I’d like to thank astragon Entertainment for the preview key to this title.

This preview is written during a time when there is a decidedly negative perception of police. Instead of guardians of the public order, they are viewed as brutal thugs with badges as opposed to defenders of the law, and the same outrage has called for police defunding due to the belief the police do more harm than good. Police Simulator: Patrol Officers is an attempt to disprove this idea, with generally good results.

The game premise is quite simple. The player is a new member of the Brighton Police in the fictional state of Franklin (said to be on the East Coast of the United States). The goal of the game is to dispense law and order to several districts of the city and work your way up to greater responsibilities while providing a model of good behavior and exemplary duty to earn greater authority.

You start as a foot patrol officer, ticketing minor offenses like littering and jaywalking and dispensing traffic tickets for improper driving incidents. After earning some regard and trust for handling these duties, you are given the task of performing greater responsibilities in a squad car, which has you catching speeders and chasing down wanted criminals. Both on foot and in a squad car, you must utilize discretion and intuition to discern criminal activity and render appropriate citations, detainment, and other services to ensure public safety.

The game has two modes. Casual Mode disables some of the more realistic aspects of the game engine (though not all), allowing the player to avoid all but certain types of major injury and also gain tips on crimes in progress to ease them into the game experience. Simulation mode is more realistic, where injury, death, and demerits for all sorts of legal offenses are in full effect. In this latter mode, the player must discern crimes needing intervention without automated assistance and must avoid realistic foolish actions, like walking into active traffic, as they are quite mortal in this mode. In both modes, the game will immediately reward responsible behavior and demerit the player for unjustified use and abuse of their law enforcement duties.

Graphics are based on a rather realistic portrayal of a contemporary American city. Using a third-person perspective, the player (who can be male or female as well as either white, black, Hispanic, or Asian) must be wary, especially in simulation mode, and use certain clues or behaviors during investigations of criminal activity, such as a detained person with dilated pupils (indicating possible drug use) or careful examination of license plates and driver IDs to scan them for false or improper tags and dates. On any system able to meet the requirements, all of these things are well animated and quite distinct.

Sounds and music are understated, as this is a realistic game set in a real-world setting. Not much music is present save the opening theme, and voiceovers have yet to be implemented. What sounds are present are more than adequate to set the mood of being set in an urban environment and to convincingly portray a city. Controls can be accomplished with either the keyboard and mouse or with a gamepad. Both are fully responsive to player input, and the game comes with automatic support for Steam-compatible controllers. Controls may be fully remapped to player preferences, though the player is warned button assignments for keyboard and gamepads in tutorial messages are done on the assumption of the default key mapping. It is unknown if this will change in the future on the last point.

Stability is excellent. Being based on Unreal Engine 4, this game is quite optimized, running well at max settings on my gaming laptop, and there are many options for adjusting graphical settings for player preference. For the benefit of handicapped players, the game features several types of colorblind settings and it can be fully enjoyed by deaf players as well. Aside from a very minor bug where I got stuck in place once (which the developers promised prompt work on), my experience playing this title was hassle-free and load times are excellent. As an Early Access title, some features are incomplete or use placeholder assets, but the developers have promised timely updates and upgrades to these features. What is in place thus far is more than worth purchasing and fully functional.

Morality and the gameplay go hand in hand. Since it follows general American legal custom on what is moral and ethical for police to do, it deserves some detailed explanation.

Violence is only possible by the player and then is only allowed under what would be acceptable circumstances for a police officer to exercise it. Lethal force is not yet implemented (but will be after release) but is stated to only be allowed in the imminent threat to the officer's life by a suspect. Nonlethal force is only authorized on uncooperative fleeing suspects. Any unjustified or unlawful use of violence of any degree is an automatic (as in, instantly) game over in both Casual and Simulation Modes. Injury is depicted at accident scenes, minus blood and gore. There are limping animations and civilians who are shown downed and in pain, but that is the worst of it. There is no foul language to be expected from either the player character or civilians. Sexual content is not in this title; all clothing worn is shown to be appropriate and street legal according to the customs of most American public decency laws. This is also not a game where the occult and supernatural are in any way the focus. It is rooted firmly in a realistic setting.

Ethics are a core part of the game experience. The player is expected to exercise them constantly in both Casual and Simulation Modes. While Casual mode does allow for the more minor player offenses like jaywalking to be disabled, improper use of police power and police brutality are punished in-game in both modes. In Simulation mode especially, the player is expected to be as law-abiding in all details as civilians are expected to be, and unlawful, unethical, and immoral acts will result in penalties, firings, arrests (for police brutality especially), and disgrace as a law enforcement officer.

The game has two especially good moral pillars. The first is that those who dispense justice are expected to do so honorably, impartially, and properly. As the Books of the Law held that those appointed to enforce and adjudicate the law had to be honorable civil servants in biblical times, so must the player do likewise in their role as a patrol officer. Another especially commendable thing is that irresponsibility, abuse of one's authority, and unjustifiable displays of violence are shown to be evils the law enforcement profession cannot afford because it does not serve the cause of upholding public order. The game makes a point of holding the player accountable to the very law they are supposed to serve, much as Christians are expected to abide by the laws of Men and Laws of God.

In a technical sense, Police Simulator: Patrol Officers is admittedly rough, but as an Early Access game, it's to be expected. What is present does work exceedingly well and is highly recommended for purchase due to the promised expansions by the quite responsive and active developers. Morally, this is a very promising game with a good message about the virtues of law enforcement and how they can benefit society by just and honorable public service, and on those grounds would consider it worth playing by anyone who is cognizant of right and wrong.