Rockay City is a heist simulator from Ingame Studios and 505 Games similar to the Payday series. While the game had a less-than-spectacular launch, the Dragon’s Gold Cup DLC adds a lot of new content for the game, moves the story forward, and could maybe give you a reason to dust your digital copy off to play with friends. In my Rockay City Dragon’s Gold Cup review, I’ll talk about the DLC and if it’s worth getting.
Story and Missions
Continuing from the campaign for the game, you are joined in your takeover of Rockay City with the help of Danny Trejo, playing the role of Dollar Dragon. Initially acting as a new rival for Travis Baker, the two form an alliance in order to pull off the next big heist – The Dragon’s Gold Cup.
With the promise of a king’s ransom hidden in the vault, Travis and his newfound ally continue their takeover of the city together, taking on missions leading up to the heist. The venue itself is aptly packed with lots of action and tense moments that lead to a lot of excitement when you do kick off the heist.
While you can play the expansion by yourself, I think it’s best to bring friends. If not, you will do a lot of switching between yourself and AI partners, which is boring. There are a lot of story missions leading to the heist, but they mostly involve tailing, gathering intelligence, or fighting your way through the police to an escape.
Aside from the heist, there are additions to the main campaign story with new missions and storylines for players to further explore and expand with friends or by themselves. Whether it’s worth it or not is up to you to decide, but the events to lead to the game’s titular heist are a fun ride with a few bumps along the way.
Unfortunately, the writing is still as overly vulgar and obnoxious as the base game. Some of the cutscenes in the game were just a grind to watch and all of them felt like over-the-top performances with unnecessary and overdone writing to where I spent more time on my phone than understanding the story.
Gameplay and AI
The gameplay loop is similar to that of the base game. You carry out tailing missions, and other similar prerequisites required to unlock the heist which mainly revolve around gathering intel or crucial pieces of equipment/items that you will need for the heist. Once you meet a certain goal you will be able to bring the Dollar Dragon on your heist and the two of you take on the new venue together.
The game will have you doing tailing missions, stealth, robbing trucks, and malls, defending and attacking turf, and other similar missions that you are already familiar with in the base game. Players will be able to take control of Travis and his AI crew (or a friend) in order to complete the heist.
All in all, this is a familiar loop for players who have played the game to know. While the AI is significantly better in this than the base game, they still rely on you doing most of the carrying.
I was the sole player looting from the trucks and other objectives and I would barely ever see the AI teammates put their loot in the escape vehicle. They did a decent enough job of keeping the police off me but would equally get incapacitated at 1 or 2-star wanted levels, requiring to be revived.
Bring a Friend
If you wish to go through the expansion alone, you can either take on the missions as Travis to further level up your rank faster, or you can play as one of the hired guns. While out on missions you can also switch to an AI teammate to use their equipment and speed up the heist too. Albeit this is more tedious and is pretty monotonous after a while as you switch between teammates to carry bags into the escape vehicle, which is why I highly recommend bringing a friend along the ride.
The good part about the expansion is how only the party leader needs to host the game session and your friends who don’t own the expansion can join you for it without them owning it.
Conclusion
Dragon’s Gold Cup is a fun addition to the game, and there are improvements all around. The added benefit of only the host needing to own the DLC pack for others to enjoy it softens the blow of traditional post-launch content practices. However, playing the campaign alone can feel a bit boring as the entire point of a heist simulation title is to experience it with friends.
The addition of a new celebrity character who brings a lot of personality to the game, new missions, and a heist that looks promising is a good start on the road to improvement, but some of the writing, and the heavy reliance on playing with friends, particularly when stronger competitor titles are out is going to be a hard sell even if there are significant improvements.
The DLC is out now on PC through the Epic Games Store, Xbox Series S|X, and the PS5. Here is a look at the roadmap for the upcoming planned content.
What did you think of our Rockay City Dragon’s Gold Cup review? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This preview is based on the PS5 version of Rockay City Dragon’s Gold Cup. The key was provided by Diva Agency.
