Take on the role of a rookie cop, named Nick Cordell Jr., the son of a decorated deceased police officer. Get thrown back into the 80’s, your goal is to work shifts to clean up the streets. The story centers around stopping various gangs, first getting evidence to take out the leaders, and eventually putting an end to their reign of crime. The genre is a cross between police sim and arcade-style mayhem. Besides completing the story, you will be doing shifts to gradually increase your XP and earn various perks that will be helpful as you progress. You aren’t going out solo, you have the whole police force behind you. You’re able to call in support when needed, as well as having a dedicated partner to help you clean the streets. Try to follow the police handbook to make sure you are following the correct protocols when arresting someone. This is a sandbox game, meaning crazy things can happen randomly, and no day will ever play out exactly the same. It’s time to take to the streets and serve justice!

Here’s what I liked:

Arcade Sim — Many times, I scroll through the game store, eyeing the police simulator games, wanting to enact justice, but don’t want it to feel like a second job. With the arcade style thrown in, you can have random fun while still somewhat simulating police tasks. Writing tickets, following procedure, and overall just doing the right thing while having so many random situations thrown at you constantly creates the feeling of chaos that you’re able to take control of. The high-speed chases can be quick or take what feels like forever. You always feel like you’re one step behind the other vehicle. You can call in multiple support options, such as spike strips, police backup, roadblocks, and a helicopter, to make it easier to keep track of the criminal. When you arrest someone, you can throw them in the back of your cruiser or call in an escort, depending on whether you’re already full of criminals or if you just don’t want to bother taking them back to the precinct. There’s no wrong choice and you’ll get XP either way. You get more XP for booking them yourself, but you may have been able to get the same if not more XP just by writing tickets or stopping another crime. The tutorial is very well done, and the story is decent, but the main fun to be had is doing your shifts and gaining ranks to unlock more cool stuff.

Shady 80’s — There are a lot of options when it comes to making a game about police, and one of them is what decade it will take place in. I believe the 80’s was a great choice. You don’t have a lot of fancy technology to help you, such as smartphones or traffic cameras. Also, there were a lot of great crime and police movies during that decade, which is where a decent amount of inspiration came from. All in all, it just makes the game feel much more gritty. You can almost feel the filth and decay of human morality as you patrol the streets. There is a noticeable lack of fear from criminals who will assault you or speed off during a routine traffic stop. You do put your life on the line each shift, which is what makes every day exciting.

Do What You Want — Part of the charm of the sandbox genre is the ability to do things at your own pace. After maxing out my character, I focused on collectibles, ignoring all crimes and not being punished or penalized because of it. If you die, you respawn. If you completely trash your car or drive it into the water, you can take any off the street or just call in a new one. When your shift is over, you can ignore the cries about unsanctioned overtime and just keep going (though my game had crashed when I went on too long in a helicopter). I liked the collectibles, trying my luck with the helicopter or speeding around the city with my eyes peeled. Overall, you can do what you want, minus things like shooting random people or being overall immoral. That’s where the sim part kicks in, and you have an understanding that you can do everything you want, within the limits of the law!

Here’s what I didn’t like:

Car Physics — One part that is really “arcade” is the way your vehicle responds to a collision. There are a lot of destructible objects, meaning you can crash through most things. This part is great, but what I wasn’t a fan of was how sometimes the car would act upon hitting certain things. There are times I don’t even know what I ran over, but I’d suddenly be fish-tailing as if I hit a patch of oil. The actual driving seems fine, it’s just the environment that can be annoying. Sometimes you will even hit something and your car will glitch under the street. If you hit a telephone booth? Hope you packed your swim trunks, because you’ll be launched practically into outer space (but usually just in land in the water). These times can be funny, but you won’t be laughing as it happens in time trials and races. These two optional events become almost based on luck. The races, especially, being that you’re against AI opponents who somehow are magnetized to the street, while your car ends up spinning out of control from just making a slight turn.

Many Things Unused — Now it could just be me not experimenting, but I found there were many unlockable items and perks I just never used. For example, you unlock different patrol cars when you progress through the ranks. I used the default the entire game until I unlocked the faster one at maximum level. The other cars are much slower, which cripples you in a police chase (maybe they do more ram damage, but you have to be close to them for that). I thought, well, maybe the station wagon can have four criminals in the back instead of two. Nope. Just two still. Having someone attack you, you’d think you need to get the baton out. But besides the tutorial, I never used it. If you just tackle the criminal, you can end the fight and arrest them right away. During car pursuits, you have a good selection of backup options. The problem is they don’t work that well. When I call for a spike strip to stop the criminal, they become a master behind the wheel and suddenly drive through shortcuts through alleys where the strips can’t be placed. The rare times they do run over them, they keep going and it just slightly slows them down. When they see a roadblock, they just slow down and go another way. Often, when calling in backup, they speed right past the criminal and into civilian cars by mistake. If you call too many of them, they start crashing into each other. There are some story missions with gunfights, and only a few times when you can attack back with deadly force during your normal shifts. Because of this, I never used the shotgun. Some of the rules stop you from using what you want to use. Maybe I would use a shotgun while in my car if I were actually allowed to, but usually you can’t. The same rules I loved following are at the same time, limiting your options. One more thing that I didn’t use much was the fast travel system. The map is fairly small, so it doesn’t take much time to drive to the destinations you want. You do have an option to take the subway. There are several scattered around both maps. The problem is, going into one doesn’t instantly take you to the map where you can teleport. It acts as a location, meaning you load into the subway and have to run through the ticket barriers, then wait for a train door to open. If you get there when it’s about to leave, you have to wait for the next one. By this time, I could have just driven to where I wanted to go, making it quite possibly the most useless feature.

Wrap-up

There were a lot of things I enjoyed, one of them being writing tickets and checking everyone’s IDs who walked the streets (this city is full of criminals). The random chaos was welcomed, and I loved chasing people on foot and tackling them. What I wasn’t too fond of was the gunfights, which I hadn’t touched on much, but are quite terrible (aiming is a pain). Another thing I didn’t mention was the map. While the main map is good and easy to make a waypoint, the mini-map was possibly the worst I have ever experienced. It does not center around where you are, causing some confusion and a headache to follow along with. Even with some of the negative things being pretty major, it doesn’t take away too much from the overall experience. If you love the idea of arresting people as a police sim, while having the action of an arcade sandbox experience, you won’t regret giving your time to the precinct.

Score: Highly Recommended

The Precinct was published by Kwalee and developed by Fallen Tree Games on Xbox One. It was released on May 13 2025, for $39.99. A copy was provided for review