Rockay City – A look at the 90s crime thriller in 2024

Developer Ingame Studios has been pushing out numerous updates since players started unlocking Crime Boss: Rockay City's achievements on Xbox Series X|S last June, and having missed the initial launch, this is my first time playing the Xbox first-person shooter. Is a cast full of familiar faces from my childhood enough for me to recommend it? Have all the updates been enough to improve it after it launched to decidedly mixed reviews? Here are my Crime Boss: Impressions from Rockay City.

Crime Boss: Rockay City is a good starting point for players new to the heist genre

Before its release last year, I was intrigued by Crime Boss: Rockay City, mainly because it featured so many familiar faces and looked like silly fun. I ended up not getting around to playing it, and when the reviews started pouring in with less than appealing ratings, it fell to the bottom of my list. However, after more than a year of updates, I've now blasted my way through Rockay City and find it to be a good entry point for players who want to try out the heisting genre without committing to a multiplayer game like Payday.

While it was designed as a Payday competitor with its multiplayer modes, I find Crime Boss to be playable solo as well due to its somewhat passable AI. The AI ​​isn't perfect (when is it), but it helps enough to let you enjoy the single-player roguelike mode on normal difficulty, as well as the co-op missions and Urban Legends on your own. Whatever you play, you'll gain experience for your player level and unlock weapons, gear, teammates, and cosmetics in the campaign and multiplayer modes, which is a particular highlight. There's a decent selection of weapons, as well as a bonus system for creating your own builds, but the lack of weapon customization is disappointing. Right now, the basic progression system doesn't give me much desire to play through the missions.

Missions play out similarly to Payday, with bank robberies, jewelry store robberies, armored car heists, and more, as well as larger missions that require you to open underground vaults or fend off waves of police robots while robbing a train. If you've played heist games before, you'll recognize familiar mechanics like taking down camera systems, controlling civilians, drilling into vaults, and so on, though Crime Boss doesn't offer deeper mechanics like answering guards' radio calls or exchanging hostages. NPC teammates seem to get the job done, and heists generally feel a little easier here, which is why I'd recommend it to players looking to get a taste of the genre. While there's plenty to unlock along the way, and more content planned in-game for the coming months, the multiplayer side of the game didn't interest me as much as the solo campaign.

The main campaign takes all of the multiplayer missions and wraps them up in a roguelike experience with storylines featuring multiple celebrities, for better or worse. While Ingame has struggled to improve Crime Boss's gameplay over the past year, there's nothing you can do about the lackluster cutscenes and poorly voiced dialogue. For those of us old enough to have seen Michael Madsen, Kim Basinger, Danny Trejo, Danny Glover, and Chuck Norris regularly in action movies in the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s, it's an entertaining cast that sets the scene for Rockay City. Their recognizable faces, however, don't lessen the pain you feel from their half-baked voiceovers – Damien Poitier (who also voices Chains in Payday) as Nasara is a saving grace, though. It gets very tiring when you hear Madsen call someone a “shithead” for the tenth time during a mission – I didn't even know what that meant until I looked it up in the Uban Dictionary, which offers the following analogy: “He's a real shithead; he's so mean he's like the heel of a shoe dragging in dog poo.” There are plenty of moments that did provide a good chuckle, though, like Michael Rooker's barrage of nonsense as he fights for his territory, so it's not all bad.

That being said, I found the single-player Baker's Dream mode to be very entertaining. It plays like a rogue-like Risk game and puts you in control of Baker's growing crime empire after the city's former top boss dies peacefully during a large explosion. Each playthrough begins with each district of the city divided between five gangsters: Baker (Michael Madsen), Dollar Dragon (Trejo), Hielo (Vanilla Ice), Khan, and Cagnali. Your job is to destroy them all and claim your crown as King of Rockay City.

The goal is to take out your competitors and control every district in Rockay City before Sheriff Norris' investigation is complete and he brings down the hammer. Norris' investigation progresses each game day, and once he takes action against you, your run ends – that is, if Baker hasn't died during a mission beforehand, which also ends your run. Each day, you can use your army to attack and defend your turf (led by the rather entertaining Michael Rooker), take on various one-off and multi-story missions to earn the money needed to expand your empire, assassinate the captains of rival gangs, and play through randomized story content with the various teammates you unlock along the way. This mode also has a boss level that is separate from your general player level and unlocks upgrades for the campaign, similar to other roguelikes.

I've been enjoying the single player mode quite a bit lately, which is what makes Crime Boss: Rockay City stand out from other games in the genre. The mix of heists, assassinations, attrition-style turf wars and the like was entertaining, and I'm sure it will get even better in the coming months as more missions are added. With a decent amount of fun and a price tag of $19.99 / £15.99 / €19.99, it's probably safe to say you're getting your money's worth here.

I would really like to see a more fleshed out customization system in the future, as it's currently a bit too basic for my tastes. While you can't currently change anything about the cutscenes, the repetitive dialogue during the mission could use a bit more work – shouting “there's a camera here” when you're standing in the middle of a bench is not suspicious at allso maybe it would be best to tone it down a bit. However, Ingame Studios' commitment is clear as day, so I look forward to seeing how the team continues to improve the gunplay and overall Crime Boss experience in the coming months.

Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised and glad I finally gave this shooter a chance and it has exceeded my expectations. With a few more updates, Ingame Studios could have a real gem on their hands, although deeper customization options with a progression system would be needed if Crime Boss Payday wants to compete as a multiplayer co-op shooter. As a single-player shooter, however, it is fully recommended, as the campaign offers the same missions as the multiplayer mode, among other activities, and provides a fun and casual heist experience as you balance the expansion of your empire with an ever-increasing police presence.