Despite whatever the world has to say about the police in the real world, in the virtual realm of video games you can almost always rely on the police to exist as, if nothing else, brilliant forms of storytelling. And since people have been creating gritty police dramas and all sorts of other great stories centered around cops for years, it makes all too much sense for there to be a boat-load of great cop-centric stories to be told through the interactable world of video games, don’t you think? So allow me to take the time to showcase 15 great games centered all about the boys in blue in this latest Top 15 article here on Gamer’s Decide.

#15: Driver: San Francisco (PC/Mac/PS3/Xbox 360/Nintendo Wii)

Driver San Francisco - Launch Trailer [UK]

Opening up our article at #15 is Driver: San Francisco, an action-adventure driving game centered around the story of FBI agent John Tanner and his partner Tobias Jones and their efforts to track down and capture the criminal Charles Jericho. After agent Tanner and Jericho both survive the shootout in Istanbul from the previous game, Driv3r, they both undergo successful surgeries and are moved to San Francisco where Jericho is set to be imprisoned, but on the day of Jericho’s trial, he stages a breakout from the prison convoy, overpowering guards and eliminating the transport and takes control of the prison van. Tanner and Jones were monitoring the escort just in case this happened and engaged in a high-speed chase, where Jericho ultimately outsmarted agent Tanner and led him into a street with heavy traffic, resulting in a devastating crash that put Tanner into a coma…

But the story doesn’t stop there, because Driver: San Francisco is a game that takes place entirely within the mind of the comatose John Tanner, and from his perspective, Tanner awakes back in his signature 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T alongside his partner Tobias Jones, and he continues his investigation to hunt down Jericho, only now Tanner can “Shift” his mind into the bodies of other drivers on the road. When playing as Tanner, you can use Shift at any time during gameplay to your advantage, meaning that if you’re in a car chase you can Shift into a heavy truck and block the road so your target crashes, along with any other split-second decisions that you can think of. Driver: San Francisco features a wide variety of real-world vehicles ranging from everyday sedans, massive big rig transport trucks, luxury rides and so much more, each of which you can control at any time you want, and each featuring tight driving controls that feel fun to use when driving around the fictionalized city of San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area.

A game like this would normally be in most people’s top 10, maybe even top 5 cop games considering its unique premise and highly replayable gameplay that can keep you hooked for hours, but the reason that a game like this is opening up today’s list is because, unfortunately, in 2016 Microsoft had to remove the ability to purchase the game from online stores due to license expiry. So as it currently stands, the only way to play this particular game is to find a physical copy or a CD key, which is all around a terrible thing considering how enjoyable of a game this truly is. But as unfortunate as this game’s limited availability is, if you’re the type who’s persistent enough to go and get your hands on a physical copy of the game, then I assure you that Driver: San Francisco will give you an adrenaline-filled cop drama driving experience that few other games can provide.

After FBI agent John Tanner is put into a coma while chasing the criminal Charles Jericho, he unknowingly continues his hunt for Jericho inside his mind and slowly grows one step closer to repairing his fractured mind.

#14: Police Sim 2022 Cop Simulator (Nintendo Switch/iOS/Android)

Police Sim 2022 - Trailer - (Android & iOS)

Police Sim 2022 Cop Simulator is a mobile game that features a pleasantly surprising amount of depth compared to other mobile games out there today. In Police Sim 2022, you can create your own police officer who can look however you want them to, then set out and explore a vast open world that features numerous gigantic cities and a variety of rural areas between them, where you can either stick to the streets and highways or venture out along secret off-road paths to further explore the world. But more important than open-world exploration is that you will be able to perform a wide array of police activities across a city filled with civilians and criminals alike.

Police Sim 2022 gives you a wide range of daily police activities to perform when out in the city, such as writing up parking tickets for illegally parked vehicles and using the radar gun to stop potential speeders from hurting someone, while simultaneously you will have to react to more spontaneous instances such as chasing down speeders along the highway and setting up spike strips to prevent a reckless driver from getting past your barricade. To get around the world you can select from a wide range of police vehicles, such as different standard-issue police cruisers from around the world and a selection of heavy-duty armored police transports like massive SWAT trucks as well. The vehicles in Police Sim 2022 are built with realistic features and physics that further add to the immersion of the living world around you and additionally mean that you’ll need to take care when swerving through the city to avoid losing control and burning out during a high-speed car chase.

Despite the stigma that surrounds mobile games like these, Police Sim 2022 does a fairly impressive job of pushing the limits of what it means to be a mobile game. And in doing so, this game turns out to be an all-around fun game that perfectly does exactly what it wants to achieve with its gameplay. So whether you want to play it on your phone or on your Switch, Police Sim 2022 is a smaller game that offers plenty of fun police missions to perform, a wide range of vehicles to drive, and a massive open world to explore. So what more could you want than that, eh?

Experience a living world built with impressive next-gen graphics and filled with realistic pedestrian activity, where it falls on your shoulders to protect the city’s citizens from whatever reckless criminal activities you might encounter.

#13: Battlefield Hardline (PC/PS3/PS4/Xbox 360/Xbox One)

Battlefield Hardline: Official Launch Gameplay Trailer

This 2015 entry into the beloved Battlefield franchise stands out from every other game in the series, as instead of focusing on large-scale military warfare, Battlefield Hardline is a high-octane cops and robbers experience like no other. The main two factions in Hardline are the police Special Response Units and a gang of criminals, who each have access to various military-grade weapons, vehicles, and equipment, as well as access to unique police equipment like tasers and handcuffs. If you’re playing for the cops, your entire goal is to stop the criminals no matter what, whether that means capturing them or putting them down for good, while if you’re playing for the robbers, your goal is to steal a variety of valuables ranging from high-end cars to bank vaults filled with money and to secure them before the cops can put a stop to you and your crew.

Battlefield Hardline features several new game modes that further make Hardline a standout difference among the other Battlefield games, game modes such as Heist, where the criminals must break into either a bank vault or an armored truck to move bags of cash while the police try to stop them, the Blood Money mode, where both teams must retrieve bags of cash from the center of the map and deliver it to their team’s truck until one team steals a total of $5 million, and the Hotwire mode, where each time must control and drive certain vehicles at a certain speed to drain the enemy team’s support tickets to 0. You can play each of these modes and more in the game’s 27 individual maps, each of which includes the Levolution feature from Battlefield 4 that allows you to drastically change the landscapes of the maps, such as on the Downtown map for example, where players can bring down a construction crane that crashes into the building blow, ripping down debris from surrounding buildings on the way down and sending it into the streets below. On top of the extensive multiplayer mode, Hardline also features a single-player campaign that features an episodic crime drama style of storytelling, where player choices will change situational outcomes and gameplay experiences as you follow the story of Officer Nick Mendoza and his place within a growing drug war in Miami.

For as much fun as many players had with this game after it was released, myself included, it would be a touch deceptive of me to not mention that after the numerous subsequent Battlefield titles that were released since 2015, Battlefield Hardline isn’t nearly as popular as it once was. So while there is still a generally decent following for the game considering its age, I can’t guarantee that you will get the “prime” experience you might have had a few years ago, which is why this game is placed as high as it is on this list. But if you’re willing to take a chance on the multiplayer, or you just want to experience the unique single-player story this game has, then I don’t see why you shouldn’t check out Battlefield Hardline sometime soon.

Choose to become either a cop or a criminal and engage in a fast-paced, high-intensity cop vs criminal combat experience like no other.

#12: SWAT 4 (PC)

SWAT 4: Gold Edition | Trailer [GOG]

Developed by Irrational Games and published by Sierra Entertainment in 2005, SWAT 4 is a tactical first-person shooter where the adrenaline is always high and you never know what dangers will be lurking around the corner. In SWAT 4 you lead an elite team of tactical experts into a wide variety of hard-hitting situations that accurately portray every detail of the stressful SWAT team experience. Whether you end up playing alongside a group of AI teammates or a group of other real-world players, in the end, it falls on your shoulders to assess the explosives situations you’ve been sent into and to do whatever it takes to capture the criminals, rescue the civilians, defuse the bomb, and do whatever else you need to at the scene of the ongoing crime to ensure you and your squad save the day.

SWAT 4 places you and your squad of fellow officers in a variety of situations, such as acting on arrest warrants and locating the suspect inside their house, entering a hostage situation to save and secure civilians while capturing the suspects in question, locating a series of bombs hidden around a certain location, and of course intense shootouts with criminals. But what makes SWAT 4 special among other FPS games is that it heavily utilizes the Rules of Engagement, or RoE, which dictates the player’s acceptable actions and use of force, meaning that since the game emphasizes the idea that "SWAT is a life-saving organization", and thus prohibits both the use of lethal force unless done justifiably and in self-defense. So while you do have access to traditional firearms, SWAT 4 generally focuses instead on the player using non-lethal weapons like tasers, pepper-ball guns, baton rounds, and riot guns to temporarily stun suspects so you can arrest them. The game also features several real-world police tools like pole cams to look under doors with, breaching charges to blast open doorways, and a handful of throwable weapons like smoke grenades, tear gas, and flash bangs to use during breach and clear maneuvers.

SWAT 4 is one of the many classic gems produced by Sierra Entertainment, both within and beyond the Police Quest franchise that SWAT 4 belongs to. Although you aren’t running or driving at high speeds and engaging in fast-paced combat, SWAT 4 still keeps the adrenaline pumping and the stress levels high as you need to rely on quick thinking and decisive teamwork to ensure that your entire squad survives a mission on top of completing it successfully. So if you want a police game that truly lets you know what it’s like to step into the boots of a SWAT officer, then you should get your hands on the 2005 classic that is SWAT 4.

Lead a squad of SWAT team officers into a range of explosive situations that simulate every detail of the SWAT experience and use every strategy and tactical tool at your disposal to arrest the suspects and keep the peace. 

#11: Rebel Cops (PC/Mac/Linux/PS4/Xbox One/Nintendo Switch/iOS/Android)

Rebel Cops — Release Trailer

A sadistic crime boss named Viktor Zuev, a master of blackmail and intimidation who’s new on the scene has swiftly taken the town of Ripton by the throat after forcing the community’s leaders, every local shop owner and even the local police to surrender to his will. But while the rest of the town has surrendered and now illegally enriches Zuev’s empire, you and a small group of former police officers have chosen to rebel against the new criminal power, and have chosen to go underground in hopes of bringing back law and order to Ripton. Even with little hope of success, you continue to fight the good fight by leading your group of outlaw renegade cops in a guerilla war where you will ultimately confront and arrest the ruthless Viktor Zuev… as long as you survive that long.

Rebel Cops is a spinoff sequel to the This Is the Police series, one that takes away the patrol cars and all the perks of being a legally instated police operation and replaces it with turn-based tactical operations that will see you encounter every kind of criminal, and even your former police brethren who have since bowed to their new master, on your quest to bring down Zuev’s empire. You will need to use careful planning and organization to ensure your cops stay alive during the various missions they will need to undertake, which includes taking on the request of civilians to earn a positive reputation that ensures local business owners will remain willing to help you, raiding corrupt criminal bases to steal valuable weapons and other loot that you can both sell on the black market and return to their rightful owners and a variety of other missions that always have a chance to drastically change your plans. And seeing as you are still trying to uphold the law, your cops are encouraged to use things like pepper spray, tasers, and other non-lethal options to capture criminals alive, but if you should inevitably end up in a violent shootout you mustn’t hesitate to defend yourself, as bullet wounds will quickly lead to your officers bleeding out and even dying.

Few cop-centric games put you and your whole organization on the backfoot quite like Rebel Cops does, and that aspect of this game makes it one of the more unique entries on today’s list and in the cop game genre as a whole. Rebel Cops also quite bluntly proves that nobody ever said being a modern-day Robin Hood was easy, so if you want to stay alive long enough to restore peace and justice in your town, you are going to need to use every tactical advantage you can get your hands on. And hopefully, you can pull that off without breaking the law too much. Even if you technically aren’t cops anymore.

After your town was taken over by a sadistic crime lord, it's up to you to lead a group of underground former police officers against every kind of criminal you can think of in a guerilla war to bring justice back to the town of Ripton.

#10: Contraband Police: Prologue (PC)

Contraband Police - Release Trailer

It’s the year 1981 and as a young officer in training, you have been assigned to work border security in a communist country. The job is simple on paper, you’ve just been sent to follow a five-day training course under the supervision of Commissioner Andreyev at the border post in the mountainous region of Karikatka to learn all the ins and outs of border security, what to look out for and how to assess a situation when you suspect someone is smuggling goods into the country, simple things like that. But the situation at the border only escalates when your comrade is suddenly killed during one of the interventions…

Contraband Police: Prologue is a short free-to-play sort of tutorial for the main Contraband Police game, which will teach you everything you need to know about being a border security officer for the strictly regulated  Acarist People's Republic. The rules of the assignment are simple, every would-be entrant into your country needs to possess a set of valid documents that will steadily increase throughout the game, where even the slightest discrepancy means refusal of entry, and if the official paperwork wasn’t bad enough, sometimes your country’s intelligence networks will report suspicious drivers who are trying to smuggle in money, drugs, and other illicit goods into your country. Under normal circumstances, you should easily be able to handcuff and arrest these criminal smugglers, but every so often you might find yourself speeding through the countryside in a high-speed chase to detain a desperately fleeing suspect, and even worse, sometimes you and your fellow checkpoint guards might get into violent shootouts when your outpost is threatened by Oberankov's gang attacks!

To compare it to another great game about border security, Contraband Police is like if you took Papers Please and ripped the player outside of the security booth and forced them instead to search for drugs in passing manure trucks. And that, strangely enough, makes for an increasingly entertaining video game that will always keep you on your toes since you never know what the next truck pulling into your inspection post will have in store for you. So whether or not you feel like committing to the whole Contraband Police game, which we’ll get to later on in this list as a matter of fact, you should at least get the free-to-play introductory tutorial that is Contraband Police: Prologue to see if you have what it takes to properly run a border security checkpoint, or if you just aren’t cut out for such a deceptively ruthless job. I mean, after all… it’s free! And who doesn’t love free?

Take over the duties of a border guard inspector in a communist country in the 80s and ensure that nobody sneaks any illegal goods into the Acarist People's Republic, no matter what it takes.

#9: Police Stories (PC/Mac/Linux/PS4/Xbox One/Nintendo Switch)

Police Stories - Release Date Trailer [September 19]

Inspired by gritty cop drama TV shows and the previously mentioned SWAT 4, Police Stories is a top-down shooter akin to games like Hotline Miami, only instead of raiding buildings to ruthlessly murder everyone in sight, you control a duo of police officers who are focused on rescuing hostages, dismantling armed explosives, and capturing the criminals alive if at all possible. This unforgiving and tense top-down tactical shooter follows the story of officers John Rimes and Rick Jones as they continuously are sent to resolve a variety of life-threatening situations. Whatever tense close-quarters situation you and your partner find yourselves in the middle of, you will need to rely on sound tactics and a selection of end-of-the-line police equipment to resolve whatever crisis you’re sent into. And ideally, you’ll come out of it alive as well.

In Police Stories you can use several high-end police tools to your advantage when you’re clearing out criminal dens, such as pole cams to look under doors, bulletproof shields to defend yourself from shooters, and a variety of items that can non-lethally stun suspects including flash grenades, pepper spray, and tasers. From small-scale petty criminals to organized gangs, there’s a variety of different criminals armed with different weapons and equipment for you to encounter, but regardless of what type of criminal they are, each suspect can be apprehended using the Surrende System, which means you can either shoot near them or beat them down in melee combat to subdue the suspect and handcuff them. But sometimes violence is necessary, and you will need to use complex tactical thinking as you slowly maneuver through a variety of locations that feature randomly placed hostages, criminals, and evidence.

Trying to aggressively speed through might work in other games, but in Police Stories you will need to use actual tactical thinking in order to get a high enough score to progress to the next level. So if you want to survive the onslaught of life-or-death situations that you and your partner will be put into when playing Police Stories, you will need to plan ahead and utilize every advantage you can. But even if you don’t, well… it’s a video game, so you can always try again! If only real cops were so lucky.

Follow the story of police officers John Rimes and Rick Jones as they do whatever it takes to put a stop to a series of daring criminal incidents that are not only endangering their own lives but also the lives of innocent civilians across the city.

#8: Beat Cop (PC/Mac/Linux/PS4/Xbox One/Nintendo Switch/iOS/Android)

Beat Cop - gameplay trailer

More of a beast than it is a city, in 1980s New York City you play as former detective Jack Kelly who, after being framed for murder in the Senator's villa, has been degraded and forgotten by his old pals and unceremoniously demoted to a meager beat cop. But the thing is, your new boss and colleagues treat you like garbage, your wife is a money-sucking spawn from hell, and the local mafia wants your head on a plate. So not only will you need to balance all of that on your plate, but you also need to follow a personal investigation to clear your name by finding the real culprit of the crime you’re accused of! Along with writing up parking tickets and reprimanding pedestrians. You’re still a beat cop after all.

In Beat Cop, you’re the only person in the entire city who gives a rat’s ass about the fact you were framed, so it’s entirely up to you to track down the actual criminals behind the crime while you patrol your beat, which will primarily see you performing everyday beat cop activities like writing up parking tickets for illegally parked cars or cars with expired meters, and poking your head into the local businesses on your beat so you can cozy up with the locals. Since the game is set in 1980s Brooklyn New York, naturally the world of Beat Cop is heavily inspired by all those iconic 80s cop shows and movies, and that means you can incorporate the tactics of classic 80s cop heroes in your own daily struggles as a beat cop, whether that means being sexier than Sonny Crocket or tougher than Dirty Harry. But since it is the 1980s, you also best prepare yourself for plenty of grizzled sarcasm, gloom, and black humor befitting of the period., It’s a jungle out there, and sometimes you just need to relieve the stress.

Beat Cop is a subtle favorite game of mine on this list, as I’m always a sucker for these types of pixel-art indie games in general, but also because the deceptively simplistic gameplay of patrolling your beat and doing what everyone else in the department considers to be degrading labor is just so strangely entertaining. And when you combine the gameplay itself with the entire setting of the in-game world and the story that you tell, a story that has multiple endings by the way, you get a game that might just leave you surprised by its charm and replayability. And if any of that sounds like something that’ll hook you in as it did to me, then Beat Cop is a game well worth your time.

Patrol your assigned street as a lowly beat cop, where you’ll hand out parking tickets and check in on the local businesses, all while secretly looking for the true culprit behind the murder that you were framed for.

#7: Door Kickers (PC/Nintendo Switch/iOS/Android)

Door Kickers - Launch Trailer

Although the previously mentioned Police Stories shares the same genre as our next game, you’ll quickly find that Door Kickers is a top-down strategic shooter that’s all its own. Because Door Kickers features real-time tactical gameplay that puts you in control of entire squads of SWAT team officers whom you will lead across over 100 non-linear, free-form levels. There are no turns, no action points, and no awkward interfaces to be found in Door Kickers, just plenty of realistic but action-packed tactical gameplay that features and sometimes even encourages on-the-fly improvisation.

In Door Kickers you will be tasked with infiltrating a variety of environments that range from suburban neighborhoods to city blocks overrun with chaos and even dockyards filled with shipping containers, each of which is filled with a variety of criminals. The way you control your squads of officers across missions is by drawing a line across the map for each officer in your squad to determine their line of movement, where along their pathway you can order them to perform certain actions such as throwing flashbangs, breaching doorways, and of course, gunning down whatever armed and dangerous suspects are in your way. With appropriate planning, for example, you could send in four separate officers to breach a house and take out every criminal inside in rapid succession, but in case things don’t go to plan you can pause mid-engagement to rethink your plan, or you can just change the strategy on the fly in real-time when necessary.

Door Kickers features six different campaigns that each feature a certain amount of levels that themselves draw from several different mission varieties, such as the Hostage Rescue, Protect the VIP, and Arrest Warrant missions among others. And if 100+ base game missions aren’t enough, the game also features a custom level creator and the ability to download and share said custom levels with other players, granting you a virtually limitless amount of replayability. In my opinion, Door Kickers is a sleeper hit among this list of games, as its take on the top-down strategy shooter formula, which features real-time tactical analysis of dozens of mission varieties, makes it one of the most unique games in the genre. And one that I think is worth playing if you’re a fan of blood-pumping, close-quarters police action.

Control multiple police officers at once using simplistic yet powerful controls and innovative real-time gameplay to tactically secure any criminal situation that you find yourself tasked with getting under control.

#6: Police Simulator: Patrol Officers (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X/S)

Police Simulator: Patrol Officers – Console Release Trailer

In Police Simulator: Patrol Officers, you play as a newly recruited police officer in the fictional city of Brighton, where you begin your journey of living the day-to-day life of a police officer. You’ll start small like any rookie cop, dealing with minor traffic stops and the like, but if you show your worth and prove that you have what it takes, you’ll slowly be given more responsibilities to shoulder along with your route being expanded to cover a larger radius around the city. Patrol Officers is an open-world exploration game like few others, because not only will you need to follow the rules rather than break them, but you will also need to enforce them upon the other residents of the world to keep the peace and ensure the safety of the residents of Brighton!

One of the most prominent features of Police Simulator: Patrol Officers is its dynamic traffic system that both organically creates realistic traffic flow and the random occurrences of car accidents, as well as a slew of different emergencies that can randomly pop up during your shift, and thus forcing you to be ready to act at a moment’s notice. Your humble beginnings as a rookie cop will see you mostly giving out parking tickets and towing illegally parked cars, but as you rise through the department’s ranks you will gain access to new duties as well as access to new city districts, such as busting drug deals happening in the middle of the park, or getting into dramatic foot-chases with graffiti sprayers illegally tagging public property. It’s not just traffic problems and happening upon random activities though, because the game uses something called the Intuition System, which allows you to notice important clues when they’re either scattered around the world or when you’re taking witness statements and interrogating criminals, which means that you need to pay close attention to everything you see and hear, as you never know what could help you solve the case.

Whether it’s simple issues like writing up tickets and picking up litter, or dealing with drunk driving accidents and apprehending criminal suspects to interrogate them down at the station, Police Simulator has a little bit of everything when it comes to selling you the police officer experience. If you think you have what it takes to enforce the law and help keep the peace across the three expansive districts of Brighton City, Police Simulator: Patrol Officers offers an authentic police officer experience. One which will let you experience both the lows and the highs alike of protecting a city and its citizens.

Take to the streets of Brighton City and work your way up through your department as a rookie police officer, and experience an open-world police simulation that you can play both alone and with a friend through online co-op.

#5: Contraband Police (PC)

Contraband Police - Release Trailer

After we looked at the free-to-play prologue for this game back at #10, we’ll now take a look at the full paid-release edition of Contraband Police, the game about running a border checkpoint in a 1980s Communist country. The story remains the same, you’re a border checkpoint officer working alongside a small team of fellow officers, ensuring that nobody smuggles anything illegal into your glorious country. Only instead of being a short tutorial version of the game, this edition of Contraband Police is the entire package! So feel free to have your cake and eat it too in this one.

The general gameplay that was previously mentioned at #10 still applies here in the full release of Contraband Police, in that it’s your responsibility as a border security officer to ensure that every would-be entrant into the mountainous region of Karikatka has their correct traveling documents and that they aren’t transporting illegal goods like contraband cash, drugs, guns, and a variety of other illicit items. The main difference between the two versions is that here in the full release, you can play well beyond the first five days that act as a tutorial, meaning that you can experience the full-fledged steadily increasing difficulty that comes with sorting out an immigrant's papers, and that you have proper access to additional features such as upgrading your police station to increase its defenses and improve subsequent inspections. You also must always be ready to receive special assignments, whether that means solving crime puzzles or intervening in an emergency involving the Blood Fist rebels, as each decision you make could end up altering the very future of Acaristan.

If you’ve made it this far into the article, then I probably don’t need to sell you on this particular game for a second time, yeah? Because you already know that Contraband Police tosses away the morally gray aspect of games like Papers Please and replaces it by giving you the full responsibility of making sure that no illegal goods cross the border into your glorious country, whether they’re hidden in the back of a truck, in the stuffing of the driver’s seat, or even inside the wheels of the vehicle itself! So if there’s one thing you can for sure expect… it’s that you’ve got your work cut out for you if you want to protect your country, and to make sure your head stays firmly on your neck, да?

The task of checking every piece of identification and ensuring that no illicit goods slip past your border checkpoint is only going to get more difficult in the full-release version of Contraband Police!

#4: Ready or Not (PC)

Ready or Not – Are You Ready? – Official 1.0 Launch Trailer

In the city of Los Sueños, the LSPD has become nearly overwhelmed by a massive upsurge in violent crime across the greater Los Sueños area. In response, the LSPD has dispatched multiple Special Weapons and Tactics teams to respond to various scenes involving high-risk hostage situations, including active bomb threats, barricaded suspects, and other high-stakes criminal activities. In Ready or Not you assume the role of David "Judge" Beaumont, the leader of one such SWAT team, who is tasked with leading his team into a variety of highly dangerous situations where you must use realistic police tactics to both capture the dangerous suspects waiting for you and to make sure that you and your team make it out alive.

Ready or Not features five primary mission modes that each feature varying levels of difficulty, as well as different Rules of Engagement, such as only killing a suspect if they are attempting to kill the player or others, that have penalties for violating them, with the missions including Barricaded Suspects, where players must secure hostages and collect evidence while appropriately dealing with suspects, and Active Shooter, where one or more suspects actively targeting civilians must be stopped. Along with equipment like stun grenades, breaching devices, and ballistic shields, the game offers the player a variety of both lethal and non-lethal firearms, with the lethal options including a range of rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, and handguns to choose from that can each be customized and fitted with different parts, and the non-lethal variety of weapons including tasers, riot guns, and pepper spray. But unlike other similar games such as SWAT 4, the misuse of less-lethal weapons like beanbag shotguns and pepper ball guns do have the chance to kill whoever you’re aiming at if you aren’t careful, adding an extra layer of tactical precaution that you need to take.

Ready or Not takes the tense, fast-paced tactical shooter genre and puts it in the modern age, both with modern-day graphics that look spectacular and with an underlying story that features a handful of interesting characters that might leave you feeling surprisingly attached to them after seeing their stories and struggles. I’m glad that we can feature this game in this article, because while Read or Not has already been available for some time as an Early Access title on Steam, just recently on December 13th the game finally launched its 1.0 update that includes a vast selection of new features and upgrades to the game, such as improved AI, new Steam achievements, and plenty more for players old and new alike to go and discover for themselves. So whether you haven’t touched the game for a while or if you’ve been looking for the perfect opportunity to start playing, now is the perfect time for you to go play Ready or Not and see all of the action-packed cop-centric drama that it has in store for you.

Become the commander of a SWAT team, one that’s either filled with AI-controlled teammates or other real-life players and conduct a series of tactical missions to put an efficient stop to the violent crime wave that’s overwhelming Los Sueños.

#3: This Is the Police (PC/Mac/Linux/PS4/Xbox One/Nintendo Switch/iOS/Android)

This Is the Police — Gameplay Trailer

After we looked back at the spinoff third addition to this series back at #11, we have now finally reached the game where this entire story began, that being the original This Is the Police. Set in a city that’s circling the drain, this story of corruption, crime, and intrigue begins with you assuming the role of the gritty 60-year-old Police Commissioner of Freeburg Jack Boyd, who, after his deputy Francis Kendrick was accused of corruption charges that were ultimately dropped, is being forcibly retired by corrupt Mayor Seymour Rogers. Now, with only 180 days until his retirement, Jack Boyd sets the goal of making $500,000 so he can have a nice retirement fund to fall back on, and how he actually goes about making that much money in between all of his other daily activities… is entirely up to you.

Primarily in This Is the Police, you will be looking down at an imaginary scale model of Freeburg, which is where you will first manage the police officers under your command by equipping them with tools like pepper spray, tasers, bulletproof vests, and so on, before sending them out in squad cars to respond to various incidents around the city, whether it be a simple drunken barfight or a rape in progress, and the real difficulty of this is that you need to delicately balance your available staff between making sure they get enough rest to work efficiently and the officers themselves needing time off for a variety of reasons. You will also deal with much more hard-hitting issues, like sending your best officers to investigate a grizzly murder that you must solve by stringing together the right series of events, along with Jack’s more personal matters like investigating the local mafia that holds a significant amount of power in the city, indulging his gambling addictions, seeing his therapist, and of course building up his retirement fund. The decisions you make throughout this dark story, and how you react to what it throws at you, will not only influence the game but also the very fate of Jack Boyd.

It’s entirely up to you to decide whether you want to lead Jack down the path of the straight and narrow, or if you think that doing a bit of illegal underground gambling to try and boost up his retirement fund will be the best course of action. The story-driven aspect of the game is what makes this title one of my favorite games on this list, and that’s before you even factor in the gameplay of managing an entire police precinct and getting involved in top-down, turn-based isometric combat with especially desperate criminals. So I’m happy to have This Is the Police here at #3 on this list, and I’m also happy to recommend that you give it a try for yourselves if you think that you have what it takes to shake off the corruption that’s plaguing the city of Freeburg. Or maybe that corruption will only end up leaving you broken… or worse?

After the corrupt mayor of Freeburg forces Police Chief Jack Boyd to retire after a corruption scandal in his precinct, Jack must save up $500,000 for a retirement nest egg. And only your decisions will determine if Jack lives to see a comfy retirement, or if Freeburg’s corrupt underbelly will swallow him whole.

#2: RoboCop: Rogue City (PC/PS5/Xbox Series X/S)

RoboCop: Rogue City | Story Trailer

Set in the near future, the city of Old Detroit is under threat by a sudden crime wave surge that has endangered dozens of citizens and already claimed the lives of numerous police officers, and so far no leads are pointing to the true culprit behind it all. Then, during an indecent where a group of criminals takes hostages inside the Channel 9 news studio, the half-man, half-machine, all-cop hero known as RoboCop is sent to investigate this crime wave, to put a stop to it once and for all by capturing the mysteriously illusive figure responsible. In RoboCop: Rogue City, you must take up the legendary RoboCop mantle and get ready to protect the innocent and uphold the law, no matter what it takes!

RoboCop: Rogue City is a first-person shooter with RPG elements that takes place in between the RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3 films, and features an all-new original storyline for players to enjoy while playing as the titular RoboCop himself, who is even voiced by the character’s original actor Peter Weller. Your investigation will lead you into quite a few shootouts against the various criminal gangs terrorizing the city, and the game does a masterful job of making the player really feel like the “tank on legs” that RoboCop himself is, as not only will you be shrugging off the heavy fire coming from criminals all directions, but you will also be able to power through the various explorable environments in-game either by blasting through walls with your superior strength, shooting everything apart with your trusty Auto-9 pistol, or throwing around explosives and various other objects across the game, criminals included! But when you aren’t getting into ridiculously violent shootouts, you will be able to decide how RoboCop should conduct both his main investigation and a variety of side-missions, as you can choose whether to diffuse a potential situation using peaceful dialog or by making things physical using your overwhelming power. And, of course, you can choose to write up parking tickets if you so desire.

How the citizens of Old Detroit react to RoboCop’s presence is dictated by your decisions throughout the game, so whether he’s perceived as a hero who’s here to protect and serve or as a faulty piece of hardware that’s more trouble than he’s worth is entirely on your shoulders. RoboCop: Rogue City brings the iconic visuals and overall atmosphere of the original films to life using Unreal Engine 5’s advanced graphical ability, which makes both the city and RoboCop himself look stunning as you find yourself stomping through it during your latest mission. In my humble opinion, RoboCop: Rogue City is one of the best games to have been released this year, and the fact that it’s generally been a more under-the-radar release is just plain criminal! So if you’re looking for a game about cops that shakes up the formula in all the best ways possible, or if you’re just a fan of the original film series, RoboCop: Rogue City is a sleeper hit that will leave you far from disappointed.

The city of Old Detroit is being torn apart by a crime wave instigated by an unknown new threat. Now it falls to Officer Alex Murphy, now known as the half-man, half-machine, all-cop hero known as RoboCop, to dish out justice, uphold the law, and save the city by any means necessary.

#1: L.A. Noire (PC/PS3/PS4/Xbox 360/Xbox One/Nintendo Switch)

L.A. Noire 4K Trailer

It’s 1947 in Los Angeles during the post-war Hollywood Golden Age, and though the city looks sparkly and clean on the outside, in truth it's a city that’s drowning in its own success, with corruption running rampant, the drug trade exploding, and murder rates rising to an all-time high. In his fight to climb the ranks of the precinct and to prove himself, newly minted LAPD detective Cole Phelps will come face to face with the worst that the city has to offer as he tries to unravel the truth behind a string of arson attacks, racketeering conspiracies, and brutal murders. If you and Detective Phelps are to survive going up against the L.A. underworld and even members of his own precinct, you will need to become the best detective you can possibly be as you come face to face with a secret that could shake the city to its rotten core.

In L.A. Noire, the player must take control of Detective Cole Phelps and use his skills as a detective to uncover the truth behind numerous cases, ranging from thoroughly thought-out murders to crimes of passion and even violent shootouts with dozens of criminals, along with many more to be uncovered throughout the game. When you aren’t cruising through the authentically recreated 1940s Los Angeles or getting into shootouts, you will primarily be busy investigating various crime scenes across L.A. for every individual shred of evidence that could be even remotely relevant to the case at hand, whether it’s something as small as a broken pair of glasses to something as monumental as an abandoned pistol, as each piece of evidence can be used during interrogations. What makes L.A. Noire especially a standout star is its advanced motion-tracking technology that captures every nuance of an actor's facial performance in astonishing detail, which you will need to look out for when interviewing witnesses and interrogating suspects, as each facial gesture along with each line of dialog could be all it takes to make or break your case.

The usual wellspring of top-quality game design that gamers have come to expect from Rockstar Games over the years is very much present in this 2011 release, and that quality in turn makes this game one of the best there is when it comes to games all about cops. Closing out our list at #1, I can think of few games better to see here than L.A. Noire, a violent crime thriller that blends breathtaking action with true detective work and makes for an incredibly memorable experience all the way through. Suppose you have what it takes to hunt down clues, chase down suspects across rooftops, and the will to interrogate incriminating confessions out of even the most tight-lipped criminals. In that case, L.A. Noire is a game worth playing time and again if you somehow haven’t already.

After recently making the rank of Detective, Cole Phelps will take on the worst that the L.A. underworld has to offer in his pursuits to rise through the LAPD ranks and to expose a deep-rooted secret that could tip this town over the edge.

Conclusion

We’ve talked about doing detective work, we’ve talked about operating Slavic border crossing checkpoints, we’ve talked about using advanced police tactics to arrest hostile suspects, and everything in between. And after all that, we’ve finally reached the end of today’s article, and if you’ve made it all the way to the end then let me offer you my thanks for reading the entire thing. If you’ve got thoughts you’d like to share, feel free to leave them in the comments, but other than that, that’s all the time that I have, so maybe I’ll see you in the next article.  

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