Yikes, this shooter is almost a role-playing game and plays like a fan’s dream

The demo of RoboCop: Rogue City has something ahead of 90 percent of all modern shooters. Yet for long stretches, the game feels like an artifact of the past

From time to time, it just has to come out, that irrepressible joy of playing: the fist raised to the sky, the cheered “Yay!”, the relaxed laugh that bursts like a riddled gangster skull.

RoboCop: Rogue City has given me many such moments. Because the first-person shooter plays like what every fan of the film series has probably longed for as a video game adaptation.

Rogue City is a love letter to connoisseurs of the 1987 film and a preview version on Steam shows that a really great licensed game is coming our way in September. One that offers much more than just shooting. And for shooter fans like me, that’s probably the best part of RoboCop Shooter.

RoboCop doesn’t jump, he stomps

Really amazing how well the developers have nailed the atmosphere and feel of RoboCop: From the first-person perspective, I move with the expected inertia of a human tank, soaking up hits in numerous gunfights with drug-pumped punks and doctoring up my steely alter ego with scattered repair modules.

Weapon feedback is good, thanks to splattering blood effects and lots of explosive items lying around. In run-down apartment buildings and illegal car garages, all kinds of junk flies through the air, while large-calibre machine guns and RoboCop’s trusty Colt wade the plaster off the walls.

In hand-to-hand combat, my tin man dispenses deadly slaps, enemies can be grabbed and flung across the room, as can chairs, televisions and even motorbikes. The result is that I feel like an almost invulnerable Terminator – how fitting that Rogue City comes from the same developers who previously made Terminator: Resistance, which was extremely popular in parts of the editorial team.

Jumping is out of the question as a super cop weighing several tons, but later there’s a dash for quickly bridging distances in combat and Alex Murphy can also jog. From the sound effects to the optional scan display in battle: everything feels like the original. Only the soundtrack came up a little short for me in the demo version.

Sherlock Holmes 2043

In between battles and linear story missions (often with NPC accompaniment from movie cop Anne Lewis), I explore a surprisingly large neighbourhood in the demo that comes with several main and side quests.

In the familiar dirty and gloomy Detroit, I patrol the streets, hand out parking tickets, can sometimes show mercy to a teenage sprayer or eavesdrop on a homeless man handing out tips on how to act.

Side tasks always feel coherent and worthwhile, too, all paying off the fantasy of an uncorruptible vigilante who, in the year 2043, keeps law and order in a broken system like a futuristic sheriff.

(The first district to be explored is pleasantly spacious.)

Class integrated are the many role-playing elements: I collect experience points for my performance in the story missions and for finding sometimes cleverly hidden evidence (drugs, counterfeit money, stolen goods), which I yinvest in a good dozen attributes.

Every few levels I unlock a special ability. With greater vitality, Robo-Alex not only takes more hits, but at some point he can even heal himself on fuse boxes. Skills for cracking safes, psychological conversation (opens up new options in the multiple-choice dialogues) or the logical analysis of clues are also available.

You can completely upgrade RoboCop to a brutal, invulnerable butcher or strengthen his skills as an investigator and thereby gain access to further goodies and better rewards hidden in the game world.

Once Murphy has put the gun away, the right mouse button no longer highlights enemies as it does in combat, but instead shows clues to be scanned. These can be codes for locked safes or switches that reveal secret chambers with supplies.

RoboCop: Rogue City will be released in September 2023, there is no exact release date yet.

Interview with developer Teyon

In addition to playing the demo for several hours, my colleague Christian Schneider had the opportunity to conduct an interview with the developers of RoboCop: Rogue City. The main topic was the technology of the first-person shooter. The interview was conducted by e-mail.

GlobalESportNews: You use the Unreal Engine 5 for RoboCop. Are Lumen, Nanite or classic ray tracing also used?

Teyon: “Yes, we use Lumen and Nanite for real-time global illumination and infinite polygon calculation on all static meshes. These are great features that have helped us a lot in making the game world realistic, so we’re very happy to be able to use Epic’s current tech.”

GlobalESportNews: How has Unreal Engine 5 changed the work on this game compared to Unreal Engine 4 on Terminator: Resistance?

Teyon:  “So the biggest differences are actually Lumen and Nanite. Thanks to the light calculation by Lumen, we could completely do without the old processing steps with pre-baked light. That’s why, for example, every light source in the game can be destroyed. With Nanite, on the other hand, the infinite mesh count makes a huge difference when it comes to small details. Because of Lumen and Nanite, we could also simply work much faster and still have better looking results. “

(In between the shootings you scan clues. This almost feels like real police work.)

GlobalESportNews: Will there actually be an option for image noise in the finished game, so you can get a bit more of that 80s VHS look?

Teyon: “No, we don’t use image noise. But we have lots of other post-processing effects to capture the atmosphere of the original RoboCop film. It was very important to us that while we give a retro feel, we still deliver a crisp and clean image. “

GlobalESportNews: Will there be New Game Plus?

Teyon: “No, there are no plans to include a New Game Plus mode at the moment either. “

GlobalESportNews: Most normal people are not much of a threat to RoboCop in the game, just like in the movies. But how do you want to keep the gameplay challenging anyway?

Teyon: “We have prepared a lot of threats for the players during the campaign. There are a few unique enemies that use different weapons and behaviours that can become a real problem for RoboCop. He is very strong, but not indestructible. You see that with the SWAT team attack in the first RoboCop movie. “

GlobalESportNews: What were the biggest challenges for you in the development of RoboCop: Rogue City?

Teyon: “It was difficult to stay as close to the template and lore as possible while still developing a good narrative rhythm and combat dynamics. For example, we didn’t want Murphy to run around fast and slide around. So we focused on elements that actually fit him and are still fun to play. He can pick up heavy objects and use them as shields or throw them at enemies, he can grab enemies and hurl them at other enemies, he can break through walls and other things. “

GlobalESportNews: In the preview version, I noticed that Robocop has no body in the first-person perspective. So I can’t see his legs, for example, he’s more like a floating camera. He also doesn’t appear in reflections in the game world or cast his own shadow. Will this change in the full version?

Teyon: “You’ll see a lot of RoboCop in the cutscenes and dialogue, but he won’t have a body in the first-person gameplay. “

Editor’s Verdict

A single player shooter! Yes, really, it still exists! If that news alone doesn’t get you into hype mode for RoboCop: Rogue City right off the bat, I have more good news for you after playing it. Because what Teyon is putting together here plays like a dream for fans of the original. I really feel like I’m in the role of Alex Murphy, including hazy memories of his family and creepy sardonic check-ups of the robot body in the basement of the police building.

The gameplay is as oldschool as the film: fights and weapons have weight, the manual healing brings a touch of tactics into the game and despite the linear story, the game hardly gives me any instructions, but simply lets me do it. While 90 percent of all modern shooters are bent on guiding me through their solo campaigns with as many tips and signposts as possible (if they exist at all), with RoboCop I feel taken seriously as an adult player. Especially the many secrets I have to discover on my own, scan mode or not.

I was positively surprised by the high proportion of role-playing. There are surprisingly many dialogues in the game and they are not even badly written; the dry humour and the crassly exaggerated undertone of this cyberpunk dystopia always make me think back to one of my favourite films. RoboCop fans, this game is currently looking like a point charge! There were still a few rough edges in the preview version, such as minor display errors or music that was too quiet, but I’m confident that these will be ironed out by the time the game is released. All that’s left now is to get the variety right over the entire duration of the game, for example in the enemy design.

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