Rogue Trooper Redux

I came to Rogue Trooper Redux the way I come to most remasters: skeptical, stopwatch running. What Rebellion and TickTock Games shipped in October 2017 is a cleaned-up version of a PS2-era third-person cover shooter, and that description is both its main selling point and its core problem. The premise is genuinely interesting - you play Rogue, the last surviving Genetic Infantryman on the toxic wasteland planet Nu-Earth, stalking through 13 missions hunting down the Traitor General who got your whole regiment wiped out at the Quartz Zone. Three of your dead squadmates live on as biochips slotted into your rifle (Gunnar), backpack (Bagman), and helmet (Helm), and each one does actual mechanical work: Gunnar converts your assault rifle into a deployable sentry turret, Bagman crafts ammo and weapon upgrades from salvage you loot off dead Norts, and Helm hacks doors and throws up holographic decoys to pull enemies out of position. On paper it reads like a clever solo squad system. In practice it gives the game more tactical texture than you expect from something this old. The salvage economy is where Redux shows its best self. Stealth kills yield more scrap than running in loud, so there is a real incentive to think about approach. You can funnel that salvage into upgrading your shotgun, topping up sniper ammo, stacking health packs, or unlocking perks on the rifle - the choice is yours and it keeps the mid-mission rhythm from going completely brain-dead. The arsenal itself is modest: pistol, assault rifle, shotgun, beam rifle, Lazooka surface-to-air launcher, mortar, and a set of grenade types including sapper grenades that temporarily disable mechs and drones. Nothing exotic, but the weapon variety covers most situations across the open-ish maps, which let you pick stealth flanks or straight firefights depending on mood. Here is where I have to be straight with you. The cover system is the game's oldest-smelling part, and it was not meaningfully redesigned for Redux. Getting into and out of cover is finicky enough that going full run-and-gun is often the mechanically safer choice, which defeats the point of having cover at all. The enemy AI swings wildly between brain-dead and suddenly omniscient, and grenade-switching mid-fight feels like it belongs to a different era of control design - because it does. The cutscenes barely look touched up. Controls are passable on mouse and keyboard but nothing that will impress anyone who dropped 500 hours into a modern third-person shooter. Metacritic sits at 60, OpenCritic called it weak, and those scores are honest. Steam users are more forgiving at around 77 percent positive, which tracks - this is a game that rewards nostalgia and patience rather than raw mechanical engagement. The co-op modes are worth a mention since they are the only multiplayer content on offer. Stronghold is wave defense for up to four players, and Progressive mode has a squad pushing through levels to a safe zone. Neither mode is going to fill your Friday nights in 2026 - concurrent player counts on Steam are essentially zero - so do not buy this expecting an active online scene. Campaign co-op for up to four is the actual draw if you have friends willing to book a retro evening. At roughly 5 to 10 hours for a solo run depending on how much you lean into stealth and salvage-hunting, the campaign does not drag. It knows its length. Who is this actually for: 2000 AD readers, people who played the original on PS2 or Xbox and want to revisit with better visuals, or shooter fans curious about a piece of genre history. For anyone else, the honest answer is that the cover mechanics were experimental in 2006 and they feel experimental now in the worst sense. You are not getting a tightened modern reboot - you are getting the same game with better textures and a revamped cover system that still misbehaves. If you have the context to appreciate where it sits in the history of third-person cover shooters, it is a fine couple of evenings. If you do not, the controls will probably push you out before the story gets interesting.

Fred · Scout Team

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