The gameplay is good, and the graphics are beautiful. However, the AI is not very good, and there are a decent number of bugs (though none game-breaking so far).

Overall, it's a good game that just needs some bug fixes and AI improvements. Hopefully they will also add more content to make for a even better sandbox experience!

You can play this game. It is okay. I am forced to give a negative review out of pure sadness for what it could be as what is here now is a shell for its potential. It feels early access to me, or that the developers ran out of financing and time. I think it is priced, _okay_ with the discount, you will probably get what you put in if you like games like this. But if you're on the edge, I would wait for updates.

This game has spent ~6 years in development. With that they've nailed the aesthetics and 80s vibe of the city, and it's clear a good amount of work has gone into the sandbox itself. On performance i had no issues or crashes, but I am on a very top of the line rig. Others express different sentiments and the game is capped to 30fps on console.

To that end, almost everything else feels bolted on. The story is as cliche and as "cop drama" as you'd expect. You've almost certainly heard it before. Rookie cop convinces senior cop to care, chase down some cop family drama with a twist at the end, etc. It was so mundane I skipped the ending cut scenes. The story isn't a reason to play and you finish it about six hours in. Some items are so bolted on you could miss them, there is an entire subway network with no crimes or patrols (to my knowledge so far) associated with it.

The progression system is barebones, outside of a few new unlocks for "support actions" most of it is "increase x by %" type perks. Unlocks for health are kind of needed because the combat system isn't skill based. There is strong auto aim, but only a small percentage of shots will hit on the target due to random MOA spread applied to each weapon. You unlock vehicles as you play, but none of them are better than the starting vehicle because they literally cannot keep up with criminal vehicles on chases so "can ram more" doesn't really come into play. There are additional weapons to unlock, but no additional non lethal weapons. Each weapon suffers from the artifical random spread so really none of them are better than the others, except for the "sniper" rifle and only because of its ammo to kill ability.

The sandbox feels good in the beginning, but quickly gets tedious due to the limited number of interactions available. It will be no time at all until you start "Delegating" paperwork to your partner for almost all arrests not because you don't enjoy noting down the crimes, but because the interface and selection wheel for doing so is so crude. In the story you were called to interview residents for example, once, but that's it. In the free roam game-play there is no support type missions like setting up roadblocks, speed traps, or serving warrants. There is no EMS services like Fire or Ambulance despite them being modelled in the game. There is no "after the fact" type crimes where you're expected to interview potentially unreliable informants for a Be-on-the-lookout type system. There is no emergent story. There are no tow trucks, no calls for trespass etc. Criminals respond as not-in-their-self-interest as possible, with almost every criminal running. I get that's there for game feel but with how shallow everything is it feels pretty rough.

Each event is separate from every other event, there is no sandbox permanence, it's "reset" every time you enter the precinct. Everything feels so well established as a _foundation_ for what this game could support but does not. I understand that this is a small developer studio, but wish more attention was put into systems than aesthetics, because the aesthetics show what this small and mighty team can do. The whole time through all I was saying to myself was "if only" and unfortunately that's a rough feeling to have for a game like this.

My hope is that this world realises its full potential, and doesn't fall into a similar trap like shadows of doubt, or other games that have shown such a strong foundation, but have been unable to leverage it for anything that truly feels special.

It's a good and fun game overall, but it's missing some basic polish. For example, after zipping up dead bodies, they still just lie there, which really breaks immersion. When an escort unit arrives, they walk the criminal away on foot and leave their car blocking the road. There's also no option to tow abandoned or illegally parked vehicles, which feels like a big oversight for a game in this genre. Movement is another issue: it's clunky, and your walking speed doesn't match your partner's, which makes AI-based missions frustrating. These might seem like small details, but they add up and impact the experience in a noticeable way.