Can Crime Boss: Rockay City Deliver the Goods?

2023 has started off on a strong note with the likes of Hogwarts Legacy and Dead Space Remake being the great hits they are. As we move along, a whole new set of video games await us just over the horizon – and we are hopeful that this year will be full of exciting releases and surprise hits. Talking about surprise, Crime Boss: Rockay City caught many of us off guard with its reveal trailer at The Game Awards last year, and is set to release later this month on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Ingame Studios’ upcoming heist game takes inspiration from plenty of different places, and the end result is nothing short of intriguing. With its release date quickly approaching, we thought that it’s the perfect time to analyze the hype around the game and detail why it could end up being one of the dark horses of the year.

Crime Boss: Rockay City is set against the backdrop of a fictional Rockay City, which is a thriving hub for all sorts of unlawful activities and organized crime. While many gangs in the city continue to fight for control over territory and major businesses, a single Crime Boss serves as an overlord who has some authority over all the gangs in the city. But now that Boss is dead which leaves the throne empty with no rightful heir. As such, there’s a fierce fight raging between the many gangs of Rockay City, and the one who comes up at the top will obviously become the newfound Boss.

You assume the role of an upcoming gangster in the city by the name of Baker who is played by Michael Madson, and naturally, you will be taking a part in this ongoing conflict to make a name for yourself. The many characters in this power struggle will be played by a similarly star studded cast of Hollywood actors such as the likes of Chuck Norris, Vanilla Ice, and Danny Trejo – which is definitely one of the biggest drawing factors in the case of Crime Boss: Rockay City.

The story looks to be pretty simplistic from what we know about, which is a good thing since most of the focus seems to be on the bombastic gameplay rather than the cutscenes that punctuate those high octane heists. Critics who got to preview the game have put forth criticisms on the voice acting, but we feel that caricature plot and characters could definitely add more levity to the narrative which should serve well for the game’s purposes of providing light hearted humor.

Coming over to the gameplay front, Crime Boss: Rockay City takes a lot of cues from games like Payday and adds some of its own elements into the mix for what’s looking to be an enthralling gameplay experience. There are three game modes in Crime Boss: Rockay City, and each of them brings a new kind of experience within the same world.

The first is the Baker’s Battle, which is your single player campaign that follows Baker’s rise from rags to riches as you fight off rival gangs and the police force led by Sheriff Norris to assume the role of Rockay City’s crime boss. You will need to select different crew members and send them on heists or missions to capture territory to further your influence over the city. Each of the crew members will have different strengths and weaknesses, and choosing who to send on each mission forms the organized crime simulation aspect of the campaign. While the right crew members are enough to complete any job, you can also send Baker alongside them to earn higher payouts.

What makes it interesting is that Baker’s Battle is a roguelite campaign, which means that permadeath will be an important mechanic – so you will have to be really careful while conducting heists since one wrong move could easily kill your best crew members (or even Baker himself). Further elevating that tension will be the resistance from the Rockay City police department, which will dynamically alter based on the amount of chaos and unnecessary violence Baker causes with each heist. Of course, you can relieve some of the tension on repeat runs by equipping stat-altering perks earned from permanent progression – but seeing the campaign through to the end isn’t going to be cakewalk in any way.

Crime Boss: Rockay City presents itself as a co-op shooter, and its remaining two modes, the Crime Time and Urban Legends modes shift the focus on that particular aspect of the experience. The former of these modes see players diving headfirst into a multitude of heists spread across different locations along with their friends, and trying to pull off the job in any way they see fit. Slip-ups will undoubtedly happen while going about missions which will eventually lead to chaos, and dealing with that looks to be a major part of what makes Crime Boss such a fun time. On the other hand, the Urban Legends game mode will feature a series of missions punctuated by cutscenes that should serve as mini-campaigns in addition to Baker’s Battle.

One of the better things that Ingame Studios has done with Crime Boss is that progression will be shared among different modes. So, the cash you earn by playing Crime Time with your friends can be spent in Baker’s Battle to acquire better gear – which should help in making Crime Boss: Rockay City a duly rewarding experience regardless of the content you choose to engage with. It seems that Ingram Games seems to have done a great job of making a content rich experience that should keep players engaged for hours upon hours on end. We just hope it can deliver on its lofty promises. While there is currently no information available on post launch support for the game, it’s practically a given if the game manages to reach its targeted sales figures.

And that brings us over to the business side of things. Crime Boss: Rockay City finds itself as one of the promising candidates at a time when fans have been starving for a good co-op shooter for a long time, and more so for a chaotic heist game like Crime Boss: Rockay City. Competing products such as the likes of the Payday 3 are still some ways away from release, which further strengthens the case for the game.

Furthermore, Ingame Studios has done a pretty commendable job of marketing the game to cater to a wide audience. Firstly, as mentioned previously, the game features a star studded cast of household names in Hollywood which allows it to reach a big target audience in the first place. And secondly, the short turnaround period between reveal and release also helps keep excitement surrounding the game at a constant high throughout the development cycle.

As such, there are plenty of factors that are currently in favor of Crime Boss: Rockay City. But the developer can’t just win on the basis of public goodwill alone at this point. It needs to deliver the goods. It will have to deliver on its promise of a bombastic heist game to win the trust of gamers – and assuming it does that, we can’t think why it wouldn’t end up dominating sales charts in the coming months.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.