REVIEW: ‘Rogue Company’ Has Flavor But Needs More Spice (PS4)

The world needs saving Rogues! And only the best of the best can answer the call. Suit up in this third-person shooter and become an agent of Rogue Company. Gear up and go to war in a variety of game modes in this free-to-play multiplayer developed by First Watch Games and published by Hi-Rez Studios.

Rogue Company features three 4v4 game modes and a range of playable characters known as Rogues. Each game mode is objective based and each has a variety of maps to play on. Each match begins with the Rogues confined to an aircraft. Before skydiving out to officially begin the match, players will be able to buy guns, melee weapons, passive abilities, and grenades while also paying to upgrade guns. Each game mode has multiple rounds and after each round, players return to the airship and are able to buy more items with the money they earned from the match. You’ll rarely scrounge up enough money to buy everything so choose wisely.

If you’ve played Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, this system will be pretty familiar. The difference however is that each character has different setups available to them. So not every character has the ability to buy a shotgun or incendiary grenades. This division makes for interesting and diverse gameplay but you also know just what to expect when you encounter your enemies.

Beyond the buyable setups, each character has their own passive and active abilities, from Dima’s cluster bomb to Dallas’ UAV. The free characters are a good mixture of offense, defense, and support. However, the more interesting characters are locked behind a price tag. Thankfully, if you’re not into throwing your money at free games, you can also unlock characters with a reputation which is gained from completing matches or contracts. But you’ll need a lot of reputation so things can get a little grindy.

Beyond just their abilities, the characters are an interesting bunch. They’re certainly no Apex Legends or Overwatch characters, but I still found myself intrigued by their personalities and appearances. They’re all aesthetically different, a wide range of races and voice actors. You’ll get snippets of dialogue from your character after kills, buying guns, using abilities, etc. They’re funny, intriguing, and I’m hoping we learn more about their backgrounds in future updates.

Currently, on console, there are only three game modes: Demolition, Extraction, and Strikeout. Demolition is pretty standard. One team is tasked with planting a bomb at one of two sites within a time limit. Extraction requires one team to hack an objective or kill all players on the other team. Strikeout is a variation of Extraction in which each team has a limited number of lives and there is an objective to hack. When one team has the objective, and after a certain amount of time has passed, the other team will lose a life and will continue to do so until they take the objective. The fact that this is a third-person shooter by far allows these game modes to be further exploited as players can look around corners fairly easily. This ability is quite different than other multiplayer shooters on the market and definitely lends to some of the fun.

Although these are pretty typical variants of game modes found in other games, they’re still fun. The maps for each game mode are diverse, allowing different characters to shine and a variety of playstyles to adapt and concur. From cargo ships to an outdoor concert to a village in Italy, I have yet to meet a map I didn’t like.

The one downside to these game modes is in Demolition. If you’re used to the Demolition of Call of Duty that’s at most three rounds, you’ll find a surprise with Rogue Company’s Demolition minimum of seven rounds. The upside is that after six rounds, the teams switch and everyone restarts. Players lose all their gear and bought abilities. If one team is leading, this restart levels the playing field again so that the other team has a bit of a chance to reverse their luck.

Mechanistically, the game works wonderfully. However, there are a few snags in the department of lobbies. After finishing a game, players aren’t kept in the same lobby. Instead, you’re sent back to the main screen and are required to search for your game again. I suppose there are some upsides to this but it became a little irritating. There is also no penalty for leaving games. There were many a time my friends and I were stuck in a 4v1 which, suffice it to say, is not a fun game.

The mixture of game modes available in Rogue Company provides entertainment up to a point. You’ll definitely get lost in this game for hours at a time, trying out all the characters, game modes, and different maps. But as it is currently, players will eventually come to a point where they’ve tried everything out and it just becomes a grind to unlock new characters.

Despite some of the negativity, Rouge Company has had a great start. It’s fun and I can definitely spend back-to-back hours on the game. But eventually, it does get stale, and it will undeniably need something extra to spice things up to keep people playing. Whether that be adding new maps, new characters, or new game modes, the devs will definitely need to keep up the momentum to satisfy gamers.

Rogue Company is available now on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.