Regarding the Steam release, InGame Studios head of development Jarek Kolar stated, “We are so thankful to the growing community for sticking with Crime Boss as we work tirelessly to improve and build upon the game. Crime Boss: Rockay City coming to Steam is another huge leap forward for the game, and we welcome people to revisit Rockay with fresh eyes. We’re so excited for the future of Crime Boss.”

Cagnali’s Order puts a RoboCop spin on things with the police department joining up with an “evil mega-corporation’s robotic police squad.” There are four missions, new enemies, a new boss to battle and new playable characters. You can even wield a laser gun.

Crime Boss: Rockay City is also available for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, though it received mixed reactions when it launched last year (check out our review). Several updates and DLC have been released since then, adding more content and improving the overall experience. There’s more on the way, with the next update, Baker’s Angels, launching in July, followed by Legends in September, Nightmare in Q4 2024 and Winter Ops in Q1 2025.

The update brings quite a few major features to Crime Boss: Rockay City, including new scenarios and environments, like the Gas Station, Car Dealer, and Truck Convoy missions. These new locations will appear in the game’s campaign, as well as its Crime Time mode.

The progression system for individual characters has also seen some changes in the update, allowing progression to persist through campaign runs for characters. A character dying in their character mission will now no longer reset the plotline. Instead, it resumes in the next campaign run after the last successful character mission. Plotline resets will now only happen if a character dies in a regular mission rather than their character mission.

Crime Boss: Rockay City is also getting quite a bit of rebalancing, as well as improvements to its stealth gameplay. Players will be able to make use of stronger stealth takedowns, and enemies are now perceptive and reactive to the actions of players sneaking around. Balancing changes include changes to the campaign economy, and how silencers work.

Further details about the update, which now includes the ability to kick or mute players, or even examine their profiles in multiplayer, as well as a new way to play the game by shuffling the game’s mission chains around, can be checked out in the patch notes below.

UPDATE NOTES:

New scenarios and environments

• Those missions appear in both the campaign and Crime Time and provide variety in both gameplay and environments.

Earlier respect levels

• Gas Station.

Mid-to-late respect levels

• Car Dealer
• Truck Convoy

Improved stealth gameplay

• Stronger stealth takedown
• Balanced AI perception and reactions
• Rebalance of silencers

Shuffle mission chains mode in Crime Time

• This is a new way to play missions: Randomized mission chains which come in three challenging difficulty tiers, that give greater rewards and respect points when fully completed

“New Blood” Urban Legend difficulty balance

• Adjusted difficulty for first Urban Legend chain

Character missions’ persistency

• The player’s progression through individual character missions is remembered through campaign runs, and a unique character dying in their character mission does not cause the plotline to reset – in the next campaign run, it resumes after the last successful character mission instead (or gives the maxed-out character if it was completed)
• The plotline only resets when the unique character dies through regular means, and not in their character mission

Added option to kick/mute/examine profiles in missions in Multiplayer

• This is dependent on the platform. Kicking is only available to hosts

Turf war Defence can be played without soldiers

• Touchdown can go alone to the Defence mission

Balance changes to campaign economy

Alongside the release of the Tactical Weapon Pack, Crime Boss: Rockay City has also gotten a major new update that brings with it improvements to the gameplay, new features, and quality of life updates. The update is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

A big new feature in the game is the addition of the Respect stat for the title’s Crime Time game mode. The Respect stat goes up or down depending on the success of missions. Higher Respect levels unlock additional missions, as well as weapon rewards and character ranks. Players will have to find a balance between their Respect and HEAT levels, leading to a risk vs reward tradeoff.

Crime Boss: Rockay City is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Check out the full patch notes for the update below. For more details, read our review.

MAIN IMPROVEMENTS

• Respect stat in Crime Time
• Respect in Crime Time is increased with successful missions and lost with failures.
• Respect affects available missions, weapon & generic character rank, mission rewards, and HEAT (police intensity in missions).
• When reaching the Respect Level “Connected” (the second of six levels), big missions, such as Money Train, Import Export, The Hidden Vault, and Dragon Dogs can appear on the map as regular missions, instead of being available solely as contracts.
• In Crime Time, HEAT is based on respect. Higher RESPECT brings more heat, so while the game offers more opportunities, they are harder to complete. Lower respect goes with lower heat.
• Dropped weapons can be picked up in FPS missions
• Characters retain their original weapons after the mission is finished.
• Weapons picked from the ground have reduced damage.
• Improved aim assist for controllers
• Aiming sensitivity is slowed down when aiming near the target.
• Aim assist now slightly helps with tracking targets.
• Slight bullet magnetism is in effect.
• Adjusted Difficulty in Baker’s Battle
• The overall difficulty of the Baker’s Battle was reduced.
• Adjusted Loot Bags
• The number of loot bags in missions now scales with difficulty and the number of players.
• Leveling up teammates
• Characters in Crime Time now gain experience from being sent to missions and eventually become eligible for a promotion. The promotion gives them better stats and new perks.

FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• Important map landmarks spawn on pre-defined turfs. Based on a community proposal, we made sure special buildings are spawning on the same tile every time
• New environment added: Garage.
• Stealth kill: To give the player a choice between silencing and killing civilians and guards, the first stealth melee attack makes the civilian/guard/police go to the ground. Any subsequent attack will cause damage. Gangsters are killed outright as before.
• Baker can let go of generic characters from the team.
• Enemy waves in turf wars will spawn on a single edge instead of multiple edges. Before, the player could have been overwhelmed by incoming forces and unable to find a good cover position.
• Unique characters keep their rank (rookie, veteran, elite) persistently between campaign runs and reset upon death.
• Cutting off attacking rivals from territories under attack cancels the attack and the territory will no longer need to be defended.
• Detailed character info now describes the conditions for unlocking unique characters in Crime Time.
• Monetary rewards and spawn probabilities for individual money-making mission types now vary slightly with the player’s respect. This applies both to Baker’s Battle and Crime Time.
• Attack Territory missions sometimes had difficult starting positions, in which the player was immediately exposed to enemy fire. This is now adjusted, so that players start in a relatively covered area further away from enemies.
• Jewellery Heist and Bank Robbery missions should spawn more in the campaign now. It is partially dependent on respect as well.
• Added beeping sound to enemy grenades.
• Increased audio volume of security cameras when being detected.
• Increased audio volume of ignited explosive barrels before the explosion.
• Attack territory icons now have the same color as the enemy gang.
• Increased prices for rare, epic, and legendary weapons in Crime Time.
• We added new events to the campaign. Those events lower police HEAT in case they are completed successfully.
• The number of detectives spawned per campaign is lower now. Previously it was possible to encounter 10 detectives in the campaign. Now it should be around half that number per playthrough.
• The monetary value for loot categories in the stash is now more dynamic. It can change quite a lot from day to day and is dependent on item type.
• Gold and silver should be much scarcer in money-making missions before reaching the formidable respect level in the campaign.
• Day indicator added to Main Menu screen.
• Added a variant of Attack Gangsters – Beach.
• Added a Variant of Attack Gangsters – Port.
• Added a variant of Attack Gangsters – Canal.
• Added a variant of Robbery – Shipping Office.
• Added a random event spawning the mission type “Place Bomb”. When completed successfully, the player will neutralize an enemy turf.
• Enemy AI will find it harder to shoot you from greater distances.
• Bots will not try to revive a teammate that is near danger (like a grenade).
• Controller – the selection of missions on the map has been improved; the d-pad allows players to quickly select the closest mission in the given direction and the left stick activates the virtual cursor for precise selection.
• Controller – Slider for selling loot from stash is faster.
• Controller – Prioritize use over reload is now set to Yes as default which leads to a much smoother experience. It can be manually changed as before.
• Improved mission detail with new risk indicators.
• Improved weapon and character icon background for better rarity differentiation.
• The text size of the current bonus objective is increased in the HUD.
• Most of the UI elements are now controllable with the left stick alongside the d-pad.
• Mantling over obstacles should now be much smoother.
• You can now sprint and crouch with a body bag.
• Super Strapped boss bonus no longer deletes Travis Baker’s equipped weapon when selected.
• Selected equipment is saved and not changed after a mission,
• Pressing ‘Esc’ in the lobby now works properly as “Back” and doesn’t open the Pause menu anymore.

BUGFIXES & CHANGES

• AI avoidance of danger areas improved. AI should no longer run on a grenade when reviving a player. or dodging enemy fire. AI should not navigate to fire to assist the player or other AI.
• Negative values for cash should no longer appear.
• Bots use mounted guns correctly and should not get stuck anymore.
• Aim Assist was not working on clients.
• Robbery loot crates should no longer spawn away from the player’s reach.
• Incorrect rotation of AI/ player animations in Robbery is now correct.
• Bots are not stopping inactive with loot bags at the escape van.
• Remote explosives will now properly reduce the number of charges when shot.
• Ladders should now be more reliable.
• Interrupting reloads, magazine check, and weapon inspection when switching bots is now more reliable.
• Baker’s perks work even when Baker has no equipment.
• Shield-equipped enemies can now be pinged.
• Sensor grenade no longer pings dead bodies.
• Enemies should no longer trip over loot bags laying on the ground.
• Time limit bonus objectives now start correctly after the mission black screen, not before.
• Weapon inspection should be more reliable on a controller (Hold D-Pad right)
• Various FPV animations should not play over each other.
• Inverting controller should no longer also invert the bot selection menu, or lockpicking minigame.
• Improved PS5 controller haptics on PC. Previously haptics on the PS5 controller did not vibrate correctly.
• The application should no longer stay in process after force-quitting it.
• Equipment animation is no longer played when pressing the Equipment button while on a ladder as a client.
• The user no longer returns to the title screen after accepting an invite to the same lobby.
• Civilians killed by clients are counted correctly in detailed stats now.
• The upgraded buzzsaw and drill were not set to the correct value.
• The player counter no longer shows more slots after several missions are played in a row in 4 players.
• The player can no longer reconnect as the same character after dying in a mission.
• Van doors no longer appear closed for join-in-progress players.
• The game no longer enters an unresponsive state when accepting a session invite while fading out of the escape cutscene.
• The “Revive” option no longer remains on the player after giving up when “Dead”.
• The lobby now recovers from an internet outage. Before it could have entered a non-responsive state.
• A selected character should load much faster now.
• The player animation no longer stutters when observed in Spectate mode.
• You no longer retain your campaign character if you join a Crime Time mission from active gameplay in the campaign.
• Optimization of throwing bags. It should be smoother on all platforms.
• Fix: When a client joins a Dragon Dogs session in progress if the host’s character was in the initial lift, the player was then not able to see the host’s character in the game.
• The player no longer becomes “Not ready” before the loading screen.
• A client joining a session in progress for the second time will no longer get into the JIP menu again.
• Left stick binds are no longer triggered twice when a player is a host in a multiplayer session.
• Navmesh fixes.
• Performance optimization.

Alongside the console release date, the studio has also revealed its plans for future content for the game. While not too many details about the roadmap have been revealed we do know that three paid expansions are planned for Q3 2023, Q1 2024, and Q2 2024. The expansions are titled Dollar Dragon: Gold Cup, Sheriff Norris: 99 Problems, and Nasara’s Revenge respectively.

The roadmap also reveals that free updates are planned for every quarter from Q1 2023 all the way up to Q2 2024. Crime Boss: Rockay City will also be getting paid content drops, including weapon packs and cosmetics.

Crime Boss: Rockay City was originally released on PC back in March. For more details about the game, check out our review.

My experience playing Crime Boss: Rockay City has been something of a roller coaster. At first glance, I thought the game was going to be a level-based shooter with GTA vibes and a similar style of writing. That’s not what the game ultimately is though, and the truth is much stranger. Is Crime Boss: Rockay City worth your precious time and legally earned, not stolen money?

To begin, Crime Boss: Rockay City is not exactly a run-of-the-mill level-based shooter. It does have a number of maps that missions play out on, but a more appropriate descriptor would be “action roguelike”. In fact, the game’s campaign actually bills itself as a “unique roguelike experience”, something most people will probably skim over.

"The enemy AI is not very bright, and as long as you’re crouched you have so much time to get out of their line of sight before you’re “spotted” that you could essentially crouch-walk through entire missions without being discovered for the most part."

But before you dive headfirst into the campaign, the game strongly suggests you complete the tutorial. In it, my initial expectations were turned upside down when I was presented with a tutorial that surprisingly outlined a heist game, where you go into an area with a squad of four characters that you can switch between and disable security, infiltrate a facility, steal the goods, and get out before the cops show up.

Instead of immediately shooting up the place, you’re shown that you can threaten civilians and security to make them surrender and avoid conflict, and then zip-tie them so they don’t become an issue during the heist. In fact, I don’t think you fire your gun once in the entire tutorial, or at least I didn’t. From this first taste, Crime Boss seemed like it would be a thoughtful game where patience and strategy are rewarded, one where you don’t need to leave piles of bodies in your wake.

And then you jump into the real game, and those new expectations also get turned on their head and thrown out a window.

The game’s intro is loud and bombastic, with plenty of bullets, blood, and bodies. This is what we were shown before the game’s release, though it’s not really what the whole game is, and later missions only get rowdy if you want them to. Seriously, the enemy AI is not very bright, and as long as you’re crouched you have so much time to get out of their line of sight before you’re “spotted” that you could essentially crouch-walk through entire missions without being discovered for the most part.

I was able to do that for many of my missions, which also revealed one of many bugs and glitches in this game: enemies just pop into existence when the getaway car arrives, but not in places where it would be discreet. I had enemies materialize just a few feet away from me once I had enough loot to exfiltrate, breaking immersion immediately. While sneaking is an option and it’s incredibly easy to do, it seems that the developer’s intent is probably to have the majority of missions devolve into shootouts pretty often so that you miss these magical henchmen.

"The more attention you draw and the more trouble you cause, the more highly-equipped police will show up until you inevitably get overwhelmed by enemies who sometimes feel invincible. It disincentivizes getting into action and feels unbalanced."

When the bullets do start flying, it’s a mixed bag. There’s a confident smoothness to zeroing in on enemies, and the guns I used felt appropriately powerful with decent feedback so my comparisons to level-based shooters held up in that regard, but then you have the GTA-like heat system. The more attention you draw and the more trouble you cause, the more highly-equipped police will show up until you inevitably get overwhelmed by enemies who sometimes feel invincible. It disincentivizes getting into action and feels unbalanced.

And that’s not even the worst of it.

The game is structured in such a way that you only spend short bursts of time actually on missions that quickly become repetitive and boring, with the rest of your time being spent in cutscenes or managing different facets of becoming a “Crime Boss”. You hire crew, sell goods you steal in missions, and expand your area of influence with Turf Wars. The issue is that there are only a handful of models for the crew members, resulting in you having multiple of the same people with different clothes which is jarring to see, selling your wares is just a menu, and Turf Wars are tedious.

What’s even worse, is that since the game is a roguelike, crewmembers who die in missions are gone for good, and if you happen to take the protagonist out on a mission and he dies, the entire run is over. This is standard for the genre, but when a game feels as buggy and broken as Crime Boss, it’s very off-putting. The game is only occasionally fun to play, which is worsened by what was supposed to be its headlining feature: its cast.

As you probably know from the trailers, Travis Baker is played by Michael Madsen, an actor known for his roles in movies like Kill Bill, Species, Reservoir Dogs, and The Hateful Eight. Mr. Madsen is sixty-five years old now, though his in-game model represents a de-aged version of him as he was in his mid-thirties. And he’s not alone! This game also stars a few other de-aged stars you might recognize from the 80s and 90s, including Kim Basinger, Michael Rooker, Danny Glover, Danny Trejo, and Chuck Norris. The entire cast was clearly hired for the purpose of nostalgia rather than their voice-acting abilities.

"The entire cast was clearly hired for the purpose of nostalgia rather than their voice-acting abilities. To the aging actors’ credits, they aren’t given much to work with in terms of writing."

To the aging actors’ credits, they aren’t given much to work with in terms of writing. The story is structured and presented as an early 90s action film, perhaps as a means of making the younger versions of its now aged cast make more sense, but it unfortunately also has all of the poor representation, objectification, and ham-fisted dialogue those movies are known for, And not even in a fun way. There is also a forced attempt to be “wacky” that doesn’t do the game any favors. A scattered number of scenes and lines elicited a singular chuckle from me, but the vast majority of those were thanks to the comical disinterest you can hear in Chuck Norris’ voice as he patronizes you about how you messed up your run.

This game was reviewed on PC.

NOTE: This interview was conducted prior to the game’s launch.

"In Crime Boss the Hollywood superstars do play their most iconic characters from the 90s. We haven’t cast them in our story, we have invited them to go back in time, let them again experience what they have been famous for since 30 years ago."

Obviously, one of the most eye-catching things about Crime Boss: Rockay City is its incredibly star-studded cast. What motivated the decision to go with a cast full of such recognizable actors for this game, and what has the process of working with them been like?

Signing up all these Hollywood talents took quite a significant time and the cooperation with their busy schedules is quite difficult. But their input into the characters via their voice acting is extremely valuable. It’s improving the narrative experience quite dramatically.

In Crime Boss the Hollywood superstars do play their most iconic characters from the 90s. We haven’t cast them in our story, we have invited them to go back in time, let them again experience what they have been famous for since 30 years ago. With Unreal Engine technology we have provided them with their young bodies and let them jump into the story of Rockay City.

The game portrays these actors in their physicality of the late 80s and early 90s. For example, Mr. Chuck Norris is now 82 years old. So, it was not possible to use photo scan or mocap. But they did record the voice lines for their characters, and sometimes also amended the script lines with their take on those characters, that they have portrayed in the 90s.

Co-op is obviously going to be a big part of the experience, but what would you say to players who’re looking for a single player experience?

The primary game mode, Baker’s battle, it is the single player campaign – a narrative roguelike experience. There are other game modes, Urban Legends and Crime Time which utilize the cooperative play.

Baker’s Battle is the ultimate single player experience of Crime Boss, where players take on the role of Travis Baker, played by Michael Madsen.

Every step of the way you are competing against Sheriff Norris, who is in charge of law enforcement and will be constantly collecting evidence against you. The better planned a job, and the better executed it is, the less evidence you’ll leave behind. Go in all guns blazing and Norris will likely win in the long run.

Maintain your turf and fight various gang bosses of Rockay City including Dollar Dragon, played by Danny Trejo, Hielo, played by Vanilla Ice, a cunning Asian warlord, and the dreaded Italian mafia.

The end goal of Baker’s Battle is to become the King of Rockay, which means dominating every inch of turf in the city.

"Baker’s Battle is the ultimate single player experience of Crime Boss, where players take on the role of Travis Baker, played by Michael Madsen."

Specifically where the game’s big set piece heists are concerned, what can you tell us about their structure? What sort of a balance will they strike between stealth and combat?

The big heists are the highlight of the heisting of Crime Boss. The main ingredients unpredicted challenge and replayability. The big heists are designed for coop gameplay and are 10-30 minutes long. They are quite challenging to finish in the flow single player campaign, but then Baker became super rich.

The flow of the heists is set by designers. It has relatively linear structure, so the objectives are often very same each playthrough. But there are options and players need to proceed cleverly to succeed. Some set up of the missions can change based on the events and decisions in the previous plotlines. On top of that, there is a built-in variation of the environment and position of elements. The AI is completely systemic, reactive on what is going on. Put it in a word, by one of our focus testers “The missions are repeating, and they feel familiar. But not in a way that they would feel repetitive. It’s about getting better and maximizing the efficiency and results.

Our goal is to have the FPS missions bursting with atmosphere, where the planner (Danny Glover in big heists, or Damion Poitier for small hits) communicates with the crew via radio comms. Damion was also the writer, and with the team of writers they have adapted basic dialogues of the 30 different characters to give a Hollywood spin on everything. So, whichever characters are sent on missions, there will be a unique dialogue for every character. Damion has a vast knowledge of jargon and accents, so he helped us a lot.

In some games you need to replay the missions many times to understand the environment, to learn every path of each guards, to be able to perform a perfect heist. This is exactly the opposite what we do. We don’t have checkpoints, it’s actually quite hard to retry levels in Crime Boss. It’s desired that players cannot “learn” or memorize the paths and ways how to complete the missions. You know what the objectives are, you know the space, but things are different. And you need to react onto it. The goal is quick fun and replayability. Think of the games like Counter Strike. You know that you need to find terrorists and disable their bomb. You know the flow. You know the environment. The mission is simple, and you have played it hundred times. But every game is a bit different and every time it is quite challenging and unforgivable. We are trying to bring this exclusive experience from competitive multiplayer games into single player and into coop.

What has your approach been to designing Crime Boss’ different locations, and what sort of variety do they bring in terms of how players are encouraged to tackle them?

The game is set in the 90s. The world was quite almost the same as now, but also very, very different. Mobile phones just appeared, computers started to be used widely in business, there was no internet widespread amongst people, news were printed on paper, TV was a thing, there were no social networks. Everything was simpler, nicer, brighter. It was a time when the men were men and women beautiful. This was the time which we still remember as we have enjoyed it through our teenage years, action movies and pop culture in general. Rap, rock, grunge, rave and disco music, summer, holidays, sins, neon, MTV and cheesy action movies.

Rockay City is a fictional city due to its decadency and high rate of crime. Criminals rule the city, while law enforcers are struggling to fight them. This is far from any reality but works well for the context of the game. Almost like the comic themed Sin City. The closest real-life inspiration are Miami and Los Angeles.

"Criminals rule the city, while law enforcers are struggling to fight them. This is far from any reality but works well for the context of the game."

Given the game’s structure and its focus on co-op, is its post-launch roadmap something that you’ve given a lot of thought to? Should players expect new content and steady support after the game’s release?

A lot of things in the game are modular – environments, scenarios, events, plotlines. The campaign is procedurally created on the fly with these modular pieces. Player will be playing it over and over, with a different experience every time. Adding new pieces into the mix, can extend the amount of variations that are available.

We have a lot of plans for the upcoming years, regarding the current project and the new ones, but let’s focus on finishing Crime Boss first. Hopefully the game will be well received by players so we will be given opportunity to realize our ambitious future plans.

What can you tell us about the campaign’s roguelike structure? How will the turf war mechanics play out specifically?

In Crime Boss you are Travis Baker. You may play everything just as Travis, he is quite a powerful character. But if you die, that one run of the campaign is over. Everything restarts. But that’s not a bad thing. Because every run of the campaign is different, offering different opportunities, story plotlines, choices, and outcomes. The cutscenes are the narrative thread for each character, but the direction of the story is directly impacted by the player’s decisions and actions. In the new run, you may do much better choices, so you progress faster.

For playing Travis Baker in missions, you are rewarded with boss points (these are the XP points). You also get points for completing the campaign run (even if you fail). With these points you level up. With each boss level, you choose a perk or improvement that is persistent. There are no skill trees, you are presented with random 3 cards and you pick one.

In the game menu, there is a boss office, empty and ruined at start, but turning into a showroom of power and wealth after some successful runs (the boss room and asset there are persistent throughout the multiple runs). Assets are expensive, but each brings a lot of boss points when purchased. So, you are turning cash into permanent growth of the boss level.

The most difficult thing for us as designers is to explain and teach this roguelike gameplay to the players. Other FPS games are not designed like this, so it takes time for players to embrace the failure and keep restarting. But our focus tests are showing the players who are restarting the campaign often, are enjoying the game much more. They can improve, make some better decisions, be more successful in individual missions and progress faster and further. So hopefully by the time of release, the game will be good enough to teach this to all players. I hope the players will be open to learn this innovation and enjoy it.

How will Sheriff Norris function from a mechanical standpoint?

Sheriff Norris, played by Chuck Norris, is player’s biggest enemy. Sheriff is hunting down the criminals in the sin infected Rockay City, which means he will become the major obstacle in Baker’s rise to power. Sheriff Norris is also the reason, why police will always win. Well, almost always, but this is the challenge for the player.

Sheriff is investigating Baker’s crimes (based on the leads player leaves in the missions). With progressing investigation, there is more police heat, which means, that cops will react faster and more vigilantly on crimes, making heists and other criminal activities harder and harder. Sheriff will strike on Baker’s organization, once his investigation is finished. And there is no way how to defeat Sheriff Norris. Sheriff is teaching players that crime doesn’t pay.

Sheriff is a narrator of certain events, we let the player experience them through dialogues between Sheriff Norris and Lt.

"Developing cross-gen compatibility is complicated and limiting. On old gen we would not be able to let player to play missions in the generated city environments, let player combat with armies of enemies and have high quality metahuman facial animations."

Roughly how long will it take to see through the game’s story?

The story of Crime Boss is pretty simple, and players should understand (or see through it) pretty quickly. But there are nuances, variations, that will make the story changing every campaign run. The modular narrative of the single player campaign is composed of plotlines, events and choices that pretty much differ each time a player goes through it. The game is not created to let you experience a different experience and stories. But in 40 hours you will most likely gone through the basic beats and events. Unless we add more plotlines and events into the mix…

What was behind the decision to not develop Crime Boss: Rockay City as a cross-gen title?

Developing cross-gen compatibility is complicated and limiting. On old gen we would not be able to let player to play missions in the generated city environments, let player combat with armies of enemies and have high quality metahuman facial animations.

As the trailer points out, Crime Boss: Rockay City features Michael Madsen, Kim Basinger, Danny Glover, Danny Trejo, Damion Poitier, Vanilla Ice, Michael Rooker, and Chuck Norris.

The last trailer for Crime Boss: Rockay City focused on the game’s various modes, including its campaign, quick-play, and co-op.

Crime Boss: Rockay City is a co-op-focused shooter that has players go around committing crimes to eventually become the titular crime boss. Gameplay primarily revolves around a little bit of stealth, and a lot of gunning down of your enemies.

Crime Boss: Rockay City is out today on PC through the Epic Games Store. The game is slated to stay exclusive to the Epic Games Store until at least June 2024. Console players, however, will only have to wait until June to get their hands on the game.

For starters, there’s Crime Time, a quick play mode that will allow players to dive into small-scale heists for quick rewards, which will be randomly generated on a map. Given their smaller scale, Crime Time heists are geared towards solo play, so you’ll either want to take them on alone or in the company of bots.

Crime Time will also allow players to put out contracts for more complex and challenging heists, though given their more challenging nature, planning them and putting together a team for them will require more cash. Medium-sized jobs such as these will also be better suited to co-op play. There will also be bigger heists that will be unlocked once players have proven themselves in the Baker’s Battle mode, which is the campaign. Meanwhile, players will also be able to join servers to take on jobs that might be currently locked for you without having to spend any cash.

Details are also revealed on the teammates players will be able to take with them on heists across multiple game modes, which will include classic teammates, who will have randomized stats, perks, and weapons, and unique teammates, who will have special skillsets and more powerful perks and weapons. They will be unlocked by playing other modes. Cash will be required to recruit teammates, bail them out or provide them with medical assistance if the need arises, buy better weapons, and more.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned Baker’s Battle is described as the game’s “ultimate single player experience”, where players will step into the shoes of protagonist Travis Baker, played by Michael Madsen, as he looks to dominate the underworld scene of Rockay City. Your primary adversary in the campaign will be Sheriff Norris, who’ll constantly be on your tail and gathering evidence against you, which you can minimize by performing better in heists. Other factions, such as several rival gangs, will also serve as enemies to take down.

The third and final mode in the game will be The Urban Legends, which is described as “pure 90s action”. This mode will feature six short mini-campaigns, each consisting of three missions that will get progressively tougher. The mode will be playable solo, in co-op, or with bots.

Check out the video below for more details.

Crime Boss: Rockay City launches for PC on March 28. It will release for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in June. Read more about the game’s post-launch plans through here.

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.

Of course, that’s not the end. Developer INGAME STUDIOS will continue supporting the game after launch, with development director Jarek Kolář telling GamesRadar, “The word ‘evolution’ is what’s on our roadmap. Rockay is a city that never sleeps, and neither will the game’s development. From day one, we’ll be iterating and improving upon the game.”

Post-launch, the team will introduce “new characters and scenarios, new heists, new jobs to undertake, and even new narrative beats that will take the story off in entirely new directions. And, of course, we’ll be tweaking and improving upon the game itself and asking the community for their feedback too.”

This is apparent in the dedicated feedback page and the team’s desire to listen to all feedback. Other stars may also enter the game, though Kolář didn’t mention specific names. “The late 80s and 90s were ripe with some of the most iconic stars in movies and TV. We would love to include as many as we can. We’ve even had a few names reach out to us, which is really flattering, so we’ll see how it goes.

“We have so much post-launch content planned, it would seem wrong not to include a few new stars, right? We have a lot of Hollywood history to play with here. I can’t say too much, I don’t want to give anything away!”

Crime Boss: Rockay City launches on March 28th for PC via the Epic Games Store. It’ll remain exclusive to the storefront until at least June 2024, but PS5 and Xbox Series X/S players can get their hands on it this June. Head here for more details on the game, and stay tuned for further updates.