
The Precinct is an indie game with ambition. Its fictional 1980s setting of Averno City is an enjoyably complex little sandbox, presenting players with an endless supply of procedurally generated crimes that need to be stopped from a top-down perspective, reminiscent of old Grand Theft Auto games.
You play as rookie cop Nick Cordell, who's surrounded by a cast of endearingly cliche characters, ranging from hardboiled detectives to comically evil criminals. Nick's on the trail of his father's killers, you see, but the only way he's cracking that case is by hitting the streets.
To be clear, you're not playing The Precinct for its story. Plot points are dished out through static, portrait-driven dialogue scenes, and although the writing's quite snappy and entertainingly schlocky at times, narrative tension isn't really what the game's going for.

The main story plays out in chunks, with new missions unlocking whenever you rack up enough evidence while out on your standard patrols. It's a decent structure given how dynamic these patrols can be, but the grind for evidence — which drops at random as you complete objectives — does start to feel a bit tedious towards the end of this 10-ish hour campaign.
But as mentioned, the title's sandbox leanings are at the forefront of the experience. Each in-game day begins with Nick and his beat partner Kelly choosing a patrol route and solving crimes within the area. Again, the crimes themselves are procedurally generated; one minute you're issuing a parking ticket, the next you're chasing down armed bank robbers.
The whole system feels impressively alive and fluid. Whether you're driving down the highway or hoofing it through alleyways, you'll be alerted to nearby disturbances — and then you've got to try and do things by the book.

Picture this: you hit your sirens on someone suspected of speeding. They pull over, you order them out of their car, and run through the usual procedures; a background check on their ID, a breathalyser test. They're clean and it's looking like a straightforward fine, but then you ask them to pop their trunk — and guess what? They dive back into their vehicle and bomb off down the road.
A car chase ensues, and after requesting some support — or maybe even a spike strip — the escapee's ready to call it quits. You slap the cuffs on them, find some narcotics in their trunk, and then work your way through the game's charges menu. You book 'em for possession of illegal goods, speeding, and, of course, evading arrest.
All of this happens in the space of about two minutes, and that's what makes The Precinct such a moreish game. Any of the factors we just described can change on the fly — every crime's totally dynamic, and by paying attention and slapping suspects with the correct charges, you're awarded additional experience points upon finishing your patrol.

And naturally, callouts don't always go so smoothly. When firearms are involved, you're given license to use lethal force, via the title's twin-stick shooting mechanics. Although we wish that the cover system was a bit more involved — you can only get behind waist-high objects, for some reason — the gunplay is surprisingly tense and deadly, even on the default difficulty setting.
On that note, we should point out just how technical The Precinct feels. Because of its branching crime mechanics, the controls do take a little getting used to. Between remembering different button prompts for certain actions and navigating the various charge-related options via the aforementioned menus, there's a lot to keep track of.
But once you've got the hang of things, the game's well-balanced mix of fairly standard policework and full-on cop movie action makes for a delightfully fun sandbox. Whenever you leave the station to start your shift, you just never quite know what you're going to encounter.

As with any sandbox title worth its salt, there's potential for hilarity on the streets of Averno City. While you're supposed to try and operate like RoboCop and follow the law to the letter, there will, inevitably, be times when everything goes to sh*t and all you can do is laugh in the face of disaster.
Indeed, NPC AI can be brilliantly reactive, resulting in a kind of domino effect where entire neighbourhoods devolve into chaos. Firefights, for example, can spill out onto highways, where criminals can be mistakenly mowed down by oncoming traffic.
Suddenly, every driver in the vicinity starts to panic, pedestrians are running for dear life from rogue vehicles, and you've got no choice but to just watch in awe as cars pile up at the nearest intersection. Your objective's a total bust — you can't arrest a road stain — but you can't possibly be mad about it.
Conclusion
The Precinct is an impressive sandbox romp. Fueled by a dynamic crime system that offers up hours of fun, bite-sized objectives, it's a very difficult game to put down. Every patrol is different, and although tedium does start to set in as the campaign approaches its conclusion, it's still easy to appreciate the intricate and tight design of this ode to old cop movies.
Comments 53
If anyone's got any questions about the game or the review, let me know and I can try to answer them.
Really glad The Precinct turned out well (at least, in my opinion) — it always looked cool leading up to release!
This alone makes my nostalgia scream, but knowing that the crime system works well, that there's synthwave music to increase the nostalgia and that we have a nice package of cliches working well together definitely makes me put this one on my wishlist for a future purchase
@ShogunRok pro enhanced? Do you get promotions, detective etc and are there murders to solve any serial killers that's ongoing throughout the game
Is this going to be 40 for digital as well? Price is not showing on PSN
Game runs at 30fps, even on Pro.
I feel that should have been mentioned in the review.
@lazarus11 You do technically get promotions but they're not story-related. Basically, as you rack up experience points, you level up, which unlocks new patrol vehicles and weapons.
And without spoiling anything, there is a lengthy side story that involves a serial killer.
It's so cool to see that classic GTA style alive and kicking.
This sounds quite good actually. Another one to watch out for.
A GTA 1 remaster/remake would go so hard! the game is getting eaten alive on Metacritic with a 62 score, not sure why that is 🤔
I think my Amazon copy arrived this morning. I loved the Steam demo, it looks like Oblivion might have to go on timeout.
It sometimes feels like every game gets an 8/10 these days - makes it hard to take these reviews seriously anymore to be honest.
@Oram77 That happened with the demo too. On reddit it came down to 'cops bad', that was literally the only fault some people could find with it. Professional reviews will probably find faults when they realize they have to sink time in to progress, and not all reviewers want to do that (especially if it's an Indie) They want to shoot reviews out like an assembly line because it's less about product visibility and more about their own visibility. We run into the exact same thing when we send out samples/Albums/EPs etc, some reviewers are just lazy and are only doing it for the perks not for the ethics of an honest review.
'The main story plays out in chunks, with new missions unlocking whenever you rack up enough evidence while out on your standard patrols.' - Not every reviewer is willing to do that, they want to be spoon-fed a campaign. Not to mention the fact that the Devs didn't say 'we are making a GTA game' and some of the faults are that it didn't live up to their GTA-like expectations.
There aren't many qualifications needed to be picked up as a reviewer for most media outlets, some people go the extra mile (this site) and others don't even do the bare minimum which is reflected in a lot of those current Metacritic reviews.
@bluemage1989 that's why we read the words and use our brains to extrapolate the information given to decide for ourselves whether the points raised resonate with us as individuals, or whether we need to further research other opinions to get a more varied view of the product overall 😛
@Oram77 It looks janky and rough from what I've seen online today and last night, world is small, graphics are more like a PS4 era isometric game. And this at 30fps?
Perhaps with patches and more content, although devs have apparently ruled out 60fps 🤷♀️
Compare with something like The Ascent, same style graphics in a bigger more complex world and years old and it runs at 4K60, or near it.
I think 60 something sounds reasonable score for this, even with the low price point.
I'm disappointed because I wanted this to be great, but perhaps I'll give it a whirl if it comes to ps+ at some point.
@ShogunRok Here's a classic dad question: Is it a pick-up-and-play type of title with a simple and memorable control scheme so it can be played in short bursts of free time?
Sweet this looks different enough for me to be interested. Nice review as always!
@bluemage1989 that makes very little sense and games shouldn't get a grade based on the games that released around it.
I'm interested. Might have to wait for sale though
@Czar_Khastik You probably won't find this helpful, but the answer is yes and no.
Yes in the sense that it's very bite-sized in terms of structure. You can do a patrol in ten minutes and make good progress. It's definitely not a game where you need to sit down for hours at a time.
And no because the controls and mechanics definitely take time to click. I would hazard a guess that they might be difficult to pick back up after a break from the game.
I do think that once you're over that initial learning curve, the game does feel quite natural (and to be fair, there are options that simplify the game slightly, including easy difficulties).
Every patrol is different, and although tedium does start to set in as the campaign approaches its conclusion
As a retired cop myself, @ShogunRok, this sounds like most shifts I worked!
Really looking forward to playing this. See if I feel like I'm recapturing some of my past glories... 😂
@ShogunRok that's great news , I preordered off amazon, out of stock now , lack of a serial killer would've been a missed opportunity 😁
@ShogunRok That was actually very helpful, thank you!
@bluemage1989 eh 🤣🤣
@Fiendish-Beaver Haha, would love to hear what you think of the game given your experience!
30fps should be alright if frame pacing is good for this type of game, i knew the framerate police would show up though once this was known 🤣
Is Cordell a nod to the Maniac Cop films? I'm sure Robert Z'Dar who plays the cop is named Matt Cordell
Though it feels obvious everyone seems to be comparing it to GTA,it brings to mind the old Sierra "Police Quest" series...thankfully without the need to walk around your patrol car & check all four tyres before going out on patrol! 😋😂
Not the easiest genre to tackle with classed as "Indie" or AA...might not be a day one buy, but given the multiplayer online direction of GTA these days,quite happy to look for something more single player based.
Sounds like a good laugh, glad the game ended up being well worth playing.
@ShogunRok could you kindly comment the frame rate/performance of the game?
Definitely checking this out, nice one 👍
This looks so damn good. Just grabbed it
@Fatewalker Frame rate is capped at 30fps on PS5 and PS5 Pro. I noticed some slight dips during the review period when things got really chaotic, but that was about it.
For what it's worth, I don't think the 30fps cap makes a huge difference in a top-down, smaller scale game like this. But I probably should have still mentioned it in the review — I can add it in if people want.
@GirlVersusGame It's an underrated trilogy. The third one is admittedly terribly naff and nonsensical but the first and second are geniunely great fun. There's some well known actors from the 80s too (Bruce Campbell playing it reasonably straight is a highlight).
Thanks for the great review. I’m really looking forward to this one.
@ShogunRok Oh I see, but is kinda odd not offering a performance mode specially on the pro. Could have sacrifice the resolution and other effects. Thank you very much for the feedback!
@Americansamurai1 £29.99 on hit
Will probably pick it up on steam deck, looks like a perfect portable game.
@Fatewalker Yeah I'm guessing because it's from such a small team, they just focused on getting performance steady at 30. A shame, but maybe it'll be updated at a later time.
I'm looking forward to this one quite a bit. American Fugitive just needed more polish and flair and it would've been a classic.
@PS12345 why is top down game running 30 fps wtf
Looks like fun, better ai and sandbox than cyberpunk..
Optimization is a no no, isnt 60fps a requirement now on newgen?
Shame, this should be able to run 240 it seems.
Will wait to see if it gets updated , otherwise a pick up at low price.
Sounds decent in terms of design, I just have no interest cosplaying a cop lmfao.
Give me another fallout like game with this perspective and I'm all in. However this whole cop thing here or the corporatized criminal cliche thing Ala GTA is just not my bag.
@Jtheripper Its not mandatory to have 60fps, besides this game wouldnt really benefit that much from it anyway. Funny thing is that apart from the readership here and a few other grumbling dens on t'internet most folk simply dont care what framerate it is and will just play it 😀
@GirlVersusGame Nice. It really just needed some personality and bug fixes. You can do a lot of cool things in that game.
Sounds interesting i will have to check it out.
Been playing it for a couple of hours tonight, and it's definitely enjoyable.
It is though clearly an indie game. Controls are janky, voice acting is ok at best and car chases gets quite tedious fast as the perp cars have a durability of a tank,
But like I said, it's fun and got a quite nice mixture of tasks to perform. Given it's quite cheap, I'd say it's worth the buy if you like games like this, and as an old Police Quest-fan who loved the patrol bits, I sure do.
£31.99 limited edition from Amazon. I’m a buyer
Played it for a few hours after work, for to say it's a fun little game, would pretty much echo the comments of @Jeaz above.
Worth a punt for the price
Done this job for eight years, just got a detective spot last month. The bit about requesting spike strips in a car chase is pretty on point. However, I can confirm promotions are not necessarily given based on experience or how many cases you have closed in real life. If only, haha.
I guess it wouldn't have been too much fun if they simulated 4 hours of report writing after every DUI arrest. But seems surprisingly realistic and technical for a game of this type.
I absolutely will not be playing this 😆
Really enjoying this and a good effort from a small indie team. Feels like im playing Hill Street Blues 🤣
@Bamila I mean, a top down game running at 120FPS sounds just as ridiculous.
@Jeaz Kind of like the chases that way, more of a challenge, had a bank robbery suspect evading arrest and I eventually shoved the van into the lake, only one guy came out and opened fire on me before I could arrest him. Pretty deep for a pretty simple game.
@ShogunRok Do you think an 8/10 is too high for a game that has the array of technical issues, flat characters and banal activities that The Precinct often mires players in? Though it's sort-of unique, placing parking fines on car windscreens isn't a fun activity.
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