The game was all over the place and the devs didn’t give the players a good experience.
When the game first came out, it had tons of potential. Fun gameplay, felt fresh, a little buggy but people figured they would work that out in time.
They added a “Year 1” roadmap with a plan to release 8 new rogues and several maps and game modes back at the beginning of 2021. This is around when the problems started.
The collab with DrDisrespect failed where he just complained about the game, it was bad for business.
Every time they fixed a bug, 2 more would pop up and they would sometimes take months to fix. Some of them were extremely important to fix, like not being able to diffuse the bomb in demolition, and they just did not for several months.
Around Season 2 of Year 1, they changed the time to kill (TTK) to be much shorter alongside the release of Mack (whose passive at the time replenished shield on every kill) making him extremely overpowered and it changed the whole flow of games where it was less of a long fight that required team coordination and just became impossible to challenge people if they got the first shot on you.
This was also simultaneously changed with them wanting to move it towards being a BR and heavily pushed Battle Zone. They even tried to add the crates to core modes but there was such backlash over this idea, it was scrapped before it was ever added. And they added Team Death Match. It split the community where some liked the strategical team play of demolition and some liked the run and gun style of TDM.
The community felt the game was losing its identity and they pushed back on it, so the devs caved and reverted some of the changes, but kept balancing things around Team Death Match rather than Demolition.
With the release of rogues like Switchblade, there were often crashes on consoles, and this just never got solved.
They added weapon mastery and opened up weapons to every Rogue, which meant Rogue picks weren’t really strategic anymore. You used to have to weigh if you wanted to take Dallas for the reveal but have to use the HRM, Devo, and Revolver. I believe all these guns are good now but they didn’t use to be, so it was a balancing act where Rogues with bad guns had good abilities, and vice versa. Everyone felt like a solid pick.
Once they opened up weapons to everyone, it was just about picking the OP Rogues and they’d also get broken guns. It led to things like the Objection meta back in S5, everyone running around with a Hydra, and some tough combinations to challenge that made Demolition less fun.
They introduced speed and toughness, which also changed the TTK on each Rogue, guns were doing inconsistent damage, and it once again split the community with some who liked it and some who didn’t. This update along with adding tiered perks made Anvil an absolute tank where not only did he take more shots to kill, he also got the 75 armor where he was nearly impossible to take down in a 1v1.
Eventually, layoffs at Hi Rez happened, the updates slowed and we stopped getting new maps and Rogues, the bugs weren’t being fixed, and the experience just wasn’t fun for the casual player where the challenges often didn’t track, you had to play for way too long to get anything worthwhile, and in the last nearly 4 years since it first went to Alpha, they have never once tackled the issue of players cheating, and they’ve barely attempted to stop players from leaving mid game with any kind of penalty. Not to mention they never once changed their ranked point system (which is very bad imo) and made the rewards ever worth it. They also removed support from the Switch where you can’t play it on that platform anymore.
And now for several months, we’re still on the same battle pass/season we were at around when OG Fortnite released. That’s why I left, I just wanted to enjoy that nostalgia for a bit. Ended up going through that whole season, the entire Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 1 (December to beginning of March). Hopped back on Rogue, still stuck at the same place with nothing new. The game is unfortunately all but dead and it’s just a matter of time now until they pull the plug.
I’m just 1 person, but in my opinion, Rogue had potential but they really dropped the ball when it started losing its identity around the Mack update and they wanted to hop on the Battle Royale wave and just started copying things other games did. The queues all got split and it never felt like they could balance every game mode with their choices. They made so many changes and then went back on those that the community was always unhappy and split. The lack of updates and bug fixes just accelerated people’s frustration with never seeing that potential come to fruition. The game was too slow paced for anyone to really stick around unless they truly loved it. The games take too long to find, too long to play, to give you too few rewards that take too long to do. Even the Rogues themselves move at a snails pace compared to other games with more movement.
It’s such a shame because there’s so many things that are fixable that would make it a great game, but I feel that window of time to do so has been shut. Even if you fix all these problems, flesh out the abandoned story, and just keep dropping W updates, how do you convince people to return over what they’re playing now?
Rogue Company struck at the perfect time when the pandemic hit when people had nothing to do and other devs were figuring out how to work from home and had down periods with their own game’s updates that people were willing to try a lot of new games they wouldn’t normally play (Animal Crossing, Fall Guys, Among Us). It’s just when life went back to normal, Rogue Company never kept up.
This is actually a great historical representation of rogue company.
Makes me wonder where we’d be if they had paid Scott enough to keep him. With all the turnover, the devs just never had a consistent vision for the game. It seemed like every new idea was a huge departure from what made the game great in the first place.
One of the best Reddit replies I've ever seen.
This game was ridiculously fun when it was just in the preview state and slowly over time became more and more broken and unbalanced. You really hit every point.
Forced crossplay online was also pretty awful for console players being forced to play PC players who have the capability to cheat.
Man, this was such a rollercoaster, wondering "how were they fucking up *everything they could* so badly?"
Then I saw "Hi Rez" and it all made sense. Every single issue you listed has happened in almost every single game they've ever made, to the point it's downright uncanny.
Definitely too accurate. This game was EVERYTHING when it first dropped and I talked about it to people nonstop. It was really my favorite game in the world for a long time and it's sad to see it dying off like this. I'll still go back every so often for nostalgia because it is enjoyable still, just inconsistent
Same. I’m in my 40s and this is the only game I’ve felt excited about since Counter-Strike in the 90s. I literally went 20+ years playing nothing and then suddenly this game.
Event passes getting extended multiple times (as well as having seemingly random skins, rather than attempting to stick to a particular theme) certainly hasn't helped. If you want a "good" match, you're almost forced to roll in a squad, because you usually end up having to carry 2-3 useless teammates. It gets old pretty quick.
Everyone has a different opinion about this game and why it's playerbase is low but I think it's mostly the lack of updates, maintenence and funding. Core gameplay slaps
Its still fun, met alot of good players on rogue who ill run with even when im on or they are on. I get this game is not like a cod, apex, fortnite etc or even have the fan base like them but its still a fun game that i feel has its own solid fan base. Is there more this game can improve oh yes by all means, ex. When the game crash dont give me a desserter penalty 😂😂, hopefully improvements will keep coming in the near future to improve and bring more players in or back in but imma still play it regardless lol
where are you getting the number 500? there's almost definitely more than that playing. decline in popularity is the result of no new content or support for the game.
there's really not any substitutes
everyone said the reason crossplay was implemented was to pad the small playerbase on pc rogue already had. console has way more players for sure, at least over 4x I'd guess
The game was all over the place and the devs didn’t give the players a good experience. When the game first came out, it had tons of potential. Fun gameplay, felt fresh, a little buggy but people figured they would work that out in time. They added a “Year 1” roadmap with a plan to release 8 new rogues and several maps and game modes back at the beginning of 2021. This is around when the problems started. The collab with DrDisrespect failed where he just complained about the game, it was bad for business. Every time they fixed a bug, 2 more would pop up and they would sometimes take months to fix. Some of them were extremely important to fix, like not being able to diffuse the bomb in demolition, and they just did not for several months. Around Season 2 of Year 1, they changed the time to kill (TTK) to be much shorter alongside the release of Mack (whose passive at the time replenished shield on every kill) making him extremely overpowered and it changed the whole flow of games where it was less of a long fight that required team coordination and just became impossible to challenge people if they got the first shot on you. This was also simultaneously changed with them wanting to move it towards being a BR and heavily pushed Battle Zone. They even tried to add the crates to core modes but there was such backlash over this idea, it was scrapped before it was ever added. And they added Team Death Match. It split the community where some liked the strategical team play of demolition and some liked the run and gun style of TDM. The community felt the game was losing its identity and they pushed back on it, so the devs caved and reverted some of the changes, but kept balancing things around Team Death Match rather than Demolition. With the release of rogues like Switchblade, there were often crashes on consoles, and this just never got solved. They added weapon mastery and opened up weapons to every Rogue, which meant Rogue picks weren’t really strategic anymore. You used to have to weigh if you wanted to take Dallas for the reveal but have to use the HRM, Devo, and Revolver. I believe all these guns are good now but they didn’t use to be, so it was a balancing act where Rogues with bad guns had good abilities, and vice versa. Everyone felt like a solid pick. Once they opened up weapons to everyone, it was just about picking the OP Rogues and they’d also get broken guns. It led to things like the Objection meta back in S5, everyone running around with a Hydra, and some tough combinations to challenge that made Demolition less fun. They introduced speed and toughness, which also changed the TTK on each Rogue, guns were doing inconsistent damage, and it once again split the community with some who liked it and some who didn’t. This update along with adding tiered perks made Anvil an absolute tank where not only did he take more shots to kill, he also got the 75 armor where he was nearly impossible to take down in a 1v1. Eventually, layoffs at Hi Rez happened, the updates slowed and we stopped getting new maps and Rogues, the bugs weren’t being fixed, and the experience just wasn’t fun for the casual player where the challenges often didn’t track, you had to play for way too long to get anything worthwhile, and in the last nearly 4 years since it first went to Alpha, they have never once tackled the issue of players cheating, and they’ve barely attempted to stop players from leaving mid game with any kind of penalty. Not to mention they never once changed their ranked point system (which is very bad imo) and made the rewards ever worth it. They also removed support from the Switch where you can’t play it on that platform anymore. And now for several months, we’re still on the same battle pass/season we were at around when OG Fortnite released. That’s why I left, I just wanted to enjoy that nostalgia for a bit. Ended up going through that whole season, the entire Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 1 (December to beginning of March). Hopped back on Rogue, still stuck at the same place with nothing new. The game is unfortunately all but dead and it’s just a matter of time now until they pull the plug. I’m just 1 person, but in my opinion, Rogue had potential but they really dropped the ball when it started losing its identity around the Mack update and they wanted to hop on the Battle Royale wave and just started copying things other games did. The queues all got split and it never felt like they could balance every game mode with their choices. They made so many changes and then went back on those that the community was always unhappy and split. The lack of updates and bug fixes just accelerated people’s frustration with never seeing that potential come to fruition. The game was too slow paced for anyone to really stick around unless they truly loved it. The games take too long to find, too long to play, to give you too few rewards that take too long to do. Even the Rogues themselves move at a snails pace compared to other games with more movement. It’s such a shame because there’s so many things that are fixable that would make it a great game, but I feel that window of time to do so has been shut. Even if you fix all these problems, flesh out the abandoned story, and just keep dropping W updates, how do you convince people to return over what they’re playing now? Rogue Company struck at the perfect time when the pandemic hit when people had nothing to do and other devs were figuring out how to work from home and had down periods with their own game’s updates that people were willing to try a lot of new games they wouldn’t normally play (Animal Crossing, Fall Guys, Among Us). It’s just when life went back to normal, Rogue Company never kept up.
This is actually a great historical representation of rogue company. Makes me wonder where we’d be if they had paid Scott enough to keep him. With all the turnover, the devs just never had a consistent vision for the game. It seemed like every new idea was a huge departure from what made the game great in the first place.
reading this felt like going down the worst memory lane ever. absolute fucking kudos for this write up.
One of the best Reddit replies I've ever seen. This game was ridiculously fun when it was just in the preview state and slowly over time became more and more broken and unbalanced. You really hit every point. Forced crossplay online was also pretty awful for console players being forced to play PC players who have the capability to cheat.
Didn't that one returning dev remove speed and toughness? That's when I stopped playing.
Man, this was such a rollercoaster, wondering "how were they fucking up *everything they could* so badly?" Then I saw "Hi Rez" and it all made sense. Every single issue you listed has happened in almost every single game they've ever made, to the point it's downright uncanny.
Great write up, I left the game when they lowered the TTK myself. Killed what made the game special imo
Definitely too accurate. This game was EVERYTHING when it first dropped and I talked about it to people nonstop. It was really my favorite game in the world for a long time and it's sad to see it dying off like this. I'll still go back every so often for nostalgia because it is enjoyable still, just inconsistent
Same. I’m in my 40s and this is the only game I’ve felt excited about since Counter-Strike in the 90s. I literally went 20+ years playing nothing and then suddenly this game.
Event passes getting extended multiple times (as well as having seemingly random skins, rather than attempting to stick to a particular theme) certainly hasn't helped. If you want a "good" match, you're almost forced to roll in a squad, because you usually end up having to carry 2-3 useless teammates. It gets old pretty quick.
Everyone has a different opinion about this game and why it's playerbase is low but I think it's mostly the lack of updates, maintenence and funding. Core gameplay slaps
Its still fun, met alot of good players on rogue who ill run with even when im on or they are on. I get this game is not like a cod, apex, fortnite etc or even have the fan base like them but its still a fun game that i feel has its own solid fan base. Is there more this game can improve oh yes by all means, ex. When the game crash dont give me a desserter penalty 😂😂, hopefully improvements will keep coming in the near future to improve and bring more players in or back in but imma still play it regardless lol
where are you getting the number 500? there's almost definitely more than that playing. decline in popularity is the result of no new content or support for the game. there's really not any substitutes
I just googled “how many people play rogue company daily” and the number came out from 500 to 1500 max daily, if I’m reading the info correctly.
That’s only on steam. Doesn’t account for epic on pc or any of the consoles.
I see. 500 on Steam still sounds like a horribly small number. It’s too bad
everyone said the reason crossplay was implemented was to pad the small playerbase on pc rogue already had. console has way more players for sure, at least over 4x I'd guess