| Attack of the Fanboy |
Noah Nelson |
3 / 5 stars |
03-28-2023 |
Crime Boss: Rockay City’s execution isn’t revolutionary or exceptional, but its shot at an innovative roguelike campaign is a praiseworthy proof of concept. It might not have the most versatile activities, best gunplay, or first-class writing, but Crime Boss: Rockay City does provide an interesting experience that, like a cheap B-movie, has that certain kind of charm you can’t help but enjoy. |
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| Capsule Computers |
Travis Bruno |
4.5 / 10 |
04-24-2023 |
Crime Boss: Rockay City has some potential but lack of polish across the board combined with repetitive gameplay does more harm than its poorly included celebrity cast could ever help. |
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| COGconnected |
Mark Steighner |
55 / 100 |
06-16-2023 |
For every infrequent good idea, Crime Boss: Rockay City seems determined to undermine it. First-person roguelike mechanics in a narrative-focused game is an intriguing concept, but between bugs, bland performances, and rote action, the killer concept is dead on arrival. |
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| Echo Boomer |
João Canelo |
Not Recommended |
10-07-2023 |
If Rockay City was more than its references, its gameplay could shine, but what remains are uninteresting modes and a failed attempt to inject some novelty into the roguelike genre. |
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| Everyeye.it |
Giovanni Panzano |
7 / 10 |
03-28-2023 |
Crime Boss Rockay City is a production with several critical issues, both on the purely technical front and on the situational variety offered by the package. |
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| FingerGuns |
Rossko Keniston |
4 / 10 |
04-09-2023 |
Crime Boss: Rockay City is exactly what we thought it would be. A turgid waste of a solid central idea with a cast stacked with actors who sound like they’d rather be anywhere else or are just purely hateful. There’s a little delight in falling into b-movie nostalgia, but it’s few and far between. There’s very little here to recommend because very little of it works, if anything at all. Well, the title is fun to say at least. |
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| Game Informer |
Wesley LeBlanc |
3 / 10 |
03-29-2023 |
Crime Boss: Rockay City is proof that star power isn’t everything. In fact, it’s a reminder that a celebrity cast does nothing for a game when it’s void of anything interesting or fun to support it. When run-ending bugs appear, Crime Boss is miserable, but even when I’m running a mission bug-free, I lay witness to a painfully dull take on organized crime. At its best, Crime Boss functions – I can shoot weapons at enemies, empty bank vaults and warehouses for loot, watch cutscenes with recognizable faces and voices, and grow my empire – but it never captures my attention in a meaningful or memorable way. Instead, it pushes me further and further away, leaving me with no desire to ever return to Rockay City. |
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| Gameblog |
KiKiToes |
4 / 10 |
04-18-2023 |
Crime Boss could have been a nice experience, especially since there is no 400 Payday-like. There was clearly a niche to be taken while surfing on that nice cast of actors, but nothing was done. Minimal service, failed service with this. Since between the bad ideas of gamedesign, the absent direction, the failed dubbing and the far from great graphics, it’s hard to recommend it. Especially since for less than twenty euros, Payday 2 does a better job, despite its age. |
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| GameGrin |
Bennett Perry |
8 / 10 |
04-15-2023 |
Crime Boss: Rockay City is a pleasant surprise considering all of the aspects that make its foundations usually crumble from the weight. Just get ready to die, try and die again until you take the throne. |
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| GAMES.CH |
Joel Kogler |
66 / 100 |
06-26-2023 |
There’s no denying that “Crime Boss: Rockay City” is, at its core, a brazen copy of Overkill’s “Payday 2.” The supposedly dark gangster story about the “charismatic” Travis Baker is more in the wake of the trashiest B-movies of the 1990s. Whether intentional or not, “Crime Boss: Rockay City” has a certain charm and can inspire over a longer period of time thanks to a solid solo campaign. The game is certainly not for everyone, but it also shows that first impressions can be deceiving. |
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| GameSkinny |
Thomas Wilde |
5 / 10 |
03-30-2023 |
Here’s why your summer vacation in Rockay City is a bad idea. Or maybe a good one, depending on how you feel about street wars with ’90s rappers. |
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| GamingBolt |
Mike Alexander |
5 / 10 |
04-05-2023 |
Crime Boss: Rockay City’s heist gameplay is squandered by a myriad of bugs, mindless, boring gameplay, and a severe lack of fun despite its best attempts to have the presence of GTA and the mechanics of Payday, both of which are much better games. |
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| GamingTrend |
Jackson Lustberg |
55 / 100 |
04-18-2023 |
Overall, Crime Boss: Rockay City offers so many conceptually interesting gameplay mechanics that could work well together, but either doesn’t give the player enough opportunities to use them, or fails to tie them into other aspects of the game. There is some minor depth to the game, but it’s overshadowed by what could have been. On top of that, too many elements feel like they’re out of the players hands, and lead to cheap deaths. If you simply need to play Crime Boss: Rockay City, then you’ll be pleased to hear that it’s only $40, and even less if you wait for a sale. |
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| Hardcore Gamer |
Cory Wells |
3.5 / 5 stars |
04-01-2023 |
INGAME STUDIOS should be commended for trying something different as they’ve previously worked on the Mafia series amongst other titles. |
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| IGN |
Luke Reilly |
4 / 10 |
04-06-2023 |
Crime Boss: Rockay City is an overly ambitious air ball on all fronts, from its sloppy moment-to-moment gameplay to its largely abysmal voice acting – the worst of which sound like single takes spliced in with mistakes intact. There’s an earnestness with which Crime Boss has been put together that I do admire – as a kind of direct-to-VHS knockoff of Payday on a promising ’90s backdrop – and there is an inescapable novelty in seeing these de-aged Hollywood stars steering the story here. Unfortunately, the hokey charm on display is nowhere near strong enough to offset the repetitive and regularly frustrating mission design, its roguelike single-player rapidly becomes a total chore, and its co-op juice just isn’t worth the squeeze. Sadly, Crime Boss: Rockay City’s coked-up ego has been writing cheques its budget-priced body couldn’t cash. |
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| IGN Italy |
Francesco Destri |
7 / 10 |
03-30-2023 |
If you’re looking for something similar to Payday 2 as a shooting experience to be played in a GTA-style metropolitan setting with some micro-management elements, Crime Boss: Rockay City might give you some satisfaction. |
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| Impulsegamer |
Chris O’Connor |
4.6 / 5 stars |
04-10-2023 |
I’m really enjoying Crime Boss Rockay City and highly recommend it! If you have a soft spot for the cast then that’s a good draw card… but if you have a big ol’ spot of nostalgia for music of the 90’s… it will be hard to suppress the smile as you enter a shopping mall only to hear Freestyler playing. If you want a great heist game that involves a bit more thinking and planning than GTA or even Payday… grab a copy! |
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| INDIANTVCZ |
Ondřej Svoboda |
6 / 10 |
03-28-2023 |
Crime Boss: Rockay City didn’t live up to its potential. There are a lot of flaws in the game, and a lot of elements feel unpolished. Still, it will find its fans. |
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| Metro GameCentral |
GameCentral |
3 / 10 |
03-31-2023 |
An unlikeable, repetitive, and blandly designed clone of Payday that wastes its celebrity filled cast on an equally substandard script. |
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| NoobFeed |
Azfar Rayan |
75 / 100 |
06-20-2023 |
Crime Boss: Rockay City is still an enjoyable game to play. It could certainly be frustrating if you’ve progressed much far in the game and died at that point without having to get your crew members or army back, but this is exactly what players want from roguelike games. The game is not flawless by any stretch of the imagination; in point of fact, the mechanisms for shooting and stealth aren’t really that remarkable, but they can be enhanced with a few regular upgrades since the overall concept is fun. |
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| PlayStation Universe |
Neil Bolt |
3 / 10 |
06-20-2023 |
If Crime Boss: Rockay City pulled off even one part of its package, it’d be passable. In reality, it doesn’t do a whole lot of anything right. So we’re left with a lot of wasted potential and a game that is about as pleasant and exciting of an experience as being stuck in a lift with Kevin Sorbo. |
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| PS4Blog.net |
EdEN |
7.5 / 10 |
06-28-2023 |
B-movie style 1990s-infused star-studded FPS roguelite |
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| PSX Brasil |
Paulo Roberto Montanaro |
40 / 100 |
07-07-2023 |
As much as a pretended nostalgia for the action movies of the 1990s can make us overlook many of Crime Boss: Rockay City’s flaws, it is inevitable to conclude that this is a game that failed in all its objectives, even to make us laugh. |
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| Rock, Paper, Shotgun |
Alice Bell |
Not Recommended |
03-28-2023 |
A sloppy, buggy Payday pretender whose USP of using 90s movie stars is probably the worst thing about it. |
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| Screen Rant |
Jason Hon |
2.5 / 5 stars |
03-28-2023 |
The limited time to play the review build of Crime Boss: Rockay City felt unfinished and needed more gameplay activities and depth. With the game planned to be a live service experience, with more time, developer InGame Studios will hopefully add more features and gameplay mechanics to help the game stand out in the multiplayer shooter genre. There is fun to be had with a team of four friends completing missions together. Still, in its current state, Crime Boss: Rockay City feels like a low-level wannabe criminal trying to get rich quick on a street populated with multiplayer shooters who already do better. |
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| SECTOR.sk |
Branislav Kohút |
6.5 / 10 |
04-06-2023 |
Crime Boss wants to be majestic, but the game doesn’t do it very well. It’s not exactly bad, but despite all the effort to be pompous, it feels very cheap. The idea is good, but the execution is poor. On the other hand, the game is suitable for beginners in the cooperative action genre. |
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| Shacknews |
Lucas White |
5 / 10 |
03-28-2023 |
It’s a massive swing and a big miss, with enough force to crack the sound barrier while the ball stays in the catcher’s mitt. It’s neither a cynical corporate cringe like Sharknado, nor is it a low-budget dud you’d expect to see a crew of robot puppets heckle. It’s weird, loud and uncanny. Frankly I’m surprised Christopher Walken didn’t show up. |
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| SpazioGames |
Francesco Corica |
6.8 / 10 |
04-05-2023 |
Despite its many flaws, Crime Boss Rockay City is often fun and will make you wonder what would have happened if you decided to approach things differently. Unfortunately, the game feels not-so-polished and, apart from some technical issues on PC, its structure doesn’t give enough credit to some of its good design idea. |
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| Stevivor |
Jam Walker |
6.5 / 10 |
04-04-2023 |
Crime Boss Rockay City has many flaws – but here’s the thing – I’ve had a blast playing it regardless. It’s clearly been made on a modest budget, and its celebrity cast feels largely like a pointless distraction, but the core design of its criminal empire simulation is really damn compelling. Every time I failed a run I wanted to immediately dive into a new one, which I think is a sign that it’s doing the roguelike thing very well on at least some lizard-brain level. |
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| TheGamer |
Lex Luddy |
2 / 5 stars |
03-28-2023 |
There’s very little you could get out of Crime Boss that you couldn’t get out of Payday 2 next time it comes around in a Steam sale. And besides, I think those masks that “are for pussies” are actually really cool. |
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| TheSixthAxis |
Nick Petrasiti |
4 / 10 |
03-31-2023 |
I really wanted to like Crime Boss: Rockay City, but it just feels like it was haphazardly thrown together, and the result is a game that feels like a bad copy of a popular franchise, with the tired actors, awful dialogue and repetitive gameplay really putting the boot in. |
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| VGChartz |
Lee Mehr |
3 / 10 |
07-28-2023 |
Crime Boss: Rockay City is a has-been roguelike mashed together with a has-been FPS that’s mostly filled with has-been movie stars. |
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| WayTooManyGames |
Leonardo Faria |
5.5 / 10 |
04-07-2023 |
Luckily for it, nothing about its graphics, performance, or controls is bad enough to relegate it to echelon of historically bad failures, but maybe that’s also one of its biggest issues. It’s a bland game that just so happens to have a nonsensically star-studded cast, and one not crappy enough to warrant an ironic playthrough. |
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| Worth Playing |
Cody Medellin |
4 / 10 |
07-06-2023 |
Crime Boss: Rockay City isn’t a complete disaster. The idea of fusing together managerial duties with action-oriented shooting works well on paper since the gameplay styles complement each other. However, neither aspect plays out that well, and when you combine it with a lackluster story and worse than mediocre performances, the experience doesn’t improve as you get further into it. Unless you’re hard up for a crime-based game, there’s little reason to give this title a shot. |
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