The Precinct Review (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 & PC)

An hour or two on “the beat” was enough to convince me that I was a terrible, terrible police officer. It could have been a simple shift—a six-hour stint of handing out parking tickets, for example—yet I’d often find myself causing more damage, more trouble, and adding more names to the death toll than the gangs that I was supposedly assigned to quell. Sadly, it never got any easier, either. The Precinct served me the full weight of the world and put it on my shoulders, and I, as the rookie cop, dropped it faster than a volatile baton at a bonfire disco.

In spite of my best efforts to earn a badge in the noir-like boroughs of The Precinct, I often found myself looking the other way. Either that, or dealing with harmless situations in a provocative manner, with a high-speed pursuit, a ballsy shootout, and an intense confrontation with an intoxicated suspect. I’d book ‘em, accrue a small pocket of XP, and then set out to make the same mistakes all over again. The patrol would continue, and the sleepy hollow of Averno would reluctantly return to cower at the mere sight of my blaring siren.

In an ordinary situation, I would have been fired on the first beat. In The Precinct, though, it didn’t matter if I set the world alight, for there was always a person of interest who was far more deserving of a pat down. And that was just as well, given that I spent more time as an officer wreaking havoc than solving punishable crimes. I had a handbook—an informative guide that allowed me to brush up on the basics, true—but I also had a cruiser, free will, and a boatload of backup. The point is, I had far too much freedom. I wasn’t a great cop; I was a vigilante who figured he could suppress the criminal underworld before brunch.

The Precinct, for those of you who’ve yet to enroll in a law enforcement program, is a top-down action-based police simulator that takes the form of a love letter to old-school Grand Theft Auto chapters. Rather than pitting you against the law, however, The Precinct puts you on the right hand of it, as a rookie cop who, after receiving a direct order to eradicate two rivaling gang factions, sets out to put a leash on the streets, one parking ticket at a time. A parking ticket, and then some.

The plot here is simple: a local gang loses its control over the city, and two aspiring factions step up to take a stab at the underworld. As the rookie, it falls to you to complete assignments, gather evidence that can be used to incriminate suspects, and to aid the city in its desperate hour of need. There’s XP to unlock with each arrest that you make, as well as additional tools, weapons, cruisers, and backup options to earn as you gradually whittle through the ranks. Basically, it’s an all-in-one policing simulator, complete with all of the B-movie car chases, shootouts, and popcorn flick pulp.

Between its visual novel-like cutscenes and dramatic tearaways, The Precinct invites you to embark on a series of shifts. As you arrive at the precinct, you choose which set of assignments to take on—foot patrol, parking fines, or scouring the streets for vandals, and so on and so forth. From there, you set out to respond to various crime calls and, through various deduction methods, submit a fine or make an arrest. XP is added to your rank, and, if you’re really lucky, a piece of vital evidence falls into your hands to help you construct a case study against a criminal faction. With that, you have a basic gameplay loop.

If The Precinct was solely about handing out parking fines, then there wouldn’t be much of a game here. As luck would have it, though, the badge comes with a lot of responsibilities for you to tackle between shifts. For example, when you’re out on patrol, you might find yourself responding to a heist, a midnight robbery, a reckless driver, or a smuggler who has an interest in exporting contraband across the city. As the right hand of the law, it falls to you to assess each case, lean on your handbook, and make decisions based on your findings. The greater your case report is, the better your XP haul is, naturally.

Let it be said that, while there are some infuriating moments in The Precinct (the drawn-out pursuits, for example), a good portion of the experience is a lot of fun to carve through. With a decently sized world to explore, as well as a generous selection of crimes to respond to and upgrades to unlock, police work is, in spite of all the paperwork, surprisingly rewarding. It’s also a lot weightier than, say, Police Simulator: Patrol Officers, in that it has more skill trees, more options, and more depth in its world-building and character development departments. It even presents itself as a tidier game, too, with elements that feel reminiscent of Disco Elysium.

Of course, as with most niche video games, there are only so many miles that you can do before the graft can begin to take its toll. In the opening sequence, for example, you have plenty to do, with fresh characters to meet, new crimes to solve, and a solid variety of tasks to complete. Once the training wheels fall off, however, the journey begins to take a turn for the worse. The grind begins, and with it, a lot of legwork, repetitive bookings, and a general sense of fatigue that comes with the same voiceovers, the same evidence, and the same routine checks. The only thing you have to look forward to, really, is the post-report shootouts—the events that follow on from several hours of fact checking and evidence analysis.

The good news here is that, despite there being a lot of repetition in the shift work, The Precinct often has a special way of keeping you on your toes. Booking suspects, enrolling in precision-based shootouts, and exploring the city, for example, all make for oddly enjoyable experiences. What’s more, it offers you a relatively provoking plot to unravel, with convincing voiceovers, faction underbosses and crime rings there to keep you on the beat and in search of that next all-important piece of evidence. Don’t get me wrong, it can feel awfully repetitive at times, but then, there is something oddly satisfying about arresting the general public for crimes they probably didn’t commit. Maybe that was just my experience, though.

Verdict

The Precinct blends the best of open-world sandboxes with a crime-based twist à la Disco Elysium to create an in-depth cop drama that, while still repetitive at times, has enough grit, crime, and noir-like charm to entice even the most notorious villains to join the beat for a stint around the block. With enough variety in its case system, as well as a trove of upgrades, weapons, and XP-based milestones to help you ascend through the ranks, Fallen Tree Games seems to hit the nail on the head here. It might not be on par with LA Noire, but it’s arguably one of the better police simulators that money can buy. I’d count that as a blessing, to be honest.