RoboCop: Unfinished Business Review

Building on the fantastically thematic RoboCop: Rogue City, Teyon and Nacon’s RoboCop: Unfinished Business is a standalone, definitely not DLC, not expansion…that admittedly feels like a DLC expansion.

RoboCop: Unfinished Business Review

On that note, RoboCop: Unfinished Business takes everything from RoboCop: Rogue City, the good and the bad, and thrusts it into an entirely new story in a new setting with new characters.

It’s a welcome change from the well-trodden source material fans are familiar with, and at less than half the price of modern AAA games, it’s another easy excuse to dive into the world of RoboCop.

The sprawling OCD complex is a mix of incredibly interesting and incredibly dull sections

Almost the entire game, bar a few flashback scenes, takes place in OCP’s latest project to “aid the people of Detroit:” The OmniTower.

A towering self-contained complex very similar to the Mega Blocks of the Judge Dredd universe.

Criminal gangs and mercenaries little the upper floors, while the citizens of Detroit struggle to stay alive in the slum-like conditions of the lower levels. It’s a fascinating setting from a narrative standpoint, but it does struggle to impress in the early hours.

It’s a mixed bag of mundane hallways, each looking more similar to the last, and fantastically crafted set-piece locations that lean into the explosive and rewarding nature of the game’s combat system.

By definition of the structure itself, the entire game feels like running a gauntlet. Room of bad guys, corridor, room of bad guys.

A repetitive mission structure that would struggle in almost any other game, not many other games have the Auto-9.

The Auto-9 was Rogue City’s best feature and it returns with a bang

Although RoboCop: Unfinished Business boasts an impressive arsenal of weapons – everything from a minigun to an experimental cryo cannon – it often feels like a downgrade compared to RoboCop’s trusted side arm, the aforementioned Auto-9.

A rewarding customization system was a standout feature of RoboCop: Rogue City, and it returns in RoboCop: Unfinished Business with more complex and satisfying customization than ever.

While exploring the OmniTower, RoboCop can find new chips and boards to unlock the potential of the Auto-9. What begins as a sluggish, low-impact solution to Detroit’s crime spree eventually becomes one of the most devastating weapons the genre has ever seen.

Carefully combining and discovering new chips to unlock new abilities, carefully navigating the upgrade tree to avoid harsher penalties. It’s a system that can transform the game in a heartbeat.

Detective sequences return, but suffer from the same lack of depth and variety as Rogue City

When RoboCop isn’t separating mercenaries from their limbs, he does dabble in his lesser-known side hustle: actual police work. The detective sequences from RoboCop: Rogue City return, albeit with a familiar lack of depth and conviction.

Investigating the scene of a crime or inspecting a body for clues on the cause of death is reduced to little more than a find-the-object game, if the object is a glowing green question mark. It’s frustration-free, you won’t be spending 10 minutes stuck in a tiny space looking for that last stupid clue to progress, but it does feel like a missed opportunity.

Flashback scenes offer a welcome respite from the gauntlet style content, focusing on narrative over action

Offering a brief respite from the combat-filled gauntlet-style progress of the main missions are a couple of flashback missions that provide players with more insight into the events that led up to the Unfinished Business story.

These are short missions, but well-delivered, with a slightly different take on combat and exploration without RoboCop’s suite of impressive tools. I would have loved to see more of Alex Murphy on his regular beat, as regular as it can be in this Detroit, but it’s a great way of embracing iconic characters in a new and intriguing setting.

RoboCop: Unfinished Business is another action-filled romp through a beloved universe, although one that struggles to truly set itself apart from its predecessor.

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