17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Robocop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business review – a short but bloody ode to the 80s action icon
Unfinished Business excels in delivering a short hit of what made the base game great, with a few new mechanical trimmings.
Robocop returns in a standalone follow-up adventure that understands what made Rogue City so great without being afraid to push things forward slightly.
The great thing about making a standalone expansion to an already solid game is that most of the hard work has been done. It's especially great when that original game was welcomed so widely into the arms of its intended fan base, that the only real place to go when adding to this experience is up. Such is the case with Robocop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business, being a shorter, more tightly contained distillation of the core Robocop experience developer Teyon nailed so well the first time around complete with a few more bells and whistles in terms of story and mechanics.
Truth be told, Unfinished Business delivers more of the same tank-like shooter action from before, but it's hardly an issue when blasting through criminals as the 'part man, part machine, all cop' plays this perfectly. Just don't go in expecting an improved level of polish.
One of the major ways Unfinished Business aims to be different and set itself apart from the base game is via its location. Rather than set Robocop on a mission across the different areas of Detroit's rundown suburbs, you see, the expansion instead chooses to lock the majority of the blood-soaked action to a single building: The OmniTower. Intended to house inhabitants of the city who are most in need, events properly kick off when a mercenary group takes over all the giant complex's floors, which forces Robocop into the position of having to fight all the way to the top.
If this structural setup sounds like a premise for the next Judge Dredd or The Raid film, that's probably because there are plenty of similarities to be found. However, despite taking place in a single setting, Unfinished Business does well to take this very simple narrative to unexpected levels in the form of new enemies, new weapons, and (most impressively) new perspectives in which to view the world of Robocop.
At its heart, much like Robocop: Rogue City before it, Unfinished Business is a tale about Robocop himself wrestling with his own humanity when a familiar face from his past unexpectedly returns. The result is a nice little extra chapter that adds further texture to the first two films in the franchise.
From a pure gameplay perspective, Unfinished Business ends up being, well, business as usual. This is still a very different kind of first-person shooter that understands both the strengths and limitations of its titular protagonist, with overall movement being slower, crouching not an option, and actions being overall less agile.
A walking tank Robocop might be, but it's more than made up for by being able to withstand dozens of bullet hits from multiple enemies and pick up thugs like they're an oversized stuffed doll to throw them into the next environmental hazard.
Speaking of which, though Unfinished Business sees many of the same mechanics and systems return, there are areas where it's more iterative. One of the biggest examples are the new contextual kills, where if an enemy is stood next to a vending machine, garbage chute, or electrical panel, Robocop can creatively dispatch an enemy with just a single button push.
This, as well as the ability to ricochet shots off certain panels, are features that come in especially useful in the countless combat scenarios where the odds seem impossibly stacked against you. Both serve as fresh avenues that naturally demonstrate just how forceful Robocop can be when necessary.
You're coming with me
Also new are a handful of enemies, which this time around force you to be wary of the whole space (as opposed to merely what's in your direct line of sight). From flying drones that deal damage from above to ground-level bots that will roll along the floor quickly to catch you off guard, the nature of Unfinished Business to pit you against foes that aren't only human makes for a refreshing change of pace.
That said, although the more slowly paced investigative sections where you must scan a crime scene for clues return, this is an expansion that places a lot more emphasis on the action, encouraging a more defensive playstyle compared to the sheer wrecking ball Robocop was portrayed as in the original Rogue City. A lot of this is due to the nature of enemies to start gunning at you from all angles.
Unfinished Business smartly retains the incredibly bloody and gruesome kills that made the 1987 movie's mixture of action and satire so memorable. And while Robocop's trusty Auto-9 pistol (complete with flexible customisable chip upgrades) returns, one of my favourite new ways to deal out grim justice is the new Cryo Cannon weapon.
Designed in-universe as a method of slowing Robocop down, there comes a point two thirds in where you get to wield it yourself, charging up a freeze ray to completely decimating punks into shards of frost that can then be shattered when walked through. The fact that such an effect works flawlessly regardless of the environment you're fighting never fails to impress.
Although substantially shorter than 2023's Rogue City, this standalone expansion still finds the time to expand the Robocop mythos in some pretty interesting ways. One is in how you no longer experience the story just from Robocop's eyes, switching to various unique perspectives for certain missions.
I won't spoil all of them here, but fans of the franchise can rest easy knowing that finally getting to play as ED-209 is just as bombastically cathartic as it sounds, with mowing down bots and gangsters shaking up the pace nicely with you being almost indestructible. I'm less positive on the brief time you spend playing as Alex Murphy prior to his robofication. As although gunning down hoodlums without any suit abilities comes with its own quirks, these moments don't stick around long enough.
Another slight disappointment is the presentation, largely since Unfinished Business mimics a lot of Rogue City's general visual sloppiness. Despite looking gorgeous thanks to being developed in Unreal Engine 5, the game regular shows its budget-limited hand via poor character lip-synching and some pretty bland environments.
One glitch that regularly popped up during my playthrough was during the contextual kills, whereby my victim's body parts would disappear mid-animation, leaving Robocop throttling a disembodied head or torso. You could argue that such schlock only matches the original movie's campy nature, but for me that's a tough ask.
Though Robocop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business suffers from a lot of the same presentational issues as the base game, it excels in giving franchise fans more of the tank-like FPS action that worked the first time around (alongside a few bold mechanical twists). It also somehow finds a way to carve out a surprisingly personal story in a brief amount of time, forcing Robocop to question just how much man is left inside the machine.
It's a shame Unfinished Business doesn't improve upon the original Rogue City in terms of polish, then, but it's easy to forgive thanks to the same blood-soaked action being further enhanced by having new enemies to fight and new ways to do it.
