Crime Boss: Rockay City Feels Like a Half-Baked, Rushed Heist

wccftech.com:

Crime Boss: Rockay City felt a bit weird from the get-go. The crime-themed game was announced at The Game Awards 2022 for a late March release on PC (as an Epic Games Store exclusive) and immediately offered a 40% discount over its already budget-type price of $40. That offer lasted for two full days, only to be replaced by a 20% promotion off Crime Boss: Rockay City that stood active for the entire pre-order period up until the game was released today.

Needless to say, it's unique rather than merely rare to witness such a promotion for a game that still hadn't been launched. I had nearly forgotten about it, though, and as the release date inched ever closer, I reached out to PR to check out the game.

That's when I was told that while Crime Boss: Rockay City code would be provided (albeit only a few days in advance, as it turned out), updates to the PC version and the full launch on consoles would be coming later this year, so it was up to me whether I wanted to wait until the most complete edition became available or just check it out right away.

This is also very unusual wording coming from PR and it immediately reminded me of the aforementioned pre-launch promotion. Adding two and two, I had an inkling of what was happening here and confirmed it after playing the game for some time.

The current version of Crime Boss: Rockay City can be essentially considered an early access release and a middling one, too. While there's the skeleton of a potentially interesting game, much more meat (read: content and features) would be needed to actually get there.

Let's take a step back for a moment and overview exactly the kind of game we're talking about. Publisher 505 Games and developer INGAME STUDIOS didn't exactly explain a lot