fight, in those rare instances which find RoboCop trapped in a constrained space against a massive robot’s health bar (two guesses as to who these robots are). Usually, though, RoboCop: Rogue City prefers pitting the player against broader encounters against crowds of enemies, a routine which fares much better, with a sensibility wisely adapted from the famous drug factory shootout in the first film.
Final Thoughts & Review Score
For RoboCop fans, this game is strongly recommended without any caveats. RoboCop: Rogue City is a love letter to the franchise which treats its hero with sincerity, affording the dignity and grace he deserves. The wider concept and themes are explored with creative insight at every step without sacrificing the satirical objectives and humor therein, a delicate tightrope act which most other RoboCop follow-ups have predictably fumbled. It’s heartening to have Peter Weller back in the role, regardless of the medium, and the plot manages to honor the first film while bringing over only the best elements of its inferior sequel.
However, it’s possible that non-fans and neophytes may leave less than impressed by the pared-down gameplay. RoboCop: Rogue City is by no means a cutting-edge, bottomless-budget FPS, and the slight graphical limitations and somewhat rudimentary action may feel insufficient to modern tastes. Regardless, these aspects are bolstered by the effective storytelling, the diversity of content, the inspired upgrade system, and the fluid and flavorful narrative; that last point is one where even the mightiest AAA games frequently falter.
It’s a matter of taking that memorable original score, the over-the-top firefights, the thoughtful questlines, and the raw retro/pseudo-90s shtick that ultimately leaves less residual concern over a clumsy facial animation or a tedious boss here and there. Every chapter of RoboCop: Rogue City gives players something interesting to do, an unexpected encounter to resolve, or a sly reference to decipher. The result is a great game that accomplishes everything an adaptation could wish for, breathing new life into its source material and setting a new high bar for the franchise.
RoboCop: Rogue City releases on November 2 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. A digital PS5 code was provided to Screen Rant for the purpose of this review.
