This Is the Police: Become a Corruptible Police Chief

Game Overview

“This Is the Police: Become a Corruptible Police Chief” is a narrative management game in which you direct the Freeburg Police Department as Chief Jack Boyd. Each workday involves assigning officers and detectives, dispatching them to calls, and advancing investigations with limited personnel.

Political demands, mafia pressure, and Jack’s own predicament mean that enforcing the law is rarely the only consideration.

The daily loop begins with choosing who will work, then deciding how many available officers each incident deserves. Calls can overlap, leaving too few people to cover everything safely.

You must judge which emergencies are credible, whether tired staff should remain on duty, and which risks the department can afford to take.

Features and Systems

Officers and detectives differ in ability and readiness, so staffing is more than filling empty slots. Approving an absence leaves the shift short-handed, while refusing every request can create other problems.

Constantly relying on the strongest employees is difficult to sustain, making the development and preservation of less experienced staff part of the strategy.

A dispatch decision is made before the full severity of an incident is known. Committing too many officers to a minor call may leave nobody for the next emergency; sending too few can cause failure or casualties.

This imperfect information gives the game a different tension from an open-ended city-building simulation.

Detective cases ask you to examine collected clues and arrange scenes into a plausible sequence of events. These sections reward reading and inference rather than quick reactions.

The management layer is not a freeform precinct sandbox, however: it is tightly connected to Jack’s authored story and the pressures placed upon him.

Choices and Narrative

The decisions are seldom simple choices between obvious virtue and obvious corruption. Public safety, employee welfare, political pressure, and Jack’s personal objective repeatedly conflict.

The central question is not how to build an ideal department, but how much of that ideal can survive under hostile conditions.

Pure efficiency may carry a narrative cost, while acting on principle can make the organization harder to maintain. The game therefore works better as role-playing with consequences than as a puzzle with one perfect solution.

Accepting mistakes and continuing the same playthrough can make the resulting version of Jack’s career feel more personal.

System Requirements

The minimum specification lists Windows XP 32, a dual-core CPU, 2 GB RAM, a GeForce 7800, AMD HD 4600, or Intel HD3000-class GPU, DirectX 9.0, and 5 GB of available storage.

The recommended specification lists Windows 10, a quad-core CPU, 4 GB RAM, a GeForce 560 or better or AMD Radeon HD 5800 or better, DirectX 11, and the same 5 GB of storage. These are modest requirements by modern gaming-PC standards.

Treat the minimum configuration as a lower boundary rather than a promise of ideal performance. Although the listed minimum includes old integrated graphics, it does not guarantee trouble-free use with every current OS and driver combination.

On an older machine, verify operating-system compatibility and install an appropriate graphics driver before playing.

Controls and Supported Features

Released on August 2, 2016, the game is designed for single-player play and supports Steam Achievements, Steam Cloud, Trading Cards, and Remote Play on TV. Full controller support provides an alternative to keyboard and mouse input.

Since reading, selecting responses, and assigning personnel matter more than rapid action, the game is accessible to players who do not enjoy reflex-heavy controls.

The supplied language information lists English, German, Russian, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese. It also identifies English and Japanese as having full audio support.

Because dialogue and narration carry much of the experience, selecting the preferred text and voice settings before starting is worthwhile.

Reception and Common Impressions

The game has maintained a positive reputation over time, particularly for connecting police-resource management with a bleak noir narrative. Sending an officer to a call is not merely an adjustment to a spreadsheet; the outcome can reinforce the weight of acting as chief.

Players who enjoy dry presentation, compromised characters, and morally uncomfortable stories are most likely to appreciate its tone.

The repeated dispatch routine can feel monotonous, and some players may want more freedom to resolve the dilemmas. Story pressure can also override careful management, so responsible decisions do not always produce the desired result.

Anyone expecting unrestricted optimization or a steady stream of triumphant outcomes may find that frustrating.

Who Should Play It

This Is the Police suits players who want to balance resources while following a substantial crime story. It is also a strong fit for noir fans and for people who enjoy decisions without a clearly signposted correct answer.

Success depends more on prioritization and accepting consequences than on mechanical dexterity.

Your treatment of employees can become part of the role you create for Jack. You may regard them as resources to spend, try to protect each person, or alternate between those positions when Freeburg applies pressure.

Players who enjoy defining a character through imperfect operational decisions will get more from the game than those seeking a neutral management sandbox.

Caveats and Who May Not Enjoy It

This is a persistently bleak game about corruption, crime, and political coercion rather than an upbeat police adventure. Ethical conduct is not guaranteed to be rewarded, and the department does not simply improve in proportion to your effort.

Players who need clear moral victories or predictable management progression should approach it cautiously.

Much of the presentation relies on dialogue, narration, and largely static story scenes. The core play also repeats shift preparation and incident dispatch across many workdays.

If you need constant direct control or dislike recurring personnel decisions, the pacing may feel slow; if you accept that routine as an expression of Jack’s burden, the combination of management and narrative becomes much more effective.