RoboCop: Rogue City

While RoboCop: Rogue City has fun and engaging combat, where the game truly shines is in its interactivity between characters and detective work.

RoboCop: Rogue City is a love-letter to the RoboCop franchise and its fans. And the Steam Deck just manages to crawl past the finishing line here.

Robocop is one of those quote unqote franchises that only has a single great entry in it. I mean when’s the last time you’ve heard someone talk about one of the Robocop sequels? And I can guarantee you haven’t heard anyone talk about the remake since it came out nine years ago. I assume there were some Robocop video games before this, but again, nothing you’ve probably heard much talk about. Which brings us to November 2nd and the release of Robocop: Rogue City from developer Teyon and publisher Nacon, and with that we finally have another piece of media in the Robocop franchise that’s absolut...

Fans of RoboCop are likely to love Rogue City, though it’s also likely to prove appealing to those who simply like shooting up bad guys with reckless abandon. Dealing out violent justice as RoboCop rarely struggles to put a smile on your face – even if, at times, it threatens to become a tad repetitive. Throw in some light investigation and some moments of humour, and you have a game that makes effective use of a much-loved IP.

Robocop: Rogue City, like Terminator: Resistance before it, aims to deliver a fan-crafted experience, and it succeeds on nearly every level. With the understanding that this title comes from a smaller studio with limitations in the AA space, it's easy to forgive the lack of polish in certain areas such as facial animations. Otherwise, Rogue City is a thrilling experience through and through.

Despite a few things that might feel off, Robocop: Rogue City is likely the closest we'll ever get to the original movie. Like Murphy, the game sometimes malfunctions but ultimately gets the job done.

RoboCop: Rogue City is easily the best RoboCop game to date. That in itself isn't exactly a high bar, but regardless of the quality of previous RoboCop games, the developers got this one right. They put a lot of time in studying the source material, cramming the game with references to the films. The story is interesting enough, but does suffer from uneven pacing. Spending time at the precinct between missions to attend to more mundane things can break the momentum, but does help make the character feel like an actual police officer and not just a rampaging killbot. The mix of exploration, con...

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.

RoboCop: Rogue City is a methodical shooter that makes you feel like Old Detroit's greatest crime fighter, but it errs when its devotion to authenticity wanes.

I'd buy that for 20 dollars!

Teyon blends bloody linear shootouts with light open world action for an entertaining, if unadventurous, RoboCop experience.

Despite its performance problems, RoboCop: Rogue City’s heart is in the right place. It’s trying to be the RoboCop 3 we should have gotten, featuring the return of original RoboCop actor Peter Weller as Detroit’s cyborg supercop. But it’s the mechanical half of Rogue City that’s often a letdown, with performance and story problems that get in the way of making RoboCop’s new game a truly great shooter.