This Is the Police Review Summary

While its story, soundtrack, and realistic police simulation shine, the monotonous gameplay, excessive length, and rushed ending disappoint.

Great story and narrative: Players consistently praise the story as engaging, well-crafted, and well-told, especially in the beginning and middle sections. The narrative is enhanced by strong voice acting and a noir setting.

Outstanding soundtrack and music: The soundtrack receives high praise for being excellent, with the ability to buy records and cassettes adding to the immersion. The music contributes significantly to the game's atmosphere.

Realistic police management simulation: Players appreciate the realistic feeling of managing a police department and the moral conundrums involved. The simulation of police chief duties is considered authentic and well-executed.

Noir atmosphere and setting: The noir aesthetic, combined with the dark story and effective art style, creates a strong and appealing atmosphere. Players enjoy the authentic noir experience.

Good overall game quality: Reviewers generally find the game to be good overall, with solid quality across different aspects. It is considered a well-made title.

Gameplay becomes boring and monotonous: Players frequently criticize the game for becoming boring and monotonous over time. The gameplay loop is described as repetitive, lacking variety, and leading to burnout during extended play sessions.

Game is excessively long: Many players find the game's length excessive, with specific complaints about 180-day cycles and 30+ hour playtimes. The extended duration causes the experience to feel drawn out and tedious, especially in the later stages.

Unsatisfying and rushed ending: The ending is consistently described as unsatisfying, short, and rushed. Players feel it fails to provide closure and leaves many questions unanswered.

Choices do not affect story: Despite promises of meaningful choices, players find the story linear with only two endings. Choices have little to no impact, leading to disappointment.

Punishing mechanics and save issues: The save system is criticized for being limited to weekly checkpoints, causing frustrating setbacks. The game also punishes players for good moral choices, which feels unfair.

Dispatch and resource management: Core gameplay involves dispatching police officers to incidents, managing staffing, and allocating resources strategically.

Police chief management simulation: Players act as a police chief, managing officers, responding to calls, and balancing pressures from the mayor, mafia, and subordinates.

Detective investigation puzzles: Players solve detective cases by arranging picture clues or evidence in the correct order based on witness statements.

Police station shift management: The game features shift-based management with a 180-day countdown, requiring daily scheduling and oversight of officers.

Branching story and multiple endings: Player choices lead to multiple story paths and endings, though some decisions only affect cutscenes.

Excellent overall performance: Players consistently report smooth performance across a wide range of hardware, from high-end PCs to the Steam Deck. Specific high frame rates at 1440p and 4K are mentioned, along with low CPU usage and temperatures, indicating strong optimization.

Crash and save loss bug: Several reviews mention the game crashing during critical moments like battle loading or after many hours of play, and in at least one case a crash wiped all save data. This is a serious issue that undermines the otherwise positive performance reports.

Small text readability issues: Multiple players find the small text difficult to read, especially on Steam Deck or lower resolution screens, with descriptions like blurry due to low resolution. This hampers investigation gameplay that requires reading fine details.

VSync driver fix for menus: One player recommends disabling vertical sync in the graphics driver to fix a sluggish menu issue. This suggests a specific performance quirk that may affect some users, though it is an isolated report.

Buy on sale: Multiple players recommend waiting for a sale or discount before purchasing, as the game may disappoint at full price.

Recommended for management fans: Players specifically recommend this game to fans of management sims, especially those who enjoy story-driven and choice-heavy experiences.

Highly recommended overall: Many players strongly recommend the game with scores of 10/10 and enthusiastic endorsements, indicating a very positive reception.

Worth trying: Players suggest giving the game a try, with several recommending at least one playthrough.

Worth playing for story: The game is considered worth playing, particularly for its narrative and unique style, even if there are some drawbacks.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $15.00.

Game completion: 40.0h.

Story completion: 20.0h.

The game delivers immediate fun through its early struggle and narrative hook, but quickly becomes repetitive, tedious, and frustrating due to pacing issues and random events, causing enjoyment to drop after the first few hours.

Friction: repetitive gameplay loop; overly long campaign length; punishing RNG that negates effort; poor pacing with story stops progressing; shallow mechanics become tedious.

Unlock drivers: learning optimal strategies and mechanics; accepting the repetitive loop as part of the management genre.

Story-Driven Narrativist: Follows main story closely, makes narrative choices, often reads dialogue and watches cutscenes; may reload to see different story branches. Motivation: Engaging, well-written story and atmospheric immersion. Stance: buy.

Tactical Management Enthusiast: Optimizes police deployment, manages stats, carefully chooses responses to calls and investigations; may use guides for efficient outcomes. Motivation: Strategic resource allocation and meaningful decision-making under pressure. Stance: buy.

Value-Conscious Explorer: Plays in short sessions, may not complete all content; open to trying multiple angles but unlikely to grind for achievements. Motivation: Getting a unique, atmospheric experience at a low cost. Stance: deep sale.

The Windows cohort with less than 8GB VRAM reports excellent performance, with stable high framerates even at 4K resolution and low CPU usage.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. Players with less than 8GB VRAM report high and stable framerates (300-400 FPS at 1440p, 144+ FPS at 4K), minimal CPU usage, and overall smooth gameplay.

External guides: Players frequently report that the game lacks clear in-game guidance, especially for puzzles and complex mechanics like officer management and the 'professionalism' stat, forcing reliance on external walkthroughs and trial-and-error.

Inappropriate sexualized humor: The feedback criticizes the game for featuring sexualized content, specifically boob-shaking, which is viewed as inappropriate and not aligning with professional standards. This suggests a concern about the game's tone and maturity level.