Chaos has its charm. In video games, the fascination for controlling outlaw characters, chaotic, destructive, and living on the edge of the impossible has given rise to a thousand and one projects that have kept us glued to the TV for thousands of hours. However, among so many GTA, Sleeping Dogs, Mafia, or similar titles, I have missed —as you probably have too— seeing the other side of the coin: the side of law, order, justice, and good practice. In this context, The Precinct emerges, an open world that excited us all when it was announced at the beginning of 2024, and that I have finally been able to try. It has left me wanting more, dreaming about how the range of possibilities offered by playing as a police officer in a corrupt city in the 1980s in the United States will expand.
Because yes, although there is L.A. Noire as a tremendously evocative project of 1950s Los Angeles, that development by Rockstar Games and Team Bondi is unique in its kind. An open world that could have offered much more, and whose success might have determined, perhaps, that games about police officers became the norm. That’s why The Precinct arrives as a breath of fresh air, glancing at L.A. Noire and its everyday life, but also at GTA and its concept of a lively, crazy open world set in a chaotic scenario that seems unthinkable that such a city could exist; although all this without the double reading of the Rockstar Games team on American society.
You can play The Precinct demo from October 14 to 21 as part of the Steam Next Fest
Indeed, The Precinct demo, one that you can try yourself next week, from October 14 to 21 as part of Steam Next Fest, starts with a clear reverence to the titanic Rockstar saga. With music that evokes the adventure of the trio Michael, Trevor, and Franklin, while panning through the darkest places of this fictional city in a moment of urban decay that does not seem to match what we hear. The Precinct takes us to Averno —a name that is not chosen at random—, a city where there are hardly any honest policemen left. Much of the city is besieged by gangs, drugs, robberies, and other crimes.
Its “story mode” is visually limited, although the character art is good
While The Precinct does not opt for the visual and social decay of Grand Theft Auto IV or Batman’s Gotham, this city is portrayed as a pit of despair in American society. The Fallen Tree Games team makes its intentions clear: even though everything is about to collapse, you are a police officer, and you are the one who will stop the downfall. As players, we will step into the shoes of Nick Cordell Jr., a rookie police officer, son of a veteran commissioner who was murdered by the gangs months ago.
In this case, the debut of Fallen Tree Games does not seek to establish a solid narrative foundation, because The Precinct is more of a police simulator than an adventure and action game in the GTA style. The independent team reduces all motivation to a simple call to duty, while relying on clichés and typical exaggerations of police movies from the 80s and 90s. The game is about its city, one that we can freely explore as a good open world, and how we, as players, set aside the epic and moral ambiguity of similar games to focus on strictly following orders.
The police station is the center of everything, here we will end the day, we can interrogate suspects or choose equipment in the Armory
As a police officer in Averno, we will have to perform typical tasks, such as patrolling looking for badly parked cars, vandals, and even minor infractions, such as littering, to the more difficult ones, such as a hostage situation, a city chase, or raiding a designer drug factory. Although the demo barely lets us try a trio of archetypal missions as a tasting, like an appetizer before a sumptuous menu (vehicle chase missions with shootout, street patrol, and helicopter support), the Fallen Tree Games team captivates like few others.
We will have a code of conduct to respect and that we can consult in the guide at any time
And as I mentioned, The Precinct lives and dies by its simulator concept. As police officers, we will have a code of conduct to respect and that we can consult in the guide at any time, and it is done so organically that the action does not stop at any time and the decision must be made quickly. For example, coming across an unarmed graffiti artist who does not resist implies an interaction that must be carried out according to the rules; therefore, force should not be used, the weapon should not be drawn to threaten, or anything similar. We have to approach, almost like in a roleplay, handcuff him, read him his rights, and act accordingly. During a chase, on the other hand, our maxim is not to cause casualties or damage until they open fire or we, as police officers, have a valid reason to act violently, we should not do so.
Reading the rights is crucial, if you don’t do it, it can end in “illegal detention”
How well or poorly we perform our task will depend on the approval of the commissioner. This means that not reading the rights, something completely optional and that we must remember without a screen warning, will reduce the penalty of the criminal, as he was arrested without following legal procedures. On the other hand, exceeding in violence will give us less experience points at the end of the day —one that we must always end manually at our desk in the police station—, which will affect our reputation within the police force.
However, united police will never be defeated, or at least that’s the basis of the game. The Precinct is deep in its options, almost as if it were a role-playing game, although the project does not seem to want to reach those heights. Fallen Tree Games gives us the possibility to face crimes with a higher realism, offering us options to handcuff, escort, detain, fine, or call for backup. It is extremely fun to be in a chase, break several stone walls with a system of semi-destructible scenarios, and, when the time comes, ask for help in the form of patrol cars, road spikes, or a barricade to stop the offender.
The game allows us to use a helicopter to patrol and turn it into a strategy game where we will give orders to other police officers
All of this, instead of becoming a chain of repetitive actions, is based on how well or poorly we act. If we strictly follow what needs to be done as a police officer, such as maintaining the chase at an appropriate distance without causing much damage, we will earn action points that we can use to request reinforcements, although everything, at the end of the day, depends on us.
We still have to see how the development studio will break the barriers of simulation and adhere to a more RPG concept
Indeed, and as a good simulator, The Precinct indicates the correct guidelines to follow, but we choose whether we want to comply with them or not. We can arrest a graffiti artist instead of fining them, which will give us a reputation as police officers without half-measures and corrupt, which will follow us wherever we go. In this regard, we still have to see how the development studio will break the barriers of simulation and adhere to a more RPG concept. For now, there is nothing in the demo that can answer this question, so I fear that this small possibility that The Precinct opens of not acting under the established rules will remain on paper, in an experience that does not rise, but does not fall either. I hope I’m wrong, but all we can do is wait.
The city of The Precinct is alive like no other
Although we have been able to enjoy some playable projects from the law enforcement side with classic Hollywood “heroes” in Max Payne or Crackdown, The Precinct plays in a different league. If in those games we talked about almost superheroes, special agents, or characters prone to pulling the trigger while diving headfirst onto a ladder, Nick Cordell Jr., our protagonist, is a simple human. The shootouts we carry out must be measured to the millimeter, as we are not invincible, and a couple of shots can end our life. And I can assure you that Averno doesn’t forgive anyone.
Averno, in extension, is not huge
In this context, The Precinct boasts a procedural world. Although the map of the city is already established, the events, intensity or severity of them, and even the routes and consequences, are determined randomly each passing day. Averno is a detailed city, with a dynamic day-night cycle, and although it is not particularly large, thanks to its semi-cenital perspective and the randomness of events, the development team seeks to make the city breathe. From what I have tested, it achieves this, and it still has a lot to prove.
This naturalness with which the studio has worked to bring Averno to life is particularly noticeable in the demo. While we are talking about three scripted missions (something that goes against the game’s foundations, I know), I have repeated the demo three times —yes, maybe I went overboard— and there are small changes here and there that give me hope when The Precinct opens up and sets us free after the prologue. For example, in the car chase, the criminal never took the same route on any of those occasions, and the outcome was not identical either. While in one, I made the car roll over and it came out begging for mercy, in the other, we shot the engine until he was forced to stop, but not before getting out of the car and shouting, a real mechanic of the game, to drop the weapon and raise his hands. The Precinct takes very seriously the idea of making us feel like a police officer, and offers a thousand and one options for it.
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