In an era where extraction shooters often demand hundreds of hours and encyclopedic knowledge of every map choke point and weapon attachment, the creators of the acclaimed Black Mesa are taking a stand. Crowbar Collective and Team17 recently launched Rogue Point into Early Access last February, and it’s no ordinary shooter where you cheese the levels with just high-level gear. In a title that plays like a violent love letter to the era of couch co-op and LAN parties, I was excited to jump into Rogue Point to test my tactics and coordination with players online.
Rogue Point takes place in a world where the richest CEO has died, and his corporate empire is undergoing a hostile takeover. Rival conglomerates don’t just fight with stock options; they fight with bullets and fear. Using an app called MERX, these tycoons can hire private military contractors to perform all sorts of sinister acts at the touch of a button. One mercenary group, Rogue Point, an elite squad of operators, gears up to push back against this privatized chaos.
Rogue Point is a co-op PvE shooter that merges roguelite progression with tactical strategy, mashing the games of Rogue and Rainbow Six into one action-packed title. This blend of strategy and action elements creates fun, tense moments in which a careless misstep can lead to a deadly mistake. The enemy has the advantage of the terrain, their numbers are numerous, and they will be gunning to put the players down if they get them in their sights. Unlike a traditional extraction shooter, Rogue Point is structured so players start at the very bottom and build their arsenal from each successful mission. Every neutralized target and completed objective helps arm the rogues to become better operators for the next fight.
In this Early Access build, a campaign structure has players tackle a series of procedurally generated missions. You can tackle the campaign solo or with other players online, but the core gameplay is designed around teamwork. And unlike other PvE shooters that let you retry a failed mission until you succeed, Rogue Point counts every loss against your campaign run. The campaign sends players through a series of maps with rotating mission objectives such as hostage rescues, bomb defusal, and data mining. These objectives play out across four maps at the moment: an Airport, a mall, an office complex, and an oil rig. Thanks to procedural generation, enemy placements, supply caches, and even your starting position, each attempt changes, ensuring that no two matches play the same way twice. You only have three chances to complete a full campaign before you are sent back to the very beginning. You’re going to have to keep a careful eye on yourself and your team if you want to see the end.
Before a mission kicks off, your squad enters a Planning Phase where you can view a tactical map to plot routes, mark potential enemy positions, and discuss strategy. Based on the map layouts, you can get an idea of where threats might be lurking, what kind of weaponry the team should equip, and what roles you may need to assign your teammates. If you happen to be playing solo, you will unfortunately have to be a one-man army and perform all the tasks by yourself. However, if you searched and collected enemy intel items in previous missions, you will have Intel Points to spend during this phase to uncover key details on the tactical map. This will reveal important information that can make or break a mission, such as the exact locations of medical supplies, which doors are securely locked, and where ladder access points are hidden. The Planning Phase encourages communication and coordination with your team and gives you an immediate read on the kind of players you matched with. It helps everyone stay on the same page rather than panicking when bullets fly, and everyone starts running off in different directions.
Players will be facing off against mostly four distinct enemy types. The Soldier serves as the standard grunt unit, coordinating with others to pin down the squad. Berserkers throw tactics out the window, charging loudly, directly at players with machetes, regardless of whether they have back up or not. Snipers rest at fortified positions, sweeping the area with laser sights and targeting anyone who stands still. The slowest of the units, the Heavies, are tanks that ignore cover entirely and will march their way to blast you down. Taking one enemy one at a time is easy; the AI is kind of predictable at the moment, and they can be ambushed without much fuss. At beginner-level ranked missions, it only takes some patience to solo a mission in minutes. But in a room with multiple patrols and entry points, it’s best to have a plan before your team engages.
The last phase of the mission is waiting for the extraction, and depending on the mission type, that could mean a simple sixty-second countdown to leave or one last firefight. Surviving to this point gives the team time to prep, grab any last-minute intel lying around, or restock on supplies. Once the extraction call is made, enemies will swarm the exit position. This can be tricky in solo play since enemies will be coming at you from all angles. With a team, you can coordinate with watching areas and make sure you don’t get any crossfire. There can be moments when enemies push hard, and that player who likes to spray and pray is someone you should avoid watching your back.
The equipment economy adds another layer of strategy, drawing inspiration from Counter-Strike. Players spend battle-earned cash on weapons and gear before a mission, but failing a mission also means losing their current equipment set. This penalty forces teams to have honest conversations about resource management. Do you pool your resources to balance the team’s loadout, or do the most skilled players keep their rewards to ensure they can carry the squad through tougher fights? It’s a delicate balance between gearing up for success and preparing for the worst. Also, enemy weapons do not replenish similar-caliber weaponry you are carrying, meaning that you either have to get an ammo refill station or get resupplied by your teammate who carries extra ammo in their backpack. Players can’t access their own backpacks, so you’ll have to work out who carries what in order to plan effectively and not be forced to abandon high-value weapons because of an ammo shortage.
In a way to help balance some of the equipment lost, Rogue Point offers Dead Drops, where players have a chance to obtain a randomized rare or high-tier item. There are two ways to obtain a Dead Drop. First, have the funds to afford a roll. Second, find supply rooms that contain a package in a Dead Drop locker in a mission. Supply rooms can be opened with enemy cell phones that you must collect during missions, so it’s worth holding on to a few spare phones for later missions where Dead Drops come in handy for tougher fights. Most gear can be shared with teammates, so upgrading weaponry through Dead Drops can help underfunded teammates get ahead.
Completing missions rewards players with cash and a bonus based on their performance. Getting headshots or getting double kills grants extra cash rewards that can quickly help you access better equipment. Some missions also offer a skill reward, which strengthens your character’s ability. These skills gradually boost small stats such as increased movement speed, extra armor, or a small regenerative health boost. One or two skills by themselves are nice, but five stacked skills allow you to rush into fights with more confidence. Unlike your hard-earned equipment, skills don’t vanish if you fail a mission. But they’re not permanent either. Every new campaign resets your skill progression back to zero, forcing you to rebuild your operator’s ability from scratch.
In the visual department, Rogue Point mixes grounded, tactical model work with neon-drenched accents. The result is a world that feels chaotic yet familiar, making the maps feel like action set pieces taken from movies and TV shows. The structures themselves are littered with small details that sell the chaos: overturned chairs, abandoned food containers, graffiti tags show a world thrown into a manic frenzy by hostile mercenaries. In terms of performance and presentation, Rogue Point reminds me of PayDay 2. Neither game is trying to push graphical boundaries or compete with the photorealism of AAA titles. Instead, they prioritize keeping the action smooth and responsive, especially when the screen fills with enemies, explosions, and gunfire. Rogue Point chooses stability over fidelity, and for a co-op shooter built around chaotic firefights, that’s the right call.
Even in Early Access, the customization options offer enough variety to keep me chasing the next unlock. Weapon attachments and cosmetic skins provide steady progression hooks, and the aesthetic range lets you craft an operator that feels like yours. Attachments are unlocked by using the weapon for a certain number of kills, and unlocking an accessory requires you to complete missions in the campaign. You can build a tough SOB who looks like they’ve survived a dozen campaigns, or you can lean into the game’s neon streak and become a futuristic soldier who loves glowy colors.
It only takes a few missions to get a sense of the Rogue Point’s game loop: survive, upgrade, and push forward to the next fight. Every successful mission brings the team closer to another piece of equipment or skill gained for the battles ahead. Fail, and you’ll feel not only the sting of defeat, but also that hard-earned rifle vanish from your hands. As the campaign builds toward its finale, the threat of getting sent back to square one looms over every firefight. You’ll catch yourself mourning that perfect build you either lucked into or meticulously timed, knowing it could all disappear in one bad breach. It stings, sure. But it never feels pointless. The temporary skills and smart spending soften the pain just enough to make another run feel like progress, not punishment.
At the time of this review, Crowbar Collective has released a roadmap of updates they wish to complete before the release build. I do wish the build had simple features already, like an in-game mini-map you can reference and pre-defined call-outs for pointing out objects to the team. Team communication is pretty much one open-air chat, so if someone is pretty chatty in a match, you might miss out on key details someone quickly mentions. The future updates are expected to focus on more ways to customize weapons and loadouts, giving more players options for how to approach missions.
Whether you squad up with three friends or test your luck as a lone wolf, Rogue Point‘s Early Access build packs enough content to keep action players busy for hours. This isn’t a hyper-realistic tactical simulator where every run demands perfection. The AI still needs a touch more work to feel like enemies are trying to flank you instead of sticking close to their boundaries, something that feels very noticeable in solo play. You still feel the pressure if you are the last man standing, with your team either rooting for you or shouting out your mistakes as you make it to the extraction point. In fact, some of my best moments came from adapting on the fly and cashing in the rewards after everything went sideways. At the moment, there is a growing player base that you can find matches at reasonable hours, but you might have to wait a bit. But once you find a squad that syncs with your playstyle, you can easily find the joy of making every breach exciting. This title is an excellent casual shooter with a good amount of tactical action, and it’s approachable for newcomers and veterans alike without requiring hours of grinding to earn every perk. Rogue Point is a promising contender that deserves a spot in any co-op shooter fan’s rotation.
