In Psycho Patrol R, social media is a lot like cocaine. While doomscrolling isn’t technically illegal in the game’s universe, it is punishable by lethal force when done in excess.
The latest from Consumer Softproducts, the independent studio run by Finnish multimedia artist-designer Ville Kallio, Psycho Patrol R is a cyberpunk immersive sim shooter made up of extremes. Extreme violence, extreme aesthetics, extreme gameplay variety and open-world potential. Given all its moving parts, the fact that it coheres as well as it does feels exhilarating once you take the time to attune yourself to its quirks and peculiar rhythms. And while, as of this writing, the early access build of the game is currently unfinished, the moment-to-moment experience is already something to behold.
Set in an alternate year 2000 in Pan-Europa, a conglomerate nation teetering on the brink of collapse, Psycho Patrol R is described by Kallio as a “policing and punishment simulator.” Players assume the role of a rookie officer of the European Federal Police, assigned to work in the organization’s experimental new law enforcement unit known as Psycho Patrol. Your mission? Discipline, punish, and protect, in that order.
Led by an enigmatic bureaucrat obsessed with the fringe theories of Viennese psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich, Psycho Patrol’s purpose is nothing short of “de-Hitlerifying” the EFP from the inside out. In addition to rehabilitating the organization’s image, Psycho Patrol’s official mandate is combating “psychohazards,” malignant thought viruses caused by unhealthy hyperfixations elicited through social media usage or illicit psychoactive substances that, if left unchecked, can manifest into violent criminal behavior.
If that sounds bizarre, it is. I haven’t even mentioned Bion, the friendly “neuro-homunculus” spawned by your latent psychosexual energy who sounds like Navi from Ocarina of Time; the interdepartmental drama between Psycho Patrol and the militant Anti-Cocaine Task Force, which still punishes cocaine usage in spite of its legality; or even the fact that you pilot a giant bipedal mech with chicken legs called a “V-Stalker” that’s armed with interchangeable, high-caliber weapons. Oh, and don’t forget the hexadecimal-based hacking system, or the in-game stock market that’s reactive to the choices and outcomes of your missions, or the roving militias of involuntary celibates and random drive-by aggressors who will shoot you on sight. It’s a mad, mad world, and you are but a tiny cog in the blood-slicked machinery of the state.
As if Psycho Patrol R couldn’t be any more explicit about its themes, the exterior of the EFP headquarters resembles two of the most infamous real-life examples of Italian fascist architecture: the Palace of Italian Civilization and the Palazzo Braschi, a neoclassical palace that was renovated into the headquarters of Mussolini’s Italian Fascist Party in 1934. At nearly every juncture of my initial playthrough, I found myself asking two questions: Can the master’s tools be used to dismantle the master’s house (the answer: lol no), and just what kind of cop am I? The latter is yet to be determined, but given that the motto of the EFP is “Circulation of blood is circulation of power,” I’m sure you can venture a guess as to where the player’s actions are meant to align on the political spectrum.
Psycho Patrol R doesn’t waste any time ingratiating you to its dizzying array of systems and subsystems. After choosing one of six character archetypes, each with their own unique stats, you’re thrust into the bureaucratic maw of the EFP immediately as you spawn in your office with gun in hand. From there, you’ll spend most of your initial moments floundering through EFP headquarters, accidentally kicking through doors instead of opening them, yapping with your co-workers, and eventually making your way over to your boss’s office in order to receive your first mission as a member of Psycho Patrol. To be fair, the game does include a handy “quick start” guide in your menu screen with a list of beginner tips and default control settings, which is a lot more than can be said of Kallio’s previous game, Cruelty Squad.
When Cruelty Squad launched back in 2021, it hit with all the subtlety of a Molotov lobbed at the broadside of a police cruiser. Casting players in the role of an augmented assassin forced to carry out “corporate liquidations” at the behest of demonic CEOs, Cruelty Squad was unambiguously anticapitalistic in its conceit, satirizing the myopic death drive of corporate greed and the dehumanizing infrastructure of the gig economy. Combined with an abrasive, maximalist art style of bright, clashing textures and the leering, dead-eyed NPCs inspired by low-poly 3D games from the ’90s, you had an experience that was honest to God unlike anything else released at that time. It was horrible; it was beautiful. People hated it and yet couldn’t get enough of it, myself included.
More than three years in the making, Psycho Patrol R builds on the success of its predecessor without feeling beholden to it. While they might appear similar at a glance, it doesn’t take long for this new game to distinguish itself from Cruelty Squad. For instance, you’re not playing an assassin in this game; you’re playing a mid-level bureaucrat cop with a bipedal mech and an unofficial mandate to do what thou wilt within the whole of your authority. Put simply: You can’t just shoot everyone on sight; you actually have to talk to people to round up information and make informed decisions as to when and where exactly you can shoot everyone on sight. Unlike Cruelty Squad, Psycho Patrol R leans wholesale into the open-ended design philosophy of immersive sim shooters, giving you multiple options aside from violence in achieving your objectives.
Furthermore, the thematic priorities of Psycho Patrol R, while complementary to that game’s critique of capitalism, are not exactly the same. The primary concern of Kallio’s second game is not so much with capitalism as it is with the twilight of globalism, the threat of total information collapse, the end of all consensus reality, and the naked hypocrisy of law enforcement attempting to launder its reputation while practicing the same tactics of violence to uphold order.
If you liked Cruelty Squad, or enjoy inventive immersive sims in general, you’ll likely enjoy and perhaps even grow to love Psycho Patrol R with time. However, bear in mind that even if you love Cruelty Squad, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll immediately be proficient at this game. You will die a lot. You will fail a lot. But what lies on the other side of all that failure and confusion is an unabashedly idiosyncratic game that, while unfinished, is already shaping up to be an experience that’s more than the sum of its peculiar parts.
Psycho Patrol R was released March 24 in early access on Windows PC. The game was reviewed on PC using a copy purchased by the author. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.
Source：https://www.polygon.com/impressions/549723/psycho-patrol-r-cyberpunk-immersive-sim-mech-shooter
