With RoboCop: Rogue City, the Teyon studio takes the opposite approach to modern FPS to offer a fairly faithful adaptation of Paul Verhoeven’s cult film. It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure. Our spoiler-free verdict.
In life, there are often two ways to approach things. Either we place ourselves in the camp of the enthusiasts, taking the risk of being disappointed (often, we hide the disappointment to keep up appearances). Either we are part of the eternal pessimists, some would say embittered, with the main benefit of discovering excellent surprises. I tend to hate before I love, and when a video game based on the film RoboCop, dear to my heart, was announced, I was initially very skeptical.
Fears were dissipated a little during a first interview at gamescom 2023. RoboCop: Rogue City, developed by Teyon (to whom we owe the poor adaptation of the Terminator universe), convinces from the first minutes. For a very simple reason: the studio perfectly understood and digested what RoboCop was, creating gameplay in tune with the idea of pleasing fans. Not everything is perfect, but seeing such a daunting project flourish is already a great victory in itself.
Strong points
- Gameplay adapted to the hero
- Graphic violence respected
- Faithful adaptation
Weak points
- A game that sometimes wants to do too much
- Visually quite ugly
- You have to love RoboCop
RoboCop: Rogue City does not betray its legacy
The events of RoboCop: Rogue City come after those of the second film (directed by Irvin Kershner, the man behind the best Star Wars) — a good way to pretend that the third didn’t exist. Detroit is still a city you don’t want to set foot in. Drugs and crime plague the streets and a mysterious individual – brother of a character seen in the first film – arrives to reignite more terror. Fortunately, we can always count on RoboCop to restore order, with unlimited recourse to violence.
In RoboCop: Rogue City, we spend most of the time repainting the walls with the blood of criminals
We cannot attack RoboCop: Rogue City on authenticity, unless you are nostalgic for the satire originally imagined by Paul Verhoeven. The video game is intended to be much more simplistic, but still relies on a narrative to be highlighted. There is notably good work on the “conscience” of the hero, who experiences glitches due to his previous life (when he was a police officer). We will have the opportunity to choose certain lines of dialogue to influence the way others perceive us, as well as the end of the game (as in Bethesda titles). RoboCop: Rogue City therefore knows how to go a little further than uncompromising action.
It is simply a shame to note that the realization does not always follow. While RoboCop: Rogue City is powered by the Unreal Engine 5, supposed to be the tool of tomorrow, it sometimes displays shortcomings worthy of yesterday. It is even quite ugly visually and betrays a certain lack of budget (we can no longer count the number of sound bugs).
Fans will enjoy the torrent of hemoglobin worthy of the power that emanates from RoboCop. Limbs, heads and even crotches explode on contact with the bullets coming out of his weapon. In RoboCop: Rogue City, we spend most of our time repainting the walls with the blood of criminals. Because violence breeds violence.
RoboCop: Rogue City is also a huge counter
When we look at the FPS genre today, we realize that many of its most recent representatives focus gameplay on speed. Just look Doom Eternal, an ultra dynamic game where everything goes very quickly. Double jump, wallrideneed to move all the time, verticality exploited… Shooting games more or less follow these pillars to be considered modern. RoboCop: Rogue City does not have at all the morphotype of its congeners. It actually takes the opposite view from everything that has been mentioned, with a very slow pace which corresponds to the idea we have of embodying a heavy and overarmed machine.
RoboCop can’t even jump or run. Every second we feel the heaviness of a carcass made of metal. The result is quite unique sensations, which transform RoboCop: Rogue City in an on-rails shooter, the hero’s life bar is rarely a problem (you have to be careful though, activating the healing objects at the right time). Some will say that it is a simulation of a massacre and there is truth: RoboCop is not the type to ask questions when the law must reign.
To avoid transforming the experience into a repetitive ordeal, Teyon dares to draw elements from another genre: the RPG. While the main missions of RoboCop: Rogue City always start with a briefing, they then turn out to be less straightforward than one might believe. In addition to the investigation which serves as a common thread, it will be possible to complete additional tasks, which range from the well-crafted secondary quest to respecting fines (have you always dreamed of fining a badly parked car?). All this with the aim of gaining experience points to develop RoboCop’s skills, knowing that you can also personalize your weapon via a small, well-thought-out puzzle.
All these very different elements which accumulate make RoboCop: Rogue City a title of sometimes clumsy richness, as it sometimes has difficulty taking on everything. The fact remains that a real charm emanates from this proposal which has the merit of not being satisfied with the basic to surprise (there are even investigation phases). This offers players moments of calm which allow them to breathe between two mass killings in dull and relatively poorly developed environments. It’s clever for anyone who would like to hide – a little – poverty. Honestly, it could have been worse.
The verdict
We liked
- Gameplay adapted to the hero
- Graphic violence respected
- Faithful adaptation
We liked less
- A game that sometimes wants to do too much
- Visually quite ugly
- You have to love RoboCop
Far from being perfect, RoboCop: Rogue City is above all far from being the disaster predicted. This adaptation of the cult saga has understood almost everything about the essence of the character and his universe. We will forgive the absence of a satyr, as the gameplay is completely in line with the idea we have of playing a half-man, half-machine hero. We really feel like we’re playing a tank, with graphic violence reminiscent of Paul Verhoeven’s masterpiece.
RoboCop: Rogue City also allows itself some fantasies by mixing genres. Far from the boring FPS, it offers some freedom to fans by allowing them to wander the bad streets of Detroit. There will inevitably be a notion of guilty pleasure to forgive the few blunders of a studio which strives to do well. It’s still better than watching the last film in the initial trilogy.
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