Pre-order Rogue Trooper Redux

Based on a 2000 AD comic book of the same name, Rogue Trooper was originally released in 2006 for the Xbox, PlayStation 2 and PC. Rogue Trooper featured cover mechanics, which were rare in the pre-Gears of War era, and it gained a cult following.  More than a decade later, the title is getting a remastered version with Rogue Trooper Redux, which features additional difficulty settings, dynamic lighting, HD graphics, updated character animations, and more. We got our hands on a pre-beta build at E3 2017, and it's quite fun to play.

You play as a Genetic Infantryman (GI) who's been betrayed by superiors, and your team has been massacred.  You're bred for war, and as you progress through the game's 13 missions in your quest for revenge, you'll fight alongside three soldiers at different times. After they fall in battle, you collect a biochip from each compatriot, and your gear benefits from the addition of their chip, which contains their consciousness. For example, after Gunnar dies and you place his chip in your gun, you get a boost in accuracy, which is evidenced by targets being outlined in red and your gun's newfound ability to auto-target foes. You also gain the capacity to turn your rifle into a sentry gun.

Similarly, Bagman's chip goes in your bag, and he helps you reload automatically. He also manufactures items with the salvage that you've picked up, and he can build upgrades for your weapons, such as making a rifle more powerful and upgrading a sniper rifle to have a longer range. Bagman can also lay minefields. The chip of the third soldier, Helm, goes in your helmet. He's a hacker, so he can hack security doors and project a holographic decoy to distract the enemy. (I immediately noticed that the grooves on the helmets made them look like brains, although I may have found this more amusing than I should have.)

The controls are smooth and straightforward. With Bagman's help, you don't have to worry about reloading, and you just back up against a surface to initiate cover, so you don't have to worry about that, either. That means you're unencumbered and free to shoot up everything in sight. If you need it, you can easily invert the axis of the controls in the options menu.

The original title's online multiplayer was through the GameSpy service, and when that shut down, the multiplayer no longer worked.  The developers are happy to bring back online multiplayer in Redux with the two modes from the original: Progressive and Stronghold. Multiplayer supports up to four players, and you work cooperatively against the AI.  In Progressive, you fight from one end of the map to the other, completing objectives along the way, and you have to finish before you run out of lives or run out of time. In Stronghold, you have to defend an area or person against waves of enemies until time runs out.

Rogue Trooper Redux is coming to the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC this October, and it will feature locations from the comic, such as Harpo's Ferry, the Petrified Forest and the Quartz Zone. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for the return of this cult classic.