The Precinct – Review
The Precinct doesn’t just flip the script by putting you in a police uniform; it rewinds the tape to 1983, a world blessedly free of cybercrime and social media, where police work was about hitting the pavement, chasing down leads, and the satisfying screech of tires on rain-slicked asphalt. It presents itself as an isometric police sandbox, a pulsating, procedurally-generated city where you, as a rookie cop with a tragic backstory, are the only thing standing between order and chaos. The game brilliantly captures the high-octane thrill of a classic car chase and the unpredictable nature of street-level policing. However, in its slavish devotion to the tropes of its cinematic inspirations, it often sacrifices narrative depth and gameplay variety at the altar of nostalgia. The Precinct is a masterfully crafted engine for emergent chaos and a thrillingly destructive ode to the buddy-cop genre, but its journey is ultimately more memorable than its destination, creating a brilliant, beautiful, and fundamentally flawed sandbox of justice.
Welcome to Averno, Rookie: A City Drenched in Neon and Noir Tropes
The game boots up with a premise so familiar it feels like a well-worn VHS tape. You are Nick Cordell Jr., a fresh-faced rookie straight out of the academy, reporting for your first day at the Averno City Police Department. You are not just any rookie, however; you are the son of the former police chief, a man of legendary repute who was murdered in the line of duty years ago. The case went cold, the city’s soul grew colder, and now it’s up to you to not only fill your father’s enormous shoes but also to unravel the conspiracy that led to his death.
Your introduction to the force is a whirlwind of 80s cop movie clichés. You’re partnered with a grizzled, “two-weeks-from-retirement” veteran named Kelly, whose bad hip conveniently makes you the designated driver for every patrol. You’ll get ribbed by your fellow officers about donuts, and your new chief—a man with a suspiciously kind demeanor and a perfectly maintained mustache—will tell you just how proud your old man would be. The narrative that unfolds is a pastiche of every police procedural you’ve ever seen, a connect-the-dots mystery involving warring street gangs, a trail of evidence, and the inevitable discovery of corruption deep within the force.
The setting for this drama is Averno City, and it is here that The Precinct lays its strongest foundation. This is not a sprawling, lifeless map, but a dense, character-filled urban environment that perfectly captures the grit and glamor of 1983. From the steam rising from sewer grates to the neon signs of seedy strip clubs casting a lurid glow on wet streets, the city feels alive. The top-down isometric perspective, far from being a limitation, allows for an incredible level of detail. Vandalized phone booths, graffiti-covered alleyways, and the distinct architecture of different neighborhoods give Averno a tangible sense of place. It’s a city perpetually caught between a rainstorm and a crime wave, a beautiful, decaying metropolis that is as much a character as Nick Cordell Jr. himself.
Unfortunately, the writing rarely matches the quality of the world-building. While the campy, over-the-top tone is clearly intentional and often charming, the dialogue is astonishingly trite. Nearly every pedestrian seems to speak exclusively in recycled lines from popular culture, from “Eat my shorts” to “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” The main story missions, which involve taking down the lieutenants of two major gangs—the Jawheads and the Crimson Serpents—are drip-fed to the player between long stretches of sandbox policing. This structure ensures the core gameplay loop remains central, but it kneecaps any narrative momentum. The story becomes a justification for the action rather than a compelling reason to engage with it, a series of predictable beats that you feel you’ve seen a hundred times before. It’s a missed opportunity, as a more engaging plot could have elevated the entire experience from a great sandbox into a true classic.
The Beat: A Procedural Day in the Life of a Cop
Where the narrative falters, the gameplay loop shines. The core of The Precinct is the daily shift. At the start of each day, you select a patrol type—on foot, in a car, or even in a helicopter—choose a district, and set the duration of your shift. Once you hit the streets, Averno City comes alive with an endless stream of procedurally generated crime. This is the game’s beating heart, a dynamic system that ensures no two days on the beat are ever quite the same.
The genius of this system lies in its incredible variety and frequency. You cannot drive a block without seeing a traffic violation, witnessing a mugging, or hearing the dispatch radio crackle to life with a report of a nearby shootout. One moment you’re meticulously writing a parking ticket for an illegally parked sedan, the next you’re in a high-speed pursuit of a bank robber, weaving through traffic as debris flies in your wake. The game masterfully balances the mundane with the spectacular. You’ll break up fistfights, chase down purse-snatchers, conduct traffic stops, raid drug dens, and ticket people for littering. This constant activity creates a palpable sense of being an officer overwhelmed by a city teetering on the edge of lawlessness.
The Precinct cleverly incentivizes you to engage with its more “simulator”-like aspects. You’re equipped with a police handbook that details the correct procedure for every imaginable offense. By following the rules—properly identifying a suspect, reading them their rights, searching for contraband, performing a breathalyzer test, and itemizing every single charge correctly—you maximize your experience point (XP) gain for each arrest. This XP is crucial for progression, allowing you to rank up and spend upgrade points in four categories: Physical (health and stamina), Combat (weapon handling), Policing (procedural efficiency), and Vehicle (durability and performance). Each upgrade feels meaningful, making you a more effective officer and giving the daily grind a clear sense of purpose.
However, this procedural loop is also the game’s biggest weakness. The very act of processing a criminal, which is initially novel and immersive, becomes a monotonous chore. Cycling through menus to select charges for the twentieth time in a single shift wears thin. The game’s greatest strength—the sheer volume of crime—can also lead to a sense of Sisyphean futility. For every crime you stop, three more seem to pop up in its place. While this is likely a realistic portrayal of police work, it can feel repetitive as a gameplay mechanic, especially when the underlying story missions are so few and far between.
High-Speed Pursuits and Street-Level Takedowns: The Action of Averno
The moment-to-moment action of The Precinct is divided into two core pillars: vehicular pursuits and on-foot encounters. One is an absolute triumph; the other is merely serviceable.
Vehicular Chaos and Tactical Chases
The car chases in The Precinct are, without exaggeration, some of the most exhilarating and purely fun experiences in any recent action game. Fallen Tree Games has nailed the physics and handling. Vehicles have a satisfying weight and drift to them, allowing for thrilling maneuvers through tight alleyways and around sharp corners. The destructible environment adds to the spectacle, as you can smash through fences, parking meters, and small concrete walls in your relentless pursuit of a suspect.
What elevates these chases from simple arcade fun to something more tactical is the support system. By staying close to a fleeing suspect, you build up “Support Tokens,” which can be spent to call in a variety of backup options. You can deploy spike strips ahead of a target, call in additional squad cars to help box them in, request a heavily armored riot van to ram them off the road, or even summon a helicopter to track them with a spotlight. Using these tools effectively is key to ending pursuits quickly and adds a welcome layer of strategy to the chaos. The resulting pile-ups, with multiple squad cars, civilian vehicles, and the suspect’s car all tangled in a mess of shattered glass and screeching metal, are a constant source of emergent, unscripted delight.
On-Foot Justice and Clunky Combat
When the chase ends and you’re forced to leave your vehicle, the game loses some of its momentum. The on-foot mechanics are functional but lack the polish and dynamism of the driving. Combat operates like a standard twin-stick shooter. You aim with one stick and fire with the other, taking cover behind objects to avoid incoming fire. While you eventually gain access to a variety of weapons, from your standard-issue revolver to shotguns and assault rifles, the gunplay never feels particularly weighty or satisfying.
Foot pursuits are a simple matter of chasing a suspect down and performing a tackle. The AI can be erratic, with criminals sometimes getting stuck on geometry or making bizarre decisions. Your partner, Kelly, is particularly prone to pathfinding errors, often taking the most circuitous route possible to get back to the patrol car. The developers have cleverly solved this by having him magically teleport into the passenger seat if you drive off without him, a bit of video game logic that prevents him from being a constant source of frustration. While the on-foot sections provide a necessary change of pace, they feel like a clear second priority to the vehicular action, a functional but uninspired system that serves primarily to connect one thrilling car chase to the next.
The Sights and Sounds of ’83: A Flawless Presentation
Visually and aurally, The Precinct is a masterclass in atmospheric design. The decision to use an isometric camera is not a nostalgic crutch but a brilliant design choice that allows the city to be the star. The level of detail packed into Averno is staggering, and the art style, with subtle outlines on vehicles and characters, gives the world an almost illustrated, graphic novel quality. The lighting is particularly noteworthy, with the harsh sunlight of a day shift giving way to the soft, colorful glow of neon signs reflecting off wet pavement during the night.
The sound design further enhances the immersion. The constant chatter of the police radio, the diverse sounds of a living city, the satisfying crunch of metal on metal during a collision, and the iconic wail of the sirens all combine to create a rich and believable soundscape. While the voice acting is serviceable at best and often falls into campy melodrama (with some noticeable audio quality issues like peaking and crackling), it fits the B-movie, buddy-cop tone the game is aiming for. Performance on consoles is a point of contention, with the game locked at 30 frames per second, a disappointment for a title with such fast-paced action. However, it generally maintains this lock, providing a smooth if not ideal experience.
Final Verdict: A Flawed but Unforgettable Ride-Along
The Precinct is a game of brilliant highs and frustrating lows. It is a game that so perfectly captures the anarchic joy of an 80s car chase and the emergent, unscripted comedy of a city spiraling into chaos. The procedural crime system creates a truly dynamic sandbox where you feel like a single, overwhelmed officer trying to hold back an unstoppable tide of lawlessness. The world of Averno City is a stunning artistic achievement, a beautifully realized time capsule that is a joy to simply exist in.
And yet, it is a game held back by its own ambitions. The narrative it sets up is a paper-thin collection of the genre’s most tired clichés, a predictable story that fails to provide a compelling emotional core. The core gameplay loop of policing, while initially engaging, inevitably succumbs to repetition, turning a thrilling power fantasy into something that can, at times, feel like a genuine nine-to-five job. The on-foot combat and investigation mechanics lack the depth and polish of the superb driving, making them feel like filler between the game’s more exhilarating moments.
To recommend The Precinct is to recommend it for what it is, not what it could have been. If you are looking for a deep, character-driven police drama in the vein of L.A. Noire or The Wire, you will be sorely disappointed. But if you are a fan of the top-down chaos of classic GTA, if you have a fondness for the cheesy action of 80s cop movies, and if you relish the emergent, player-driven stories that only a true sandbox can provide, then The Precinct is an absolute must-play. It is a game that understands that sometimes, the best stories aren’t the ones written by developers, but the ones you create yourself when you T-bone a suspect’s car at an intersection, sending it pinwheeling into a hot dog stand as three other patrol cars pile into the wreckage. It’s not a perfect police simulator, and it’s not a great police story, but it is one hell of a ride.
