Multiplayer-focused FPS Crime Boss: Rockay City is filled with famous personalities from the 80s and 90s, but unfortunately, its cast isn’t the only thing that feels dated. Video games centered around the dangerous and exciting life of organized crime have long been dominated by series like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption. While Crime Boss: Rockay City is filled with a cast that would make a fantastic action/comedy film thirty years ago, the gameplay and execution of its ideas prevent it from feeling original in almost every department.
Rockay City feels like a generic shooter of the Xbox and PS3 generation. Characters filled with cringe-worthy dialogue and cartoony personalities litter the game’s several modes that all mold into cohesive world-building that establish the crime-filled and colorful location of Rockay City. Players build a team of criminals to complete missions involving stealing money, drugs, or turf. Online modes Crime Time and Urban Legends can be completed stealthily or with guns blazing with up to four players. Completing missions in specific modes unlocks story-expanding cutscenes for Crime Boss: Rockay City, which includes famous actors like Michael Madsen, Kim Basinger, Michael Rooker, and Vanilla Ice.
![Crime Boss: Rockay City Review: Crime Game Filled With Stars Falls Flat](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/crimebossgameplay1.jpg)
Crime Boss‘s tutorial introduces the player to the game’s main character, the up-and-coming criminal leader Travis Baker, aka The Candy Man, played by Michael Madsen. During Rockay City‘s roguelike single-player mode, players must execute missions to claim turf and resources from rival Crime Bosses, played by actors like Danny Trejo and Vanilla Ice. Completing tasks flawlessly without leaving bodies and evidence is recommended, because law enforcement is led by Chuck Norris’s character and increases in difficulty and ferociousness as evidence grows on Travis. Progress resets if Travis dies during a mission, which can also be played as hireable thugs equipped with different weapons and perks.
Each mission in Crime Boss differs from the last, with enemies, surveillance cameras, and objectives switching locations. This helps add variety to missions with the time of day and amount of pedestrians differing, sometimes helping or hindering how smoothly an objective can be completed. However, much like the NPCs that players will spend most of their time controlling, each location feels identical to one another, with little to no characteristics to help each level or character feel unique or memorable. The lack of personality from any character not modeled after a famous actor feels flat compared to the over-the-top main cast, whom all feel like caricatures from bad movies rather than characters worth getting emotionally invested in.
The limited time to play the review build of Crime Boss: Rockay City felt unfinished and needed more gameplay activities and depth. With the game planned to be a live service experience, with more time, developer InGame Studios will hopefully add more features and gameplay mechanics to help the game stand out in the multiplayer shooter genre. There is fun to be had with a team of four friends completing missions together. Still, in its current state, Crime Boss: Rockay City feels like a low-level wannabe criminal trying to get rich quick on a street populated with multiplayer shooters who already do better.
Crime Boss: Rockay City releases on the Epic Game Store on PC on March 28th, 2023. A release date on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S is TBD. A PC Code was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review.