This month Rogue Company launched its first official season alongside the biggest patch in the game’s history. A number of things in the game have changed overnight, and most of them are straight improvements, although there are a handful of questionable additions as well. Let’s go over the biggest changes in Rogue Company Season 1.
Ranked mode rework
The Rogue Company ranked mode is switching from a point grind to a placement match system, and that’s great. The new system is designed to deliver better competitive matchmaking, which would lead to less frustration. It’s also a lot less smurf-friendly, so that’s good.
New limited time game mode and new Rogue
New content in live service games is (almost) always good news, and it certainly is in Season 1 of Rogue Company. Kestrel is a fun new Rogue that seems well balanced out of the gate, and comes with unique weapons (the Riptide AR and Knight SMG), a unique perk (Resupply), and good synergy with Dahlia.
The new Sabotage limited time mode is fine. It’s not a huge departure from previous Rogue Company LTMs, and like those other modes it does split up the game’s population unnecessarily, so I personally could have done without it. That said, it seems that Hi-Rez uses these LTMs to test ways to tweak and improve the Rogue Company gameplay as a whole, and that’s good.
Battle pass and cosmetics
With Season 1 Rogue Company launched its first battle pass. All in all it’s a standard affair: players can earn a number of limited cosmetics and in-game currency by playing the game and grinding the pass. Some in the game’s Reddit community are complaining about a perceived lack of rewards, but shooter game communities generally complain all the time anyway, so this doesn’t actually reflect on the quality of the battle pass.
The only thing I see as an issue is the introduction of Boosts. Boosts are gained through the battle pass, and when used they raise you experience gain rate for a period of time, which tics down even when you’re not playing. Like daily challenges, this is a FOMO-based tactic and I am not happy to see Hi-Rez resort to it, especially when a better version of it exists in Paladins.
Phantom gets the Nightshade
Arguably the best change in Season 1 of Rogue Company is that Phantom is replacing her Arren DMR with the Nightshade. Until now Phantom essentially had two sniper rifles that had noticeable differences but still kept her in a niche, restricting her gameplay to mostly hanging back and taking angles. A silenced mid-to-close range weapon lets her roam and support her team in more positions, opening up her gameplay dramatically. She’s just a lot more fun now.
Moving away from restrictive archetypes is always good, and I hope Rogue Company keeps that theme going in the future.
