There should be something between independent and astronomical budgets. Moderate and focused games that, with just enough, do great things. And, in fact, they even have a name: double A (or AA or triple I, depending on who you ask). In the generation of PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 they were the daily bread, there were many and very good ones, although with the arrival of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One they almost became extinct. In 2017 we talked about double A again thanks to Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and now, almost at the end of 2023, it's time to recover the concept to talk about RoboCop: Rogue City, a game that will not go down in history, but that very much deserves the grief.
The new thing from the Polish studio Teyon is a tribute to the original work by Paul Verhoeven, although the story is located between the two sequels: RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3. The protagonist is the mythical half-man, half-machine policeman armed with his also mythical Auto- 9, an automatic pistol: RoboCop, Agent Alex Murphy. And his objective is the same as always: fight against a group of thugs who want to control the city of Detroit. Although, in this case, the story is the least of it.
Now I could talk about nostalgia and how the entertainment industry seems to have become a vampire that feeds on memories, as has happened with Fortnite. But this is not the key to RoboCop: Rogue City, its success is based on love and passion. RoboCop is rough and slow, more like a tank than a soldier, and since Teyon they haven't made any compromises. They are faithful to the original recipe, tracing the tone, themes, violence and even satire.
But it feels original. It could almost be considered a lost sequel that has been discovered 35 years too late. In fact, classic movie characters such as Agent Anne Lewis or Sergeant Warren Reed return. And the actor who voices the protagonist is Peter Weller, who played RoboCop in the original films.
The story doesn't go much further and it ends up being more important to focus on how it is played. RoboCop: Rogue City is not like Call of Duty, the new Doom or Halo: Infinite. It's a slow game and you notice the weight of the metal body with every step. Dodging bullets is useless and the important thing is to hold on and move forward. RoboCop is a tank that can withstand almost anything while tearing criminals to pieces. Very similar to the Master Chief from the first two Halo.
It is a power fantasy that is only broken in a specific encounter with final bosses. But dispatching the putties is easy and, above all, a lot of fun. The game maintains the gore and explicit component of the movies and the combat ends up being a festival of blood and explosions.
Teyon has specialized in recent years in adapting great action franchises from the 80s to video games. They started with Rambo: The Video Game in 2014, which was a critical and sales failure. In 2019, they published Terminator: Resistance (already a little better). And with this RoboCop: Rogue City they continue to improve and draw a clear line upwards.
RoboCop: Rogue City is not perfect and is often held back by its modest budget. The artificial intelligence of the enemies could be much better, the levels could be more varied and it lacks that extra realism in the animations and details that comes with having hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to spend – like Rockstar Games or Naughty Dog do. .
It will surely not enter the general lists of best games of 2023 (this year there are many very good competitors), but RoboCop: Rogue City will surely earn a place in the hearts of many people who enjoyed and continue to enjoy the movies and even the of some clueless person who, thanks to this game, enters the universe created by Verhoeven.
RoboCop: Rogue City is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
