This is the Police Launching Early 2016

This is the Police, an interesting role-playing/strategy game, will finally be releasing early 2016.

In a recent update, the team promised the game will be released sometime in “the first half of 2016,” and that we’ll be able to play the game even earlier in January. They don’t exactly specify what this means, but it’s likely going to be some kind of beta, either for backers only or possibly an open one.

This is the Police, which we’ve covered quite a bit in the past, is a game about a police officer who has always been the good cop. He has a spotless record, and has been dedicated to the job most of his life. Unfortunately, he gets paid like crap, and he’s about to be forced into retirement in 180 days. That’s how long you’re going to have to fulfill his lifelong dream of getting half a million dollars.

The Kickstarter first launched in January 2015, an interesting time for the game. Throughout the latter months of 2014 and all of this year, the United States has been dealing with the topic of police brutality throughout the nation. More and more acts of murder committed by police officers are being caught on camera, and through several protests throughout the country we’ve seen the police are arming themselves more than ever as well.

It’s worth pointing out, also like with Prison Architect, it’s not being produced by an American company. Weappy Studio, the team behind the game, is based in Belarus, “Europe’s last dictatorship”. Perhaps drawing comparisons to America’s police situation to a literal police state might be incredibly short-sighted on my part. Either way, This is the Police once again shows how the medium of videogames can provide commentary on a society like no other.