In recent months, some prominent game companies andgamers declared that the idea of single player games are dead; they stated that nobody really plays them anymore and that they shouldn’t be produced. Companies like Electronic Arts (EA) claim this because they want to create more multiplayer games stuffed with microtransactions to make the most amount of money, instead of creating games just for the player because they enjoy it.

However, with the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 by Rockstar Games, there is a renewed interest in great single player games. One such game is This Is The Police.

This Is The Police was created by Weappy Studios and published by THQ Nordic, released on August 2, 2016 to all PC platforms through the PC game system Steam. The game was later released on the Xbox One and Playstation 4 systems on March 22, 2017 and released for the Nintendo Switch on October 24, 2017. Before release in the beginning of 2015, the developers started a Kickstarter to raise funds for the development of the game, raising over $35,000.

The story follows 60 year old police chief, Jack Boyd, in the mid-to-late 1980’s in the fictional city of Freeburg, where Boyd is given a forced retirement in 180 days by the corrupt mayor, Stewart Rogers. In those 180 days, you control your police department and its officers, sending them to different calls, emergencies and investigations, with your own personal goal of making it semi-big by earning half a million. Over the course of the 180 days, you face gang wars, serial killers, and drama concerning your characters own life, all under the watchful eye of the mayor and his administration and with some smooth jazz in the background.  

Overall the game and narrative is great, keeping you on the edge of your seat to see how the most recent call went; did they succeed? Or did they all get killed on the job?

The narrative keeps you rooting for Boyd, the devil with angel wings, despite his shortcomings in life. The game doesn’t require as much intensity and attention as a first-person shooter, but instead requires management to send out the rightly trained officers for certain calls and to be sure to conserve your SWAT team, among others.

This Is The Police is truly one of the best single player experiences out there currently to experience with this singleplayer “revolution”, if you will. Because of the success of Red Dead Redemption 2, this game can finally receive the appreciation it should. The gameplay requires effective management of resources and provides a more challenging experience and the narrative grips and pulls you into the life and story of Jack Boyd.

Through revolutionary games like this one, we can bring about the new advent of story based games.