The Precinct
Developer: Fallen Tree Games
Publishers: Kwalee, Microids
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S (Reviewed), PC
Release Date: May 13, 2025
Price: $39.99 USD – Available Here
Overview
Usually in video games players end up facing off against the cops or running from them in one way or another. It might be something as simple as racing away from a police cruiser in a racing game or shooting your way out of a bank robbery. Few titles actually place players in the role of the police themselves tend to either fall into racing games that see players acting almost the exact same as they would anyways or in a complete simulation that tries to hold players to the strictest possible rules.
Now here we have The Precinct from Fallen Tree Games, who originally developed a similar game that had players once again on the opposite side of the law, American Fugitive.Taking what they learned with their previous efforts and looking to create a police game that tries to blend the line between arcade action and simulation, have they been successful with The Precinct?
Story
Set in the 1980s players step into the freshly laced boots of a rookie cop named Nick Cordell Jr. who is fresh out of the academy and ready to help protect the people of the crime-riddled Averno City. The only problem is, he has some rather big shoes to fill as his father was not only the previous police chief but was killed by an unknown assailant. After some ribbing from the fellow officers, Cordell finds himself paired up with “two-weeks from retirement” Kelly whose “bad hip” makes it so Cordell has to drive everywhere and take charge despite Kelly technically being his Training Officer and Cordell his boot.
It isn’t long before Cordell is thrown right into the thick of things when one of the biggest banks in the city is hit by a local gang and the police respond in force, dropping Officer Cordell right into the deep end as he learns that while the police do their best to keep Averno City safe, the Crimson Serpents and JawHeads gangs run rampant even as a third mysterious gang has started to lay low. With Cordell and Kelly heading out on patrol shifts, it will be up to them to gather evidence from random criminals throughout the city and deliver it to the detectives to build-up a case to bring down these gangs once and for all.
The Precinct tells a fairly solid storyline that feels like it is right out of a classic cop movie from the ‘80s, which is precisely what the developers seemed to be aiming for by basing so much of the title’s aesthetic around the ’80s noir aesthetic. Classic officer names such as Kowalski pop up and various jokes about donuts and the like are bantered about, but unfortunately there really isn’t a whole lot of actual meat to the story that The Precinct is trying to tell. Sure, it works like a film, but not as a game. Far too much of the game is simply lacking storyline or even character banter, even if it was subtitled only. The only time anything plot related happens is when players gather enough evidence to unlock a shift to apprehend one of the two gangs’ top members and even this is kept to a surprising minimum. Oh, and a random serial killer that is worked in but given the same level of credence and an “undercover” operation of street racing that just serves as an excuse to have races in the game. Outside of the initial tutorial, there is very little banter with Kelly or any member of the force.
In fact, players will never find themselves working with anyone besides Kelly, which logistically makes sense since Cordell is a rookie, but other than talking to one of two detectives or the chief, characterization is minimal beyond the tutorial and the finale that we can’t go into for spoiler reasons. That being said, at least the storyline does pick up here with the finale with some real character interaction and involvement by the player, giving us just a glimpse at how great it would be if more cases throughout the title had even close to the same level of care as the finale but unfortunately that isn’t the case here. One thing players will find in spades are movie references and jokes from the various civilians they’ll walk past, referencing many classic action and sci-movies at the time. One line that surprisingly wasn’t dropped, though I’ll give it a pass since it is meant to be in the earlier ‘80s, is no “I’m too old for this sh*t.”
Gameplay
As mentioned before, The Precinct tries to find a balance between offering an arcade-style shooter and racer and an actual proper police game and it does a fairly decent job of it. Every day players will be given a selection of shift choices from Kowalski to choose from, be it foot patrol, traffic, helicopter patrol, or traffic patrol, or eventually once players “rank up” enough they can also build their own custom shifts with special unlocked conditions such as increased drug or gang activity, longer time periods, and specific locations. Regardless of what players select, they’ll be sent out into Averno City with an isometric style camera view, this even includes helicopter flying though since controlling the helicopter simply involves maintaining altitude, keeping the spotlight on suspects, and calling in backup, it doesn’t affect it much.
Speaking of all that, regardless of what players take on, they’ll find that they don’t often need to stick to their actual patrol beat if they so please. In fact, other than earning a little less XP per arrest, there is no punishment for patrolling or moving outside of their district. This is likely thanks to the dynamic AI used to generate crimes as players play through their shift. For example, while Cordell might be playing meter maid and laying down parking tickets for blocking a hydrant or being opposite the flow of traffic, the next car down might start getting broken into by a random passerby, giving players the chance to either commandeer (if unlocked) or just summon a new patrol car and give chase to try and arrest the fleeing felon, who might crash into other cars or even begin firing at the player if they happen to have a weapon.
Anytime the player is properly pursuing a subject, be it on foot, in a car, or especially in a helicopter they will build up their back-up meter that will fill in sections and can be used to summon everything from air-support to keep track of a fleeing subject to other squad cars, an armored support vehicle, spike strips, and even a roadblock to slow down the fleeing subject. Many of these forms of back-up must be unlocked but can be quite helpful in putting a stop to someone fleeing, though players can press X to give voice commands to lower their morale and urge them to give up peacefully. Players also have access to two types of non-lethal weaponry in the form of a taser and police baton, though this is only if they are authorized to use restraining force.
One thing of note is that driving in The Precinct feels rather… rough to say the least. Ironically, the initial patrol car players receive may be the best optimized vehicle for handling and controlling as players race through the streets and cut through alleyways since criminals will try to use all manners of shortcuts and back-routes to avoid the cops. At best vehicles feel like they control a little too floaty for my tastes, especially since vehicles have a tendency to perform complete flips when struck or hit by other patrol cars called in as back-up. It is also worth noting that it is also incredibly buggy, especially in the aforementioned “undercover” street races. Numerous times throughout these races I would find myself racing along only for the back half of my vehicle to suddenly clip into the ground, being unable to drive or fix itself in any way. Even outside of races this happened, though at least here Cordell and Kelly could leave the car behind and get a new one. Speaking of bugs, a real nasty one happens to be the fact that the game does have a tendency to crash from time to time to the Xbox dashboard. In these instances any progress the player has made on a patrol is lost entirely as no autosave is kept in these situations. This can make longer patrols a bit of a risk but there is also no punishment for ending a patrol early should players need to.
The Precinct tries its best to try and make sure that players act properly, but the punishments for actually doing something wrong are rarely impactful. Using improper force like trying to beat down or shoot a suspect that players haven’t been given lethal force to can trigger a reload of an autosave during a shift, same as frequently running over the same person multiple times, however just crashing into a crowd of people will do nothing. In fact, there are often times the game will seem to punish the player for doing nothing at all, or using proper force. Multiple times during car chases players may have authority to use force, but ramming a vehicle or trying to perform a pit maneuver (that does not work in-game) can cause an XP reduction upon arrest. In fact, even during a shootout if players are firing at an enemy and they happen to surrender mid-burst and get hit, players will be sent back to auto save. While this makes sense legally, using any weapon with a fast-range of fire such as an SMG or AK-47 can lead to unnecessary trouble. Gunplay in The Precinct is simplistic with players drawing any of the four weapons they can have equipped and aiming with a straight-line and reticle showing where they will actually hit when firing, using twin-stick aiming structure to take down hostile subjects.
Anyways, once players actually apprehend a potential criminal that is where a new interesting element comes into play, properly handling a possible felon. While walking on the street players can stop and frisk anyone, checking their ID and searching their person for any illegal contraband, weaponry, or narcotics before letting them go if they are all clear. If they happen to have a warrant out for their arrest or have an illegal item on their person, players can arrest them and read them their rights but this can potentially trigger a fight or flight response from the subject that can lead to even more charges. Either way, once apprehended, players can then manually assign crimes to the subject with each correct charge giving XP and wrong charge deducting it. Some crimes warrant only a fine while most others involve an arrest and players can choose to either call an escort officer to take them back to the precinct for a small bit of XP or take them back themselves for a solid chunk of XP. Though it is worth noting that even the best cop car only has room for two offenders in the back.
Now we’ve mentioned XP and unlockables a lot and it is worth noting that there are no real RPG mechanics in The Precinct. Yes, players can “rank up” using XP to higher police levels and this will unlock additional vehicles and weapons that players can use while on patrol as well as “unlock tokens” that can be used to obtain random bonuses. This can be anything from carrying extra ammo, having extra health or running stamina, to being able to call in a road-block for help. These unlocks are quite lacking most of the time unfortunately with only a few feeling actually necessary and surprisingly early. That being said, since players can spend tokens in any manner and unlocks aren’t level locked, they can focus on a specific tree if they so wish. There are also random collectables that players can find throughout Averno City, these include unique cars hidden away beneath shacks, plaques on buildings that provide extra history for the city, and even challenging little riddles to obtain artifacts stolen from a museum. The latter of these happens to even have an unlock that can “ping” when players are nearby, though it is incredibly hard to notice to the point that we didn’t even see it for hours after unlocking it. These artifacts are all locked within safes that have pin numbers that are related to a clue nearby that players must figure out, ranging from simple riddles to aforementioned city history.
Visuals & Audio
It must be said that The Precinct does look rather impressive even if the camera angle is kept at an always isometric viewpoint. There are enough details in the various cars that players can drive, including plenty of destructible parts of the vehicles themselves as well as the environment as nearly everything outside of a building can be destroyed. It is nice to note that there are a number of hidden collectable cars throughout the map as well, though players will need to go back to the same location every time they want to drive it again. The character models are decent enough with some solid variety and the same can be said about the character portraits for the limited story sections. The biggest highlight here happens to be the neon lighting and how gorgeous Averno City can look at night, especially when there is rare rain or any type of inclement weather actually.
The voice work throughout the game is handled well-enough, with every part of the story given voice work though it does seem that a few early lines of dialogue from the Chief are a bit blown-out compared to the rest of voice actors, though it only happens right at the start. Otherwise the voice acting is handled quite well, including the randomized call-outs players can make to coax criminals into giving up. The soundtrack features a nice collection of synthesized music that works well for the setting of the game but does lack a bit of the rock that someone would expect for the genre and time period.
Overall
The Precinct brings with it a strong concept that does its best to find an engaging balance between action and police simulation while trying to enforce some proper police limitations on players all while sticking true to the ‘80s core aesthetic and design the team was hoping for. Unfortunately unrealized story and character potential as well as bugs and rough gameplay elements hinder this oft gorgeous looking game from truly shining like it should, instead leaving it with a lot of grime on its badge when its time to clock out at the end of the shift.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
