To describe The Precinct as GTA-inspired would be to undersell both games. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and The Precinct bear some visual similarities, certainly, but The Precinct lacks the gameplay depth and storytelling chops of Vice City despite doing a fantastic job of carving out a distinct and striking visual identity. Sadly, and although The Precinct looks vibrant, pretty and polished, much of the game feels shallow and unfinished, resulting in a great first impression, but a poor lasting one.
Before proceeding any further, it’s worth noting that I’m gaming on pre-release code here. The developers — Fallen Tree Games — have said that a day-one patch is in the works and that several of the more prominent issues will be addressed at launch. However, and as with all reviews, I can only comment on what I have to work with and not developer promises.
The Precinct is set in the fictional and New York City-inspired Averno City. You, a rookie cop, have just been assigned to the local police department and must police the streets of Averno cleaning up drug-violence, slapping tickets onto the windshields of poorly-parked cars (your own shoddy parking skills notwithstanding), running down vandals (sometimes literally), and more. There are also a couple of prominent gangs to take down, which you accomplish by collecting evidence off the streets and then zeroing in on each gang’s leadership.
You begin each day with a briefing where you select your shift for the day — patrolling on foot, in a vehicle, or in a chopper — and spend said shift doing just that. Oh, and there’s also a story of sorts involving crooked cops, murder, and the occasional brush with angsty, teenage-adjacent mobsters (I kid you not). The writing is bland, dull, and completely forgettable.
Sadly, gameplay doesn’t hold up either. The world itself is pretty and atmospheric, dropping strong hints of gritty ’80s cop drama and noir, but it only takes an hour so to realise that the visuals are nothing more than a (very) pretty and (very) shallow veneer. Gameplay doesn’t evolve significantly, the controls are fiddly, the driving model trash, and shooting mechanics are clunky.
A distinct lack of variety and depth
Most shifts are spent repetitively tackling the same types of criminal activities ie muggings, vandalism, littering, parking violations, and car/chopper chases. All of these with or without the occasional gunfight thrown in at random. There are also robberies to attend to, but these just involve tackling crooks ambling about with heavy boxes in their arms. That bank robbery you see in the trailer? That happens only during the tutorial, and lasts about as long as the trailer does.
I was expecting to see ambulances after shootouts, fire trucks when vehicles explode, perhaps SWAT teams during raging gunfights, but you get none of that. You can call in a riot van during long chase sequences, but these vans contains no riot cops or gear, and often attempt to stop fleeing criminals by driving through concrete barriers and into oncoming traffic.
My own attempts at driving weren’t much better because vehicle-handling is particularly bad. Cars pass through steel and concrete barriers like they’re nothing but are launched into the air by oil drums, traffic cones, and twigs. The brakes always lock and send you into a skid, and it makes no sense that battered old station wagons turn on dimes and accelerate to an uncatchable 100+ mph when being chased. Why riot vans have better handling than sedans I’ve no idea, and I’ll never understand how cars with several punctured tyres drive around corners with greater ease than I can in a souped-up police pickup.
The list of other issues include a broken support token system, useless partner AI, artificial difficulty spikes, and so many more.
There are some fun side activities like street races and time trials, but the broken driving model saps the fun out of them. This is a game I really wanted to like, but the clunky gameplay made it exceedingly difficult to do so.
The Precinct should be in Early Access
Despite my numerous complaints, I actually like many aspects of The Precinct. I love the visuals, I love the setting, and I’m hoping against hope that if nothing else, the day-one patch fixes the driving model. Most of the issues that I’ve outlined above can and should have been caught during playtesting and I’m surprised that they weren’t. I want to love The Precinct, but the reality is that this is an unfinished game that is launching too early.
This game is worth playing, but only when the devs actually finish it. Wait a few months and for several balance patches to drop. While you wait, you might want to check out the better written and far more atmospheric Cloudpunk instead.
Game reviewed on Xbox Series X and PC. Review codes provided by publisher
