RoboCop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business review - 20 seconds to comply

Metro

3 days ago

2023's surprisingly good homage to 80s classic RoboCop sees Officer Murphy uphold the law in a new standalone expansion with improved graphics.
It's tempting to say that RoboCop is not the kind of film that would be made today, and in terms of the action and gore they certainly don't make 'em like they used to. As the gutless 2014 remake proved, the social satire is also not something you'd expect to find in a modern mainstream film, but we would say that a TV show like The Boys is a reasonable modern equivalent.
The original RoboCop movie still holds up as an 80s classic, and sadly its portrayal of corporate callousness is more relevant than ever, but it's difficult to see what future the franchise could have in terms of live action, even though Amazon is apparently planning a new movie and a TV show. Indiana Jones has that same problem, especially as both protagonists are so tightly tied to their original actor (and, yes, Peter Weller is back for this game).
2023's RoboCop: Rogue City wasn't quite as refined as Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, and certainly didn't have anything like the budget, but it was a surprisingly ambitious and self-assured game, that not only did justice to the RoboCop franchise but had something to teach narrative action games in general; including how to make a standalone expansion.
Although this is technically a direct sequel to Rogue City there's really no story connection, so you don't have to have played it in order to understand what's going on. It's set some time after the events of RoboCop 2, with this game having a few more direct references to RoboCop 3 than the last one. However, the actual plot set-up, and even some of the set pieces, are clearly inspired by Alex Garland's 2012 film Dredd, perhaps in reference to the fact that Judge Dredd was a major influence on the original RoboCop.
The story starts with Robo investigating an attack on his police station, where many of the cops have been killed. This leads him to a massive, rundown tower block, that's owned by OCP (the evil corporation that made RoboCop) and looks like something straight out of Mega-City One. The tower is filled with heavily armed mercenaries, led by a big bad who knew Alex Murphy before he started eating baby food.
Somewhat surprisingly, you start the game with all of the major abilities from the first game already unlocked, including time-limited shields, an electric shock attack, and the wonderful ability to bounce bullets off of angled surfaces, in order to hit bad guys from behind.
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The first person shooting is very simple, and in truth very repetitive, but there's such a primal joy to it that you can never get enough, especially the wonderfully satisfying headshots. The game starts off moderately difficult but as you unlock the skill tree, and find new circuit boards for your signature Auto-9 handgun, it becomes trivially easy in the final hours.
On paper this should count hugely against it, but we had the Auto-9 so ridiculously overpowered we were using it like an infinite ammo machinegun, ripping through even the most heavily armoured goons almost instantly and grinning from ear to ear as we did it. Although the freeze gun that both they and you can use is also excellent and works just like Mr Freeze's from Batman.
While this is primarily a first person shooter, with nothing that could be counted as a proper puzzle, in hindsight Rogue City is relatively similar to The Great Circle and other MachineGames titles, as you often come across areas where there's no combat and you can just chat to civilians and pick up side quests.
The more enclosed nature of Unfinished Business' setting means that it's all very simple stuff but there's a few amusingly silly requests from the various civilians and Robo once again gets to pet a lot of cats. If he's investigating a crime then you also get the choice to either let the perp off with a warning or write them a ticket, although there's less payoff for this at the end of the game, compared to Rogue City.
A low budget video game was never going to have a script to match the original movie and often the dialogue is very workmanlike, and in terms of the dialogue choices at least, badly translated (developer Teyon is Polish). But there are still a lot of good lines in there, like when Robo is asked why he insists on walking blindly into trouble, to which he answers, 'I have night vision.'
We also liked the visual gag about turning machinery on and off again, but in general it's fair to say that while Teyon clearly get the satire and absurdity of RoboCop their attempts to replicate it are only occasionally successful. The game dabbles with the question of how far police action, and by association vigilante justice, should go but only in a very superficial way. You can see what they were going for with the main villain, but it doesn't really work.
Also, we already complained that OCP weren't in Rogue City enough, since they had all the best lines, but in this game none of the execs are featured at all, which is a shame.
The basic gameplay of Unfinished Business is functionally almost identical to Rogue City (environmental kills are the only new combat element) but there are a number of other new features. Unfinished Business has multiple flashbacks where you play as other characters, including Alex Murphy and a disturbing one where you're cast as a woman being chased through the night by thugs.
Overall, though, these segues go on too long and in gameplay terms are easily the least interesting part of the game; that and a murder mystery that involves nothing more than Robo walking where he is told and scanning the crime scene like the world's simplest hidden object puzzle.
What makes up for this is a chance to play as ED-209, the exec-slaying robot, in a wonderful sequence that shows off the game's surprisingly good destruction effects. You can't destroy anything particularly big but by the end of the shootout there's giant holes in the concrete and yet another model of Old Detroit has been thoroughly ruined.
As a whole, the graphics are significantly better than Rogue City, which is presumably one of the main reasons this became a standalone game rather than just DLC. The environments were already good before but now they're triple-A standard, not just on a technical level but thanks to some fantastic work from Teyon's environmental artists. Also, the game's noticeably gorier than before, which we appreciate, even if it's still lightweight compared to the movies.
The animation and human characters are also much improved, which means they've gone from being absolutely terrible to just plain bad – like a souped-up PlayStation 2 game. The AI also smacks of something from that era but apart from some missing lip synching there are very few graphical bugs. More Trending
By comparison, the sound has a ton of problems, with voices often sounding slurred or being cut off and music (which is generally very good) not kicking in when it seems it should. However, the worst problem is that the ability to pick up extra weapons often doesn't work. We almost weren't able to complete the game because of that, during a mission where you don't have your Auto-9, which would've been a nightmare because it was right at the end.
We're sure that sort of thing will be sorted out with a future update, as overall this is another highly ambitious AA game, doing its absolute best to make all your RoboCop fantasies come true. No one would expect much progress from just a standalone expansion but the improvements in the graphics and the attempts to expand the scope of the gameplay are very much appreciated.
As with Rogue City, our score flatters the game, and you should definitely take off at least one point if you're not a RoboCop fan, but considering the improvements that have been made in just two years, for a 10 hour long expansion, we can't wait to see what Teyon does next, with even more time and money at their disposal.
In Short: Another loving homage to the glory of RoboCop and despite only being a standalone expansion this features quite a few new ideas, as well as some hugely satisfying combat.
Pros: Very enjoyable gunplay and RoboCop and his abilities are portrayed perfectly. The storytelling is once again unusually ambitious for a first person shooter. The improved graphics look great and playing as ED-209 is tons of fun.
Cons: As enjoyable as it is, there's no denying the gameplay is very simple and repetitive. The script tries its best but can't match the high standard of the first movie. Flashbacks aren't terribly interesting and some nasty bugs at launch.
Score: 7/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PCPrice: £24.99Publisher: NaconDeveloper: TeyonRelease Date: 17th July 2025
Age Rating: 18
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