This open-world sandbox Steam Next Fest gem is basically GTA, but you’re a cop, and it’s absolutely awesome

My latest Steam Next Fest obsession is the demo for The Precinct, an old-school top-down open-world sandbox game that plays a lot like Grand Theft Auto, except you play as a cop rather than a lawless citizen .

Now I know what you might be thinking. Isn’t it a lot more fun to be a criminal than a narcotics officer? And to that I would say, maybe in real life, but in Fallen Tree Games’ version of the early GTA formula I had a lot of fun. You have the same interactivity and freedom of choice in a large city simulation, only here you are in charge. Since you are a police officer with seemingly unquestionable authority, you can bomb in your patrol car, without casualties, walls and small buildings, and there is no one to stop you!

I managed to do exactly one bank shootout with some armed robbers and one police chase before abandoning my mission with an arrested citizen in the back of my patrol car and hitting the streets with reckless abandon. I wanted to see how much I could flaunt the rule of law as a cop with this game, and it turns out I could flaunt it pretty darn hard.

80’s synthesizer pop pumping the heart out of my car’s speakers into my ears, I make my way through traffic and red lights on winding streets, plowing through fences and reducing stone traffic barriers to rubble with extremely satisfying physics of destruction and ashes. I was looking for something to really test the limits of The Precinct’s in-game law and order system. I found it: a large body of water and the perfect slope to use it as a ramp, as if the game was tricking me into breaking its own rules. I answered the call, stomping on the accelerator and gasping for air in pure sandbox nirvana before plunging into the water and escaping the sinking car along with my prisoner.