Police Simulator: Patrol Officers immediately intrigued me when it was announced as we have never really seen a decent stab at the simulation in the expertise in the policing world. There have been a few attempts in the past, but they mostly fall drastically short and the small flurry I’ve played on console has suffered with terrible performance and been bug-ridden messes. When you see a simulator game with the astragon Entertainment GmbH publisher rubber stamp, you know you’re in for a fairly solid experience as they have thrust some decent titles before our eyes recently including the most recent Construction Simulator which I also reviewed.

Developed by a small team of 50+ in the development studio of Aesir Interactive GmbH, we see an ambitious project that zones in on the intricate methods of policing. For a reasonable price point and available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Playstation 4|5 on 10th November 2022 after a successful early access phase on Windows PC, it’s time to pick up the warrant badge and get the handcuffs at the ready.

Introduction

Police Simulator: Patrol Officers is a simulation experience that puts you on the streets with the premise of upholding the law and keeping the districts of Brighton (Not the UK version) safe and crime-free. You’ll be reporting for duty and carrying out shifts which will have you targeting a specific task or putting you through your paces in a variance of different high-intensity scenarios. The game is focused on doing the job correctly and not going about your day in the bustling districts all gung-ho as if you’re playing Grand Theft Auto.

Trust me, one of the first things I tried was tasering someone in the head and also attempting to arrest someone for no reason. There are penalties and implications if you do not carry out your duties as any police officer should, and that’s how it should be. You’ll need to have your wits about you though, as crime happens everywhere, and you’ll need to be eagle-eyed to spot it every time and deal with each interaction efficiently.

Gameplay

There are several choices to be made before you even step foot out into the real world. Firstly, you can swap difficulty between Simulation or Casual. Simulation mode will leave you on your own out there for ultimate realism without much hand-holding whereas opting for Casual will give you little nudges and pointers towards unsavoury goings on. You’ll then be picking a shift which will cover a certain area or district on the map, each standard shift lasts approximately 20 minutes in real time which equates to eight hours in the game. The way you conduct yourself as an officer will depict how well you score, and this is done using a point-scoring system.

Points

At the beginning of each shift, you’ll commence with 100 conduct points. If you don’t act within the regulations of the law, you’ll lose points and could potentially even be sacked from the force. Shift points are accumulated by great performance and gaining these will drive your experience forwards as you progress. Earn enough XP during a shift and you’ll potentially earn the duty star which will unlock you new callouts, violations and items.

The Intuition System

This will be presented to you when dealing with a member of the public face-to-face. You’ll be given a catalogue of options to choose from when interacting with them such as to search them, ask them to present identification, issue them with a violation ticket for a range of suspected offences and even test them for drugs and alcohol. You may even decide to want to detain and arrest if you frisk and search and find some illegal contraband.

Be wary though as some may break away and you may need to be prepared to give chase and whip that taser out. The intuition system will give you additional information depending on which mode you’re playing in. For instance, in the casual mode, it may say “This person littered”. This will give you the nod to issue a ticket for littering and potentially check their ID and do additional checks. It may also give you prompts when you may be potentially breaking the law yourself, such as driving too fast in a restricted area.

Using The Focus Mode

Using the LB button will allow the camera to zoom into anywhere in the game world and is useful for commands such as checking out whether licence plates have expired or whether their parking ticket has run out. You may be looking for a missing person and need to quickly glance across the street to see if a description matches the individual you’re looking for.

Keep Your Eyes & Ears Open

I could go through every nook and cranny the game has to offer but after a period of three to four hours of walking the beat and digging into on-street offences, you’ll be able to get stuck into the mix with patrol vehicles. You’ll be looking out for parking violations, speeding, looking for wanted persons, locating problem drug areas and dealing with dealers, and tackling street thieves or people vandalising with graffiti. You may be asked to be part of a roadblock investigating suspicious road vehicles and searching those that look dodgy. There is a vast array of tasks to get stuck into during your time on shift and none of the occurrences ever seem forced upon you, you do have to get patrolling and do some of the groundwork yourself

Plenty Of Tools To Get The Job Done

As with any police officer out on the beat, you’ll have an arsenal of equipment at your disposal to ensure you’re thorough in your evidence gathering. You can’t just arrest someone without having some substantial proof to do so. In your kitty you’ll have a camera in order to take photographs of evidence relating to a crime scene, a radar gun to detect the speed vehicles are travelling, you’ll also have a pistol and stun gun, but you need to use these as a last resort and in the right circumstances or you’ll get yourself fired otherwise. There are plenty of other features you can utilise such as hand gestures, road signs, traffic cones, barriers and more. All the tools are there to do the job to the best of your ability and for the correct scenario in front of you.

Vehicles

Whilst you won’t be trusted to just drive around a patrol car immediately, you will be granted access to one further into the game. I experienced three different patrol cars, and they all have their pros and cons with some being faster than others. This will give you the ability to patrol districts much faster than on foot and you’ll be able to respond to emergency calls and fire up that exciting siren when doing so. Don’t ride around with blue lights driving to the local doughnut store though, as this is not in the rule book. Before you have access to patrol cars, if you arrest someone you have to handcuff and call for backup where your crew will take over. If you have your own ride though, you’ll be able to sling them in the back and transfer them to the holding cells yourself.

When issuing parking fines and dealing with expired licence plates, you may decide to have a vehicle towed away which requires a radio call to the recovery service, and you’ll be able to observe the car being removed with a smug smile on your face with some shiny points for your efforts.

The control scheme is super simplistic to get used to with nothing being overbearing or complex, everything is explained to you in detail within the first few hours of the game. Before you know it, you’ll be whizzing around the districts as a top cop.

Graphics

Visually Police Simulator: Patrol Officers is fairly well presented for the small size of the team responsible for the project. What I liked the most was how much thought had gone into the game world and the construction of Brighton as a map. Whilst I’d like to see things busy up in some areas, there were plenty of points of interest to discover and gawp at.

Character models appeared to be varied enough both in appearance and speech so that it didn’t feel like you were seeing the same faces over and over again. One issue I did have was when trying to catch vehicle drivers speeding, there just didn’t seem to be enough traffic flow on the roads, and it became a bit of an annoyance pacing up and down the streets attempting to catch the odd car that would drive by. The lighting is superb and really filters through and displays how you’d expect in an urban environment.

Audio & Mechanics

Audio is pretty nailed on with voicing for almost all the encounters you’ll come into, including interrogation which plays a major part when engaging with NPCs. You may simply want to greet someone or ask for their ID, you may even be suspicious of someone and want to stop and search them. I found there to be a range of voicing across the board and again, it didn’t feel repetitive which is often a risk with simulation titles.

The sound and echo of sirens as you respond to an emergency really add to the immersion and atmosphere of the game and once you get off your feet and into vehicles, it adds a new layer to the gameplay. The overall package is neatly presented in almost all aspects and whilst the vehicle mechanics could do with a little bit more fluidity and fine-tuning, everything played smoothly, and I didn’t experience any bugs or graphical issues on Xbox Series X.

In Conclusion

Police Simulator: Patrol Officers is genuinely one of the better simulation games I’ve played in terms of the game’s mechanics, open world and the amount of content on offer. What I really enjoyed about the game was the fact it was me choosing how I dealt with the criminals out there, instead of being told how to. My day job consists of law enforcement, and I really felt the vibe of being given the freedom to explore and make my own decisions out on the streets. You may get things wrong along the way, but with anything, you will learn from your mistakes. Make the wrong call to frisk someone totally innocent or arrest someone in error, then you’ll become a much better and stronger officer and learn from past experiences. This game encourages and leads you out with free reign to engage in proper policing.

The Potential For Expansion Is There!

Even after around 20 hours, I still find there are things I can be cracking on with here, and you can make the game last as long as you like essentially. It is clear the game is a little rough around the edges in some areas, but some concrete foundations are laid with the ability to expand the game into something remarkable if the development team choose. After a little research, it appears there is plenty of work still being done to filter more into the game throughout 2023 along with consistent bug fixing, there are some glaring bugs present that you can look past. If you’re after a game that keeps you on your toes and has you making sure everyone is behaving rather than engaging in movie-style police chases, then this will be right up your street.