‘RoboCop: Rogue City’ Leans Hard Into RPG, Lets You Play as a Walking Tank
RoboCop: Rogue City wants players to feel like RoboCop more than any other game. Would you buy that for a dollar?
There are many 80s movies that I love like Ghostbusters, Rambo, Commando, etc. Very few though reach the levels of love that I have for RoboCop. A story that is unapologetic in its satire and yet is so incredibly cool all at the same time. Teyon also loves 80s movies making Terminator Resistance back in 2019 and hopes to bring that care to Alex Murphy. RoboCop: Rogue City was first announced in July 2021 and I was cautious about it because of games like RoboCop (2003)
The more they show off the game though, the more excited I get. Well, the developers have been letting people get some more hands-on experience and it is looking to be the best RoboCop game yet.
via Teyon
Let’s pretend RoboCop 3 never happened
IGN got a great hands-on of the game to get a feel for what the developers are working on accomplishing. Teyon has the game’s 20-30 hour campaign set between RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3 with Murphy already being a beloved member of the city and those around him.
The game will feature characters and elements from the movies such as his partner, Anne Lewis, the ED-209, and trying to incorporate the satirical cheesy humor found in the previous 2 movies. They also want to explore more of his memories as the first RoboCop movie did as well, so expect to learn more about what kind of man he was before that fateful day with Clarence Boddicker.
RoboCop: Rogue City’s game director, Piotr Latocha explained as well that the team wants the game to be more than just an FPS:
“This was actually really important to us, that it’s not only a first-person shooter but it’s much more than that…We wanted to build on the RPG elements, so dialogue choices, dialogue trees, and those skills actually help you to solve some things in different ways. Psychology sometimes lets you talk someone into doing something without using violence, or skills like Engineering can unlock a dialogue option that enables you to talk someone out of doing something.”
The difference in approach can let players make completely different decisions in a scenario such as arresting instead of killing criminals or doing things without even firing a single shot. These choices in the game affect the story and will also affect who will live and die as you play the game. Some will be obvious right away, while others could be more subtle and bite you later as you play through the campaign.
Walk, Don’t Run.
The thing stressed by IGN as well as GameSpot is how it feels to play the game. The game wants to be as faithful to the character as possible and the best way to do that is to remember that RoboCop isn’t Master Chief. He is a cyborg who walks slowly with very specific movements and doesn’t normally full sprint, jump around or, hide behind cover. This means Murphy walks the whole time and players will have to rely on not only just pure armor but also the other things he can do as well.
Equipped in the beginning with his trusty Auto-9 pistol, players also have access to night vision, auto-targeting when aiming down the sights, a shockwave move, and a slow-motion mode. Murphy also can use his superior strength to break through walls to catch enemies by surprise or punch and throw enemies around. They did put in a small dash though to make sure he wasn’t too slow.
Latocha explained the challenge was to make this work without being too sluggish.
“It was one of the biggest design challenges, to get that slow and heavy character into the game,…He’s kind of slow and tankish, and we need to be true to the lore, but also we cannot be super slow and super heavy. So finding that spot… how to make this character interesting, so the combat was fluid was the biggest challenge.” “He cannot do stealth or crouch…But he can do other things that are cool with this character. So, for example, breaching walls, throwing heavy enemies, grabbing enemies and throwing them. There’s a lot of stuff that a heavy character can do, but also we have a skill tree where we unlock some skills, some of them are active, and you can use some of them to expand on the gameplay as well.”
If you are worried you will die too easily, that doesn’t seem to be an issue. The gameplay is noted by those who played it that RoboCop is practically invincible in the portions they played with the bad guys unable to really kill the player. Honestly, that sounds awesome and makes sense for the character that nothing really can kill him easily. That was kind of the point of his creation in Old Detroit with the only things that could truly harm him were incredibly explosive weapons or giant enemies like the ED-209 or RoboCop 2.
The issue I can understand with this is that can get old if you want a challenge as you play a game for 20+ hours. The other trailers show him dealing with ED-209s as well as more enemies, so the odds are he will just feel like that in the beginning. After all, RoboCop has been in trouble from getting shot too much before.
Upgrades, People!
Every one of the moves I mentioned earlier also can be upgraded as well as the Auto-9, such as reduced recoil or switching from burst fire to full auto. The Auto-9 is the default weapon and has infinite ammo as well as being the gun you always have between missions. This doesn’t mean you can’t use other guns like SMGs enemies drop, just that Murphy doesn’t keep them on him. The developers wanted to make sure the Auto-9 was the gun you relied on the most with Latocha explaining:
“That was actually one of the challenges, because we wanted to keep the player using the Auto 9 because it’s his iconic weapon…It’s something that RoboCop uses a lot so it needs to be fun, it needs to feel powerful. But we also used an upgrade system to improve the Auto-9, so as the game proceeds you can make it stronger and stronger.”
The game will also sport upgrades for his abilities with being given his shockwave move as an example of something that could make you even more powerful than before.
“Shockwave works basically like a police flashbang, so you can stun the enemies…But it’s the first version of the Shockwave skill. If you upgrade it until the very end, it’s deadly. So if you stun the enemies [with the upgraded Shockwave skill], they’ll fall down dead.”
This game could end up being my favorite RoboCop game since RoboCop vs Terminator for SNES. It also could become a very divisive game with how it plays or if it doesn’t become more challenging down the line. All I am saying though is to give the game a chance if you are a fan, because Peter Weller returning alone is worth it.
RoboCop: Rogue City is planned for a September launch for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
“Patience, Lewis. We’re only human.” – RoboCop, RoboCop 2
