Contraband Police

Written by Jason Dailey on 11/11/2025 for PS5  

Games can typically be lumped into one of three categories: not doing enough, doing just enough, or doing too much. It is tough to please every single gamer, or people in general, for that matter, but unfortunately, Contraband Police skews a little towards the doing too much category. I was surprised at how many different types of games it was trying to be, and while I can see the vision, it ultimately didn’t coalesce for me. The result is a decent game with some neat concepts that need refinement for a potential Contraband Police 2. Let the simulator pass, but send the action game back across the border.

Contraband Police is an intriguing blend of lite simulator, first-person shooter, and RPG. Of the three, it's at its best when it focuses on being a border patrol simulator. You play as an officer working at the border crossing of an early 1980s communist country. It plays like a blend of Papers, Please and Police Simulator: Patrol Officer, only more vanilla. There are three game modes: Campaign, Endless, and Ranked.

The campaign mode, called Burning Empire, does a good job at acquainting you with the various mechanics over time, adding in new inspection requirements little by little. But it starts to go off the rails by throwing in random story beats requiring you to choose between “The Motherland” or a group of rebels known as Blood Fist. The campaign takes place over the course of several weeks, with what appears to be a curated set of vehicles to inspect and scenarios to engage with to teach you the ins-and-outs. But then you’ll randomly need to go tail another border officer who is suspected of treason, as an example. It’s forced gaming theater that doesn’t hit the target and feels out of place.

Pretty sure that translates to "Walter White"

The core gameplay loop of performing border crossing inspections remains the same regardless of game mode. I would recommend you just begin with the endless mode, called Inspector. Border League, or ranked mode, would be fine too once you get your bearings, since it adds a little more challenge.

Once you’re on duty, you open the border gate, one vehicle at a time, and begin by inspecting the driver’s documents. These include identification, work documents, cargo list, and more. Eventually, you’ll also need to inspect the condition of the vehicles themselves and what cargo they’re carrying. You’re looking for discrepancies in the various paperwork, from misspelled names to incorrect official stamps of neighboring countries.

A single oddity is grounds for denied entry, but the goal is to catch all discrepancies to earn a perfect inspection grade, and the highest payout for each inspection. Or on the contrary, if you get it wrong, you’ll be docked pay instead. Bankrupt your outpost’s budget and that’s game over for your border patrol career.

There are some interesting wrinkles tossed in along the way, such as the government issuing a notice to not allow people with certain professions across the border because they’ve decided they don’t want any additional teachers, artists, or journalists. There’s something fishy going on in this country.

All modes have a day and night cycle, with the crossing only being open during certain times. At the end of each shift, you can sleep to replenish perception—a kind of “Eagle Vision” for forged documents—and upgrade your post with better buildings or improved personnel. You may want a bigger warehouse to be able to store more contraband on-site, or a guard to watch over your holding cell to prevent smugglers from going from jailbird to jailbreak. Being able to improve your border post with the money you make each day is a nice touch, but don’t forget to keep a little change in your pocket so you don’t back yourself into a game over corner.

The primary objective, and the name of the game (quite literally), is to locate and confiscate any contraband trying to find its way into your country and arrest the smugglers responsible for doing so. Contraband can be hidden just about anywhere on a vehicle: in the tires, in the bumpers, in the seats, in the glove box, or, hell, in the engine air filter compartment. They’ve got some creative smugglers in this fake '80s communist country.

As you get all up in people’s business, most objects are interactable, like other simulators. So, you’ll have to look at the car door and press Square to open it, for instance, which is the same as you work your way around any vehicle. Oftentimes, you’ll have to get your hands dirty too. You may have to equip your knife and cut the seat open and then pick up the bricks of cocaine that fall out. I can’t believe I just typed that sentence.

While I enjoyed performing inspections, eventually the novelty wears off once you’ve seen all the possible permutations and grow tired of wrestling with its controls when you’re up against the game clock. The litany of submenus that you must navigate back-and-forth through during inspections has not translated all that well from mouse and keyboard to controller.

Occasionally, random events like someone blowing through the checkpoint can occur, requiring you to hop in a police vehicle and give chase. Or the local smuggler gang may mount an attack against your outpost, but those too grow stale due to subpar mechanics for shooting and driving.

You see, not only is Contraband Police trying to be a simulation, but it also wants to be a first-person shooter action game. The problem is that the gunplay is uninspired and clunky. There’s no tactile feedback when shooting, NPC AI is braindead, and there's a general lack of excitement. When it comes to vehicle chases, it’s more of the same. It’s all too generic to bring anything new to the table, which is why I preferred to focus on inspections rather than action.

Contraband Police is fun for a time, especially if you focus on the simulation side of running a border crossing outpost. Things start to get stale when it attempts to be something it’s not, but I applaud the idea of blending first-person shooter and RPG elements with a simulator. Performing inspections and arresting smugglers is oddly therapeutic, but the novelty does wear off rather quickly.

My initial intrigue regarding its blending of mechanics from several genres didn’t have the payoff I was hoping for, and that’s okay. I would say that Contraband Police is still worth checking out if you’re a fan of games like Police Simulator: Patrol Officers or Papers, Please, but your mileage may vary.