The Precinct, a neon-noir action sandbox from developer Fallen Tree Games and publisher Kwalee, has received a free update on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, with the same update launching on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on March 24. The patch adds ambulance and coroner callouts, new collectible narcotic stashes, and improved police AI, expanding the game's roster of street-level responsibilities.
Averno City sits somewhere in a 1983 East Coast that never quite sleeps. Neon-lit alleys bleed into rain-soaked streets, the Financial District towers over the Projects, and decaying parklands stretch between them like wounds the city forgot to close. A day/night cycle and dynamic weather keep the place shifting, and so does the crime. Parking infractions sit at one end of the scale, bank heists and drug deals at the other, with street racing and gang shootouts filling the space between. This is a living city in the sandbox sense, where the criminal activity isn't scripted set pieces but an ongoing churn of callouts that shape each patrol. The gangs hold real power here, their influence felt in shifting territorial struggles that play out across every district. Averno doesn't wait for you to engage with it. It keeps moving whether you're ready or not.
You play as Officer Nick Cordell Jr., a rookie beat cop fresh out of the Academy and already carrying weight. His father was murdered in the line of duty, and the circumstances around that death pull Cordell deeper into Averno's criminal underbelly as the game progresses. The surface job is straightforward enough: patrol the streets, respond to dispatch, bring people in. But underneath the daily grind of callouts sits an investigation into the gangs who run the city and the conspiracies keeping them in control. Cordell's personal stake in that investigation gives the routine police work a harder edge, turning what could be a pure sandbox into something with a through line that keeps pulling forward.
The core of The Precinct is the patrol itself. You move through Averno on foot, by squad car, or by helicopter, responding to crimes as they happen and choosing your own approach to each situation. Chases are a centrepiece, tearing through destructible environments in vehicle pursuits or running suspects down through twisting alleyways on foot. When things escalate, you're not expected to handle it alone. An in-depth support system lets you call in squad cars, set up roadblocks, and deploy spike strips, turning a solo pursuit into a coordinated takedown. Shootouts demand their own tactical thinking, and the range of crimes you encounter means the intensity swings constantly, from writing up a parking violation one minute to responding to a gang shootout the next.
The latest update pushes that variety further. Players can now jump into an ambulance to respond to medical emergencies across the city, helping injured civilians, or switch to a coroner vehicle for dispatches involving the deceased. A new hospital and morgue have been added to West Island to support these roles, and players can change into paramedic or coroner outfits directly from the vehicles. New collectible narcotic stashes unlock at Police Officer Rank 7, giving higher-ranked players something fresh to hunt for. The police AI has also been improved, now capable of pulling suspects out of hiding, and new ambulance-themed music tracks round out the additions for both the base game and downloadable content.
The Precinct draws heavily from classic cop movies, filtering that influence through a police sim structure where the sandbox crimes are the content and the 1980s noir atmosphere is the glue. Averno's population of yuppies, street vendors, and furious taxi drivers gives the city texture beyond its criminal element, and the gang power struggles layered on top create stakes that extend past any single callout. Cordell's investigation into his father's death threads through it all, but the game lives in the space between those story beats: the next dispatch, the next chase through neon and rain, the next decision about how much backup you actually need.