The Precinct

Written by Jason Dailey on 5/13/2025 for PS5  

As a child of the '90s, I remember convincing my parents to buy me the first Grand Theft Auto game and its London-based expansion on the original PlayStation. Despite all the murdering, cursing, stealing, and shooting, a couple of years later, they also let me pick up its sequel.

How I got away with it, I’ll never know, but those early top-down GTA titles were gaming magic back then. For as much as I adored them, I also remember wishing I could play as the good guy. Nearly three decades later, The Precinct has made my dream come true—this is the game I fantasized about playing as a kid.

The Precinct is a police simulation procedural in an action sandbox open world, with an isometric camera angle that feels reminiscent of those classic GTA games. Set during the 1980s, you play Nick Cordell Jr., a rookie cop trying to clean up the fictional streets of Averno City. Nick has big shoes to fill as his dad is the former chief of police and a local legend in the community whose life was tragically cut short.

Averno City is a dingy, gritty town that feels alive and distinctly '80s. Citizens will quote Highlander, there’s a street called Electric Avenue, and the original music is a dead-on '80s vibe. I loved roaming around town, be it on foot or in my patrol car, waiting for the next saxophone-laden track to play while hunting down criminal scum or grabbing collectables. But the best part of the artistic package is the art style itself. I would describe it as a realistic cel-shaded style, and it just makes everything pop on screen while reminding you that The Precinct is not to be taken too seriously as a police procedural.

Structurally, The Precinct is very similar to Police Simulator: Patrol Officers, with you completing a patrol shift each day, responding to callouts from dispatch, or ones that you witness yourself. Dealing with each crime properly earns experience points, which allow Nick to rank up and give skill points to use towards better attributes or abilities. For instance, you may want increased stamina, or for your patrol car to withstand more damage. Ranking up also unlocks new weapons, vehicles, locations, and shift types.

The Precinct does a great job of straddling the line between a full-blown simulation and an action game. Responding to a call means you’ll be checking identification, frisking suspects for weapons, giving breathalyzer tests, charging them with criminal offenses, and, of course, hauling them off to jail. But responding to a call also often means you’re going in guns blazing, or picking up a high-speed chase, or sometimes doing all these things at once, which likely means you’ll need to call for backup.

Averno City is a chaotic place that feels like everyone is committing crimes. I would say it is a little too chaotic for this officer, sometimes overwhelmingly so. There were countless times that I would be dealing with one crime while one or two or three others were being committed in my immediate vicinity—and sometimes I was even the victim.

I’d be arresting a drug dealer while just down the street someone was committing (lowercase) grand theft auto, and then a street fight would break out between two people with guns. And while all hell is breaking loose, dispatch is radioing me about another callout nearby. For God’s sake, are there no other cops in this town?! Oftentimes, it was complete and utter chaos, which don’t get me wrong, it is laugh-out-loud funny, but the frequency of criminal activity needs to be turned down from a 10 to maybe an eight or a nine, is all I’m saying.

Still, the sandbox simulation is one of the best parts of The Precinct. I was continually impressed with how dynamic and reactive the world was, even if comically so at times. I recall chasing someone who committed aggravated assault—they ran away and stole a car, and after engaging in a high-speed pursuit for a while, they abandoned their vehicle and took an innocent bystander as hostage to use as a meat shield.

I’ve had dozens upon dozens of moments like that while playing, and I loved never knowing what to expect from the scourge of Averno City. For that reason, I can see it being an entertaining game to stream, capable of producing a viral social media clip at a moment’s notice.

Devoid of a dull moment, Averno City churns out all manner of crimes that you’ll be responding to, including parking tickets, traffic stops, burglaries, muggings, car jackings, bank heists, and many others. It is the ultimate police fantasy, right down to being able to fly the helicopter with the spotlight. Each crime is handled a little bit differently, and while there is a handbook that gives you the ins-and-outs of each one, you don’t really need it since info boxes on screen will clearly define what type of force you are authorized to use at any given time—lethal, non-lethal, or restrictive—as well as probable causes for arrest. A series of radial menus also makes it easy to implement the various policing tasks on a console gamepad.

You won’t just be navigating menus, though, as some criminals can’t be reasoned with. When the peaceful wheels of justice break down, lethal force is authorized. Shooting weapons takes a little getting used to, handling like a twin-stick shooter that also accounts for the vertical y-axis. You can crank aim assist up or down as needed, but after a while, I got the hang of it.

The Precinct is also a cover-based shooter, allowing you to seek refuge behind police cars, boxes, or walls. In a shootout, taking cover is essential to keep yourself from being killed in the line of duty, waiting for opportunities to pop out and dispense justice. I was surprised at the number of weapons you can choose from, including a revolver, pistol, SMG, M16, AK-47, bolt action rifle, and others. And of course, you also have a baton and taser as nonlethal options.

Shifts vary in length, from six to 12 in-game hours usually, and include on-foot patrols, vehicle patrols, or helicopter patrols. Some shifts ask you to focus on certain types of issues, such as parking violations or drug deals, but Averno City is so criminally chaotic that it is impossible to do so.

Again, I can’t complain too much because it is a hell of a time, but it does defeat the purpose of assigning objectives to shifts in the first place. No matter what trouble you find yourself in, your faithful partner, Officer Kelly, will be at your side, and he’s quite capable. He will arrest and escort bad guys to your patrol car, chase them down on foot if they flee, or provide covering fire when gunfights break out.

During and between shifts, you’ll get to know Officer Kelly and the rest of the team at (lowercase) the precinct, each of which are fully voiced and receive a better performance than I honestly expected. However, none of the general citizenry around town are voiced. Instead, their chatter is simply text boxes above their heads. It does feel a little strange to have such a vibrantly—and criminally—alive city with no one talking, or even some fake B-roll mumbling to create a sense of people talking.

That said, there is a main storyline that takes place over the course of about 15 hours which is incorporated into the procedural structure of shifts. You’ll collect evidence linked to two local gangs as you resolve other crimes which allow you to work your way up each gang’s food chain, which I don’t want to spoil any further.

I’ll be honest though, from start to finish, I almost forgot there was a story taking place amidst all the GTA-like sandbox shenanigans going on around me. Which is to say the main story is a little disjointed, letting you roam in its sandbox for the first 14 hours, and then putting you on rails for linear missions for the last hour, before opening the world back up once the story concludes. It’s nothing that other games haven’t done time and time again, but it was like the game wanted to remind me that there’s a story going just so it could wrap it up and let me get back to doing sandbox stuff.

In a lot of ways, The Precinct is the ultimate police video game fantasy. It’s a gaming fantasy that I and countless others have likely had for years, and it certainly scratches that itch, albeit imperfectly. It is Police Simulator meets inverse original Grand Theft Auto, and they’ve pretty much nailed that motif, despite a story that feels somewhat incidental, and serving a main dish of chaos with a side order of more chaos.

Still, I had fun from start to finish, and this is as close as I’ve been to playing the game that I’ve dreamed of since childhood—a police simulator with an open-world sandbox, and a touch of that GTA zaniness.