When I first heard about RoboCop: Rogue City, I expected it to be a terrible movie tie-in game — bad controls, a poor PC port, and an unoptimized, buggy mess. So when reviews started coming out and the game was rated highly, I was genuinely surprised. Could this actually be good, like the Batman games?
I played it via Family Sharing on Steam, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes action games.
There are some absolutely epic moments, like gunning down enemies with the Auto-9 while the classic RoboCop theme plays in the background. Ramping up against robots with the theme blasting and explosions going off everywhere feels incredibly satisfying — it’s pure 80s nostalgia done right. The music, soundtrack, and audio are excellent overall.
Special mention goes to the voice acting, especially Peter Weller returning as RoboCop. It was awesome to hear him again, and he proves he’s the only one who should ever play the role.
The developers did a fantastic job with the visuals, making excellent use of Unreal Engine 5. Some locations look photorealistic, and there are plenty of clever callbacks to the original movie. Even though I’m not the biggest RoboCop fan, there’s a lot here for fans of the franchise.
They created a semi-open world where you can walk the streets of old Detroit, which looks every bit as rundown and grim as you’d expect. The visuals do a great job capturing that atmosphere.
One thing I didn’t like was the busywork. Because RoboCop’s movement is slow (which makes sense for the character), walking back and forth between objectives can get very boring. This is the main reason I mostly skipped side quests — the slow pace made them feel tedious. There’s also some repetitive busywork around HQ, like walking around, talking to officers, heading to the parking garage, and then fast traveling to the next location. The game could have been tighter in this area.
(Note: The game is set after the events of RoboCop 2. I haven’t watched the sequels.)
I didn’t pay much attention to the story and skipped most cutscenes. Even though Peter Weller’s voice acting is great, the plot itself didn’t interest me. I didn’t care about the internal police politics or the corporate overlord’s plans for a “utopia.” I just wanted to use cool weapons and take down enemies.
Speaking of weapons, the Auto-9 is fantastic. You upgrade it throughout the game, and by the end it becomes an unstoppable force. There are also several fun pickup weapons like the rocket launcher and .50 cal sniper rifle. The only downside is that at the start of each mission, you lose the equipped pickup weapons and default back to the Auto-9 and a standard shotgun.
I also didn’t bother upgrading most skills — I focused mainly on armor, vitality, focus, and combat. Doing the main story plus a few side quests gave me enough skill points for the upgrades I wanted.
Boss battles are not too bad, but they can be a little irritating at times. The final boss battle has no checkpoints, so you have to complete the entire fight without dying. It’s not too complicated, but I had to try it a couple of times.
Overall, this is a fantastic game, especially for an AA title. I highly recommend it.