This year has seen the launch of numerous hero-shooter games, including Riot's Valorant and EA's Rocket Arena. The latest game to throw its hat in the hero-shooter ring is Rogue Company, a third-person mix of Counter-Strike and Overwatch, and it's now available to anyone that wants to purchase a Founder's Pack to get closed beta access.

But with so many hero-shooters on the market, fans may be unsure if they should check out Rogue Company. Here are our impressions after spending quite a few hours with both the PC and Xbox One versions of the game.

An Important Niche

rogue company closed beta launch

It's true that hero-shooters are a dime a dozen nowadays, but Rogue Company still fills an important niche. On PC, shooter fans can get their Counter-Strike fix by playing CS:GO or even Valorant, which, like Rogue Company, combines CS:GO's gameplay with hero-shooter tropes. However, a similar experience hasn't been available on consoles until now, so even though Rogue Company isn't all that original of a concept, it's still a type of game that hasn't really been available to console players.

This is especially true for the Nintendo Switch, and so it's no surprise Rogue Company has been featured in Nintendo Directs and pushed pretty heavily by Nintendo. Unfortunately, we were unable to try the Nintendo Switch version of the Rogue Company closed beta to see how it compares to its PC and Xbox counterpart, but it's likely a near-identical experience, just with a visual downgrade.

In any case, with Rogue Company providing a CS:GO-style experience on consoles, it's easy to see how the game may manage to become quite popular with PS4, Switch, and Xbox gamers. However, those on PC have a lot more options available to them when seeking out that style of gameplay, and so it may be a bit more difficult for Rogue Company to find an audience on that platform.

Cross-Play and Cross-Progression

We tested Rogue Company on both PC and Xbox One, and as expected, PC has a clear advantage when it comes to aiming and accuracy. This isn't a surprise by any means, but it's important to note that the game currently does not allow players to turn cross-play off. It seems likely that Rogue Company cross-play will be optional in the final release, but until then, those planning on playing the game on console may find themselves at a disadvantage when compared to other players they encounter online.

As far as cross-progression goes, the launch version of Rogue Company will support it, but it doesn't seem available in closed beta. Content that we have in the PC version didn't translate to Xbox and vice versa, but again, it seems likely that it will be a nonissue once the game actually launches.

Rogues

First Watch Games announces that Rogue Company will be fully cross-play

The concept behind Rogue Company is that players choose from a selection of playable Rogues, and then battle it out in Counter-Strike esque matches, but from a third-person view and with special abilities at their disposal. Characters have certain weapons that they can purchase and upgrade at the start of each round, so players will want to strategize with their teammates to ensure that they are using characters that complement each other.

Some of the Rogues are a lot of fun to play as, but others have limited appeal. For example, Scorch can embue her bullets with fire damage and also happens to be immune to fire herself, which opens up unique strategies, but Trench simply lays down barbed-wire traps like a Rainbow Six Siege character - something that is rarely useful in this game. Chaac's ability, meanwhile, gives him a chance to revive himself, which can make a huge difference in firefights - assuming he is able to crawl behind cover fast enough, that is.

Not all of the Rogues are available to those playing Rogue Company for free, which could potentially create some unfair balancing issues and give the game a "pay to win" bent. However, we won't know for sure until it's actually out in the wild and a meta is established.

As far as character designs go, the Rogues in Rogue Company have a lot of detail to them, with the visuals perhaps being a step above what one would normally expect from a free-to-play game.

Game Modes

In the Rogue Company closed beta, players can try two different 4v4 game modes on a variety of maps. The maps all look great, though none of them really stand out in terms of gameplay. They all work well with the two available game modes, but fans shouldn't go in expecting any maps that are really going to jump out and stick with them.

In any case, Rogue Company players can try Demolition and Extraction in the closed beta. Demolition is the Counter-Strike or Search and Destroy style mode where one team has to plant a bomb and the other team has to diffuse it. In Extraction, players are tasked with trying to take an objective, but all of the games of Extraction we played more or less just functioned like Team Deathmatch. No one ever won by hacking the objective; matches always ended because everyone on one of the teams was eliminated.

However, that doesn't mean the objective in Rogue Company's Extraction mode is useless. By having an objective at all, it ensures that players are pretty much always heading to the same location, which cuts down on wasted time of just running around the map looking for someone to shoot. It makes it so players are pretty much always in the action and leads to a more entertaining overall experience.

Room for Improvement

Rogue Company is polished and fun in its current state, but there are some tweaks that could be made here and there to improve it. Rogue Company's controls are a little difficult to get used to (like using LB for grenades and the d-pad for melee attacks), cross-play being forced can put console players at a big disadvantage, and in the closed beta there is an issue with people quitting or disconnecting from games. Despite these issues, though, it's clear that Rogue Company has a ton of potential and could fill the CS:GO/Valorant niche on consoles.

Rogue Company is in closed beta on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.