Hi-Rez Studios’ latest multiplayer adventure, Rogue Company, is currently in beta. This 4v4 third-person competitive shooter focuses on character based mechanics and uses a few familiar aspects from other popular competitive shooters. Rogue Company has a little bit of everything when it comes to competitive shooters. But in this review we dive into why it ultimately misses something.
Essentially, Rogue Company is fun, it really is. But for me, it’s lacking in some critical areas. The shooting feels good, but too good. Too simple. Additionally, there doesn’t seem to be any significant variance in the loadout customization. And to make matters worse, the third person view causes some really campy moments in the game.
Rogue Company review summary
Rogue Company is a fun game if you play casually. For me it was hard to get into any other mindset than just playing casually. Without some significant change in the amount of weaponry, unfortunately I don’t see Rogue Company sticking around for very long. It loses any replay factor. But this would require changing the entire buying screen, so it doesn’t seem likely to change.
A big thing that Rogue Company may have going for it is the opportunity for a vast cosmetic store. But until we see that increased substantially, again there won’t be any reason to keep playing past just wanting to play a quick shooter round. And if that is the case, there are other, more popular and well rounded shooters to choose from.
From a buying screen at the beginning of every round similar to games like Counter-Strike and Valorant, to character skins and dance emotes like Fortnite. Rogue Company seems to have taken the best parts of some of your favorite games and molded them into one easy to play shooter. So if you’re thinking, “Wow this reminds me of Overwatch…and Valorant…and Fortnite..”, you’re not alone.
Rogue Company’s character abilities
Right from the beginning of Rogue Company, you’ll see that one of the main focuses of the game is character abilities. Each character has specially designed abilities to offer a specific addition to the team. And it’s not limited to just one aspect of a players loadout. Each character has specific weapons in their potential loadout. So if you want to be a sniper, you have to pick a specific character. Want to be a support character? There’s a character for you.
Rogue Company seems to cater to multiple play styles with their character list. There’s plenty to choose from even with the most basic version of the game. As of right now, the only way to unlock more Rogue’s is to buy an upgraded version of the game. Since the game is still in Beta mode we’re not sure if this will always be their method but for now it looks like a big part of the business model for Rogue Company.
What I really enjoyed about Rogue Company’s characters and the mix of abilities is that just like other games with that type of mechanic, it allows for really dynamic gameplay. You and your team can create a specific strategy based on your choice of characters.
One teammate can be a medic while another is sniping. Shoot Dima’s grenade launcher in the perfect spot by taking advantage of Dallas’s radar scan. There’s ton’s of possibilities so every game is slightly different.
Game modes
In Rogue Company there are three game modes, Demolition, Strikeout, and Extraction. Extraction is currently unavailable for the beta. Our personal favorite is Strikeout, which is the most casual game mode. Here’s what each game mode consists of, and what I thought about them.
Demolition
Demolition is the most competitive of the game modes. The attacking team fights to plant a bomb at one of two bomb sites while the defending team does their best to stop that from happening.
It’s your classic search and destroy style game mode with players only having one life per round. Either team can also win by eliminating the enemy team. Each team gets six rounds to try and plant the bomb.
I didn’t really care for this game mode because, for me, the third person mode makes it extremely campy. I can’t tell you how many times I got smoked by someone sitting around a corner just playing defense but I had no chance of knowing what lurked around the corner because the player was just third person peeking me. It really made this game mode unremarkable for me.
Strikeout
Strikeout is the more casual of the game modes. Similar to team deathmatch, Strikeout is the deathmatch style game mode. But its more than just a kill count that will get you the win.
Each team is given twelve respawn tickets, so every time a player on your team respawns, that ticket count goes down by one. When those tickets reach zero and your team is eliminated, you lose that round. The first team to three rounds won wins. You can also control a rotating control point that lowers the enemy respawn tickets.
But that’s not the only thing about Strikeout. There’s also a buying menu, similar to Counter Strike and Valorant. Each player starts with $12,000 where you can purchase weapons, throwables, and perks at the beginning of each round to help you out in the fight.
This was my favorite mode of the two playable ones in the beta. It’s definitely a casual mode but it felt really good. It’s a classic team deathmatch style game mode and that mixed with the different character abilities floating around it really makes for some exciting shooter gameplay.
Extraction
Extraction is currently unavailable for the Rogue Company beta so we haven’t had a chance to play it yet but as far as we know Extraction is similar to the King of the Hill format. Teams of four duel over rotating control points.
We’re assuming that to win a round of Extraction, your team has to be the first team to a certain score. We hope to be able to play Extraction soon so we can offer some more insight
Rogue Company is cross platform
Even in early access, Rogue Company supports full crossplay for all platforms. Rogue company is available for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
And not only does it support crossplay but also cross-progression. Meaning that you can level up your character across multiple platforms. I think this is great, just like with other games that include crossplay, it removes that barrier and allows people to enjoy games together regardless of platform. So it’s a big positive in my book.
Fortnite feel
Right off the bat you’ll notice the Fortnite vibe that Rogue Company has going on. All the characters have a specific ‘look’ to them. And while there isn’t any giant banana’s running around (yet), I can definitely see the opportunity for HiRez later in development to add some wild skins.
For example, the Rogue ‘Glitch’ has an LED face mask that changes and lights up, another Rogue ‘Dima’ has a gold skull. It’s little stuff like that that really makes me think that later we could definitely see some exciting new skins for characters.
Conclusion
Overall I think Rogue Company is a decent game. It’s a little basic for the price though. With so many games going free-to-play, it seems to be lacking in variety. There’s only two game modes and that’s it. You can’t really customize your character and there’s very limited options for your preferences in loadouts.
With that said, its a fun casual shooter game that breaks the monotony of battle royale’s and other mainstream games. If you’re into shooters its definitely worth a try. But I don’t see much replay value in it without the developers at HiRez adding some more variety into the game.