If 2023’s pretty good RoboCop first-person shooter RoboCop: Rogue City left you wanting more, developer Teyon’s follow-up — part expansion, part sequel — offers exactly that… and little more. While it’s still great fun to step into the exoskeleton of Detroit’s cyborg policeman and squish bad guys’ heads with Robo’s Auto-9 handcannon, Unfinished Business does too little to differentiate itself from the previous game.
RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business is set shortly after the events of Rogue City, and sends RoboCop to OmniTower, a massive housing unit that, like much of Old Detroit, is rife with crime, contraband, and misery. In the wake of a massacre at RoboCop’s police station, he’s dispatched to track down the mercenaries responsible and prevent a massive hack of Omni Consumer Products’ military wares. Otherwise, a fleet of ED-209s and other weapons of war could fall into the hands of an evil organization (as opposed to the benevolent executives at OCP).
OmniTower is massive, populated with unlucky residents to save or come to the aid of, and a huge number of guns for hire and autonomous killer drones to slay. It’s even home to katana-wielding cyborg ninjas, an acknowledgement of RoboCop 3’s goofy toughs that adds some variety to Rogue City’s enemy variety. There are also swarms of (irritating) flying drones to face and shielded, heavily armored mercs, which force you to switch up your strategy — basically by blowing off their legs, instead of delivering powerful head or crotch shots.
RoboCop’s arsenal expands in Unfinished Business, but only slightly. New to the stand-alone expansion is the Cryo Cannon, a massive gun that instantly freezes enemies, making armored foes much easier to dispose of. Gameplay also switches up in missions that give you control of Alex Murphy, before he was RoboCop, and the ED-209, in sections that let you indiscriminately unleash hellfire on mercs with murderous glee.
Beyond that, much of the gameplay in Unfinished Business feels identical to RoboCop: Rogue City. RoboCop’s abilities to slow down time, grab and throw his foes, and momentarily blind them are all present here, as is his plodding movement speed and high level of destructibility. The previous game’s upgrade system and customizable motherboards return, seemingly unchanged.
And, yes, actor Peter Weller is back again to voice RoboCop, delivering appropriately stilted dialogue.
The mundanity of interacting with the public is back too. You’ll encounter a long list of fetch quests from OmniTower’s residents; a shockingly large portion of the game’s early hours involve acquiring four-digit security codes from NPCs or traversing the map, studying the game’s environment for clues. Some NPC interactions are quite funny, including a RoboCop know-it-all fanboy who turns the game briefly into a trivia quiz.
But I have a big complaint about RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business: It takes too long to get to the good stuff, and to give players access to the new gameplay elements that help the sequel stand out. There are some intriguing new story beats on Unfinished Business in the mid- to late-game, and less reliance on making references to the first two movies, but the expansion is frontloaded with familiar, repetitive tasks and redundant encounters.
Teyon and publisher Nacon say that RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business doesn’t require playing the original Rogue City. That’s true, and if you haven’t played the 2023 game, and want to experience the power fantasy of playing as RoboCop, Unfinished Business offers a tighter, 10-hour-long dose of that experience. But if Rogue City left you hoping for an evolution of Teyon’s take on playing as RoboCop, Unfinished Business doesn’t provide. It’s still saddled with much of the same rote action, similar technical issues, and clean opportunities to improve for the next RoboCop game.
RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business still shines in moments. Upgrading Robo’s Auto-9 to new levels of destruction, perfectly executing a slow-mo takedown on a half-dozen scumbag meat puppets, and then petting a stray cat can feel great. It’s the in-between parts and the cohesive whole that still need an upgrade.
RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business is available on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on PS5 using a pre-release download code provided by Nacon.
