There’s a moment in RoboCop: Rogue City where the future of law enforcement gets to show a little of the man behind the mask. He corners a reporter he’s been tracking, who reveals she has intel that could indict OCP, the evil megacorp who made RoboCop in the first place. She broke into OCP HQ to get that info, so technically she broke the law. But she had to do it to get what she needed. So RoboCop has a choice to make: he can detain her, an act that will ensure that the OCP-run cops will seize the evidence and destroy it, covering up the company’s crimes. Or he can show his human side and let the journalist go, allowing her to continue gathering evidence. It’s a tough call.
According to the developer, decisions like these – whether to be empathic or a hard-line officer of the law – will impact the game’s ending. But having seen how it plays out both ways in this instance, it’s difficult to see the bigger implications. If you bust the journalist she just shouts a handful of expletives before being dragged off by the police; let her go and she says you’re helping the city… but how? It certainly wasn’t clear in the demo I played at gamescom 2023.
Another example the developer gave focussed on a graffiti artist who RoboCop tracks and captures. If you let him go he continues to scrawl on walls around Detroit, but their message is positive. Bust him and he writes ‘RoboCop is a dick’ on every wall he can. It’s a fun aside but I want to see how the choices a player makes have real impact, if indeed they do.
For now, the focus of this demo was primarily gunplay, as RoboCop is called to a heist at a nearby OCP bank. He’s not the first on the scene – a SWAT team is ready to enter, supported by a handful of ED-209s, and what follows is a chaotic firefight in the lobby of the bank. Despite them both being on the same side, fighting a gang called the Street Vultures, there’s a little healthy competition between RoboCop and the SWAT team. Every kill racked up contributes to each side’s running total that, should RoboCop win, awards bonus XP he can use to upgrade his abilities. Lose and, well, he’s still a walking bullet-sponge who can take a lot of damage before he falls.
When we first saw RoboCop: Rogue City a couple of months ago we played through an early mission in which our titanium lawman seemed almost invincible, despite being peppered by gunfire. This mission, set about a third of the way into the game, ups the ante a little, both in terms of the sheer number of enemies RoboCop encounters and the weapons they bring to the party.
When you breach into a room – which, incidentally, feels incredibly satisfying, as the action shifts to slow motion and you have a couple of seconds to head-shot anyone in the firing line – you’re often surrounded by Street Vultures, but the key to survival is identifying the biggest threat first. There are goons carrying grenade launchers who, if not dealt with quickly, will tear through RoboCop’s armour with ease. Similarly there are thugs with .50 cal machine guns, but they’re hidden behind cover and harder to hit. Or do you take out the leader, who gives a morale boost to everyone nearby, increasing the threat from every direction?
RoboCop is more than equipped to tackle this scenario in any way you choose, thanks to the skills and weapon upgrades on offer. The iconic Auto-9 pistol can be upgraded with armour-piercing and explosive rounds, plus its magazine capacity can be increased. RoboCop also has abilities like bullet-time and dash, which allows him to quickly take down multiple enemies and charge toward a distant threat respectively, plus he can ricochet shots off the environment to hit hidden enemies.
That said, the onslaught of enemies can be so overwhelming at times that it’s inevitable RoboCop will take a ton of damage, which is a relief (of sorts) since we were concerned about a lack of challenge after the first time we saw it. As such, there needs to be an element of strategy to each gun fight. While there are health-boosting battery packs scattered around if you take too much damage, you need to take advantage of nearby cover. Doing so does feel a little odd, and considering RoboCop’s size it’s akin to trying to hide an elephant behind a lamppost, but it’s the only way to get through certain parts of the game.
Overall, gunplay is sluggish but satisfying. It’s sluggish because it has to be – it would feel wrong if RoboCop was running from cover to cover. But it still takes some getting used to, because my instinct was to play it like every other shooter. I like the fact it challenges me to play differently, to use RoboCop’s skills and upgrades to tackle a gunfight rather than the environment around me. I just hope it feels as interesting to play from beginning to end.
Part of that depends on whether RoboCop: Rogue City delivers on its promise of including deeper crime scene investigation and decision making that impacts the story, two things we’ve seen little of so far. Even though Robocop isn’t really known for using his brains to solve cases, preferring brute force instead, I would love to see something like Batman’s detective mode from the Arkham games adding depth to the gameplay. Similarly, the idea of Robocop struggling with both sides of his being, to uphold his directives against the will of his empathic human emotions, is something that could make Robocop really stand out if it’s done correctly. Here’s hoping that’s the case when it releases in the next few weeks.
Alex is IGN’s Features Director and Head of UK Studio, and has an unhealthy obsession with LEGO. He used to have a Twitter account before it was shut down.
