With enthusiasm, I launch the new demo of Militsioner, a game that I have been watching closely since its announcement. A phone rings, it’s my lawyer. I don’t know why I was arrested, but with my balcony window broken, I quickly know one thing: there is a giant fucking cop who won’t let me leave this town. He (still called HE) starts to grill me. He tires of the questions, asking me to vocally agree to stay where I am and to give up any attempt to escape. I refuse. I fail the tutorial. “Oh,” I said to myself. “So it’s going to be a good video game, huh?”
Militsioner, for the uninitiated, is an immersive simulation of massive proportions. For some reason, you’re stuck in a town alongside a handful of other people, essentially an open-air prison. Your crime? Well, you’re not really sure, but the giant cop who’s constantly looming over you certainly seems to think you should know. Of course, you immediately start planning your escape, potentially via a train car that will take you out of town, but it’s not that simple. First you have to find a job, and to get that job you have to find a desert, except, oh, what is that? A creepy character only called Friend invites you into the sewers, far from the gaze of the panopticon? Alright, I’ll take a look.
Like any good im-sim, Militsioner is a game full of possibilities. We feel that in the opening grilling, it’s simply delicious that we can screw up the tutorial just because we don’t respect the law. This also extends to your quests. This desert you need? Maybe you find it, and it costs you $30, and you immediately accidentally throw it away, it falls apart, and you’re out of money. A possible path forward is closed until you collect the money, so you move on to the next step until then.
Later, you may hear the whine of a cat. Finding it leads you to a room, a room you’re not supposed to be in, a room that contains a vinyl record, a forbidden paraphernalia. For some reason, you may add this cat to your inventory. I tried not to question the logistics of such a move. It tickled me though, as did the overall feel of the game, given that it’s also a mood management sim; piss off the giant cop, and you can count what little freedom you have goodbye. It’s also important to manage the emotions of your fellow inmates, a task that I’m sure will become increasingly complex as the game progresses.
And all this is only in the demo! What a treat, eh? You too can take a chance and try to see if you can find things that I haven’t been able to do yet go to the game’s Steam page and download the demo. Or, you can simply wait until 2027, Militsioner’s current release window.
