When it comes to these 15 games, the hook that reels you in can be anything from driving fast cars, gaining well-deserved notoriety in the criminal underworld, and even stealing millions of dollars right out from under some poor sap’s nose, along with plenty of other factors on top of all of the above. Alternatively, on the other side of the one-way glass, you could be searching for that glistening satisfaction that comes with solving the crime when nobody else could, saving an innocent life at the risk of your own, or bringing justice to those who deserved to be punished. Whether you’re interested in being the best detective in the city or being the most notorious criminal in the world, this Top 15 list of games will have a bit of everything you’re looking for and then some. And that list starts with…
#15: Prison Simulator (PC/PS4/Xbox One/Nintendo Switch)
Prison Simulator on Steam - Official launch trailer
The age-old saying “crime doesn’t pay” is one that may not apply to the criminals themselves, but in an ironic twist, crime is what keeps you employed when you’re working as a prison guard. And that’s exactly what you’ll be doing in the first game on our list, Prison Simulator, an appropriately titled game that will let you experience the daily hell that comes with being a prison guard. Every day you’ll have to search for contraband in all the worst places, help maintain the prison infrastructure, keep the prison’s weapons maintained, shoot some hoops during your break, and so many more scarce highs and definite lows as you do your best to keep the peace inside these prison walls.
How you choose to maintain order in the prison is entirely up to you, as Prison Simulator gives you the choice between being a fair and just guard who tries to see the best in the prisoners or a class-A a-hole who abuses his authority and treats these criminals like the dirt they are. On top of keeping things orderly in the cafeteria and breaking up fist-fights in the yard, you’ll also need to do less glamorous work like cleaning up filthy cells, putting out fires, fixing electrical systems, and looking through contraband items like sticks of deodorant to make sure there’s nothing illegal hiding inside. The game also features an advanced character creator that allows you to customize the appearances of the prisoners you’ll be looking over, which allows you to create individuals ranging from fairly normal to goblin-esc freaks, depending on how much fun you want to have with the system. Just try to resist the urge to fill your prison with celebrities and politicians, okay?
Being a prison guard is far from the most glamorous life there is, that much is certain, but thanks to Prison Simulator you’ll be able to experience a taste of what prison life is like from the comfort of your own home! The overall ambiance that the game offers, from the prison architecture to the way the prisoners look and behave, further immerses players in the harsh reality of prison life that both the prisoners and their guards endure on any given day. Whether you’ll play as a role model CO or a total power-hungry jerk, Prison Simulator successfully captures the intrigue and challenges associated with the criminal justice system in a way that makes for an entertaining gaming experience, earning its spot as the opener for this list.
Get a taste of prison life as you become a prison guard and deal with dangerous convicts, managing the prison itself with tons of daily activities for both you and the prisoners to ensure that they serve their sentences smoothly. Will you become the best guard you can be or the worst scumbag the prison has ever seen?
#14: Thief Simulator 2 (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X/S/Nintendo Switch)
Thief Simulator 2 | Official Release Trailer
We’re not done with the simulators yet, as now we turn our attention to Thief Simulator 2, a game about a world full of valuables, expensive cars, and rustling banknotes that are just ripe for the picking… as long as you can find a way to steal them. You’re no master criminal right out of the gate though, so if you want to make some serious money out of being a career criminal you’ll need to get some practice first by starting small, sticking mostly to petty theft until you can work your way up the ladder of experience to more high-stakes jobs. As a thief, you’ll need to carefully plan your robberies by watching the house of your latest mark, learning the tenant’s routines, and finding the perfect time to break in and rob them blind, but you’ll also need to keep your eyes and ears open at all times, as even the best plans can fall apart in seconds.
Thief Simulator 2 was released in early October this year, and currently, the game features three distinct neighborhoods with over twenty houses to steal from, along with three major heist locations centered around a six-house resort, a warehouse, and a central bank, each filled with untold riches to steal as well as dozens of guards and security measures in place to keep you from your hard-earned ill-gotten gains. To complete these and a handful of other jobs you will need to level up through gameplay, starting with small-time jobs and unlocking better tools, equipment, and abilities during continued gameplay, such as lockpicks to silently enter rooms you previously had to bash open with your crowbar, tools to hack security cameras, and even sleeping gas and tranquilizer guns to quietly knock out annoying security guards. The more you play and the better you are at stealing, the more opportunities you’ll get, such as going from stealing cheaper and low-end cars to stealing expensive sports cars, or getting your hands on gold bars from the bank, on top of plenty more expensive items that you can pawn off in order to upgrade your tools. You can even upgrade or just buy a new car altogether, which you’ll need if you want to outrun the police during intense chases with police cars and helicopters alike tailing after you.
Why waste your days working for pennies when you can just steal from the rich and give to yourself, right? Though since stealing in real life is far more difficult and, y’know, very illegal, Thief Simulator 2 gives you the means to become the criminal career you’ve always wanted to be, just without the actual risk of going to jail for many, many years if you get caught. Whether you’re robbing houses, stealing cars, or lifting entire bank vaults, Thief Simulator 2 offers a large sandbox full of expensive goodies to play around in, with plenty of opportunities to strike it big time and again hiding within, just waiting for you to make the first move. And all you have to do is avoid getting caught by the police. Easy enough, right?
Pick locks, hack security cameras, knockout guards, stake out buildings from the air with drones, and use many more tools and strategies as you rob your victims blind in your mission to become a master of the thieving trade.
#13: RoboCop: Rogue City (PC/PS5/Xbox Series X/S)
RoboCop: Rogue City - Story Trailer
Become the legendary part man, part machine, all cop hero in RoboCop: Rogue City, the most recently released game on this list that puts players into the cybernetic shoes of Officer Alex Murphy, a cop who died in the line of duty and was transformed postmortem into a cyborg now known as RoboCop, as he sets out on an explosive adventure to uphold the law by any means necessary in this dystopian near-future depiction of Detroit. The game takes place between the events of the second and third RoboCop films, where the city of Old Detroit has been near-crippled by a massive crime wave, and a mysterious new enemy threatening the peace and order of the city. As RoboCop, you’ll do battle against waves of criminals using your trusty Auto-9 pistol and an assortment of twenty other weapons as you navigate the city of Old Detroit on an investigation that will lead you directly into the heart of a shadowy conspiracy, set in an original story within the RoboCop universe.
The biggest draw in Rogue City is its first-person shooter gameplay that does an excellent job in portraying that same feeling of RoboCop being a near-unstoppable tank on legs from the films, only now it’s made better by being the one in control of the action. From TV studios filled with hostages to criminal hideouts hidden inside warehouses, the game is filled with locations that you can not only thoroughly explore, but thoroughly destroy as you combat waves of criminals, as you’re able to pick up random objects like computer monitors or office file cabinets and throw them into enemies via physics-based object interaction, or you can explore through a wall to surprise the criminals hiding on the other side, along with many other interactable features such as exploding barrels or TV sets. You can also use abilities like night-vision and a flashbang shockwave, along with other abilities that you can unlock and then further upgrade, along with being able to upgrade your Auto-9 pistol as well, throughout the game to increase your strength. There’s even an unlockable perk that doesn’t affect gameplay whatsoever besides adding a ridiculous increase of blood and gore if you’re into that.
Rogue City isn’t just about violent FPS action though, as you will be able to perform many of the other daily obligations of a police officer through side quests, such as conducting investigations, giving out parking tickets, and scanning for traffic violations and disorderly conduct. Alongside RoboCop, who by the way is voiced by the original RoboCop actor Peter Weller himself, a few other familiar faces from the films return as side characters that you can interact with, including Alex Murphy’s old partner Anne Lewis, Sergeant Warren Reed, and other old characters alongside an all-new cast of original characters as well. As RoboCop, when interacting with these characters you will be given selectable dialog options that determine how the game’s story continues, including being able to choose either violent or peaceful solutions when interrogating suspects. The overall storyline and ending of the game are also altered depending on the decisions you make during the game, and additionally, there is a “public trust” score that can be built up by interacting with civilians, which also can affect gameplay.
If you’re a fan of the original RoboCop movies, then it’ll be immediately clear that Rogue City is a passionate love letter to the series that brings all the best qualities of the franchise to life in a brand-new fashion thanks to its exciting and visually stunning gameplay. Rogue City’s release on November 2nd has been a pretty quiet one compared to other game releases throughout 2023, which is especially odd since Rogue City is on the same level, if not even above the level of some of the best AAA releases we’ve seen this year, making the game what I consider one of the most underrated releases we’ve seen in 2023. So I’ll do what little I can by saying that if you’re looking for a unique spin on the FPS formula, or if you’re just a fan of the films, you should go out of your way to get your hands on RoboCop: Rogue City and experience all the greatness it has to offer for yourself.
Part man, part machine, all cop hero. Become the legendary RoboCop and set out to stop the new crime wave that’s overwhelming Old Detroit, protecting the innocent and bringing justice to criminals one way or another as you fight to uphold the law by any means necessary.
#12: Sifu (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X/S/Nintendo Switch)
Sifu - Official Reveal Trailer
Of all the elements that you can use to spice up a crime drama, I think most people can agree that adding Kung Fu and any other martial arts form for that matter helps make an already dramatic story all the more intense. And that’s exactly what Sifu sets out to and successfully achieves throughout its overarching story that begins just where you would expect it to: on a rainy night in China, when five disgraced martial arts students led by a man named Yang raid their old school, attacking everyone within and eventually confronting, then killing Yang’s former master by striking him in the chest and stopping his heart. You are not any of these individuals however, you are the child of Yang’s former master, who then orders one of the others to slit your throat. But that’s not where your story ends, as the child later awakens and discovers that the ancient talisman in their hand has the power to revive them from death at the cost of exponentially increasing their age in the process.
The player character, who you can choose to be either male or female, vows revenge against the five responsible for killing their father and spends the next eight years living in isolation, training relentlessly and gathering information on their targets until, finally, they are an adult and a skilled enough martial artist to begin their quest for revenge. This is where your story begins, as you begin hunting down the assassins that took your family from you, a quest that will take you through the hidden corners of the city, from gang-ridden suburbs to the cold hallways of corporate towers, and each step of the way you will face off against countless enemies in a one against all crusade in the name of vengeance. You only have one day to complete your quest, and though the power of your ancient amulet can revive you from death, you must pay the hefty price of aging with each revival and the consequences that it brings.
Sifu is a run-based action beat ‘em up game with some action roguelike elements that feature over 150 unique attacks that are heavily inspired by Bak Mei kung fu. Basic attack moves can be chained together to create stronger attacks and lead to additional tactical opportunities, like knocking down or stunning enemies, along with allowing you to use unique attacks that send enemies into the surrounding environment, such as smashing their head into the wall beside you or kicking an enemy through a barrier and off a ledge, along with taking weapons from your environments like brooms and bottles, and actual weapons like bo staffs and baseball bats. What makes this game especially challenging is that enemies don’t wait their turn in combat and they don’t broadcast their intents, so you will need to watch closely and react in real-time either by dodging or parrying their attacks into strikes of your own. At times you can fight more than five, even more than ten different enemies at once, so you truly will need to master your art if you want to stay alive. Not that that’s a problem for you…
Since I first started playing Sifu I almost immediately became a fan of the challenging gameplay, along with its fluent animations and its unique art style that brought out the best of the game’s captivating environments. You will have to learn from your mistakes over and over again on your quest for revenge when playing Sifu, forcing you to master the art of kung fu through continued practice, a pathway for the mind just as well as the body. Though this isn’t a game about solving or committing crimes in the traditional sense, it is a game about avenging those you’ve lost from crime in a cruel twist of fate, which is why a game like Sifu is more than welcome in a list like this one.
Master the art of kung fu to seek revenge against the people who murdered your father, and battle waves of countless enemies along the way. If you fall in battle, the magic amulet you wear will bring you back to life at the cost of rapidly aging you and the consequences that age brings.
#11: Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox 360/Xbox One/Nintendo Switch)
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments - Announce Trailer
When it comes to making a game revolving all around the world of crime, who better to make a game about than the most famous detective in history? We’re of course talking about Sherlock Holmes himself, who is not only one of the most famous detectives in history fictional or otherwise, but likely one of the most famous characters ever created as proven by the character’s staggering 25,000+ appearances across all products and productions, including film, television, comics, even wine advertisements, and in this case of course, video games. In Crimes and Punishments, players will enter the role of Sherlock himself as he finds himself face to face with six new cases of murders, disappearances, and thefts in the suburbs of London, and they’ll have to use their skills of deduction if they want to uncover clues and string together enough information to track down the guilty party, whom you are given the moral choice of either absolving or condemning them.
Set in the years 1894 and 1895, the story of Crimes and Punishment is heavily based on the original novels written by Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock’s creator, players will control Sherlock across the game’s six separate cases and must take full advantage of his skills as a master detective in order to solve these crimes accurately, which take the form of the game’s fourteen investigation mechanics, which includes Sherlock’s talent to deduce many details about someone’s life just from a glance and his ability to reconstruct the course of the crime in question by carefully observing the key details of a crime scene. The game gives you a “deduction board” to keep all your gathered clues and evidence together, and you will have to link these clues together to deduce the true culprit behind a crime. Each of the game’s six investigations has three to five possible solutions for you to discover, and six to ten total endings for each case, meaning that it will be entirely possible for you to make the wrong deduction and let the criminal escape into the proverbial night if you aren’t at the top of your investigative game. And it would just be embarrassing for a detective like Holmes to fall short now, wouldn’t it?
From “The Fate of Black Peter” to “The Abbey Grange Affair”, though none of these cases are directly related to each other, they are related in the fact that they will put your investigative ability to the test. Whether that means looking for the most minuscule clue at a crime scene or brawling it out with a few odd characters along the way, in the end, it’s all done in pursuit of the truth and bringing justice to whoever deserves it. In this dramatic game about adventure and mystery, will you be able to fill the shoes of the world’s most prolific detective? Because all of London is counting on you to do just that in Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments.
From spectacular thefts, missing persons, and even murders, become the most celebrated detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes, and use your impressive talents as a detective to solve six heinous crimes in the heart of 1890s London.
#10: Ravenous Devils (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X/S/Nintendo Switch)
Ravenous Devils Launch Trailer
Set in 19th-century Victorian London, Ravenous Devils focuses on the story of a man named Percival and a woman named Hildred, who recently have moved into a large building where they run a tailor shop and a pub, respectively. But with the high prices of meat these days their joint business is struggling, so to make ends meet in these trying times, Percival and Hildred do what any other reasonable under-pressure business owners would do: murder their clients in a back room and use their bodies as ingredients for the pub menu while stealing and reselling their clothes in the tailor shop. What else did you think they would do, go through their finances?
If you’re familiar with the story of Sweeny Todd, then you’ll already be right at home when starting a new game of Ravenous Devils, a management and cooking simulator game with the horrifying twist that the food you serve is made from the corpses of your customers. As Percival you will manage the tailor shop on the upper floors of the building, waiting for the arrival of clients seeking suits and dresses who, when the time is right, you will take into the backroom to gruesomely murder so you can not only steal and resell their clothes but also dump their bodies down a trap door leading to the kitchen in the basement. As Hildred you’ll have to manage the ground floor pub and keep your customers happy by keeping them fed, which you’ll achieve by chopping up and grinding the bodies of your victims into delightful corpse-based meals, taking care to manage your resources efficiently so you don’t run out of ingredients.
As the game progresses you’ll unlock new features like additional cooking equipment to prepare more meals and a greenhouse on the roof that you’ll have to use bodies as compost for, ensuring that the quality of your horrible businesses continues to rise, and in turn, ensuring that more popularity and more money come flooding in. If you have the ruthless killer instinct that’s quite literally needed to keep a business like this running, then the delightfully frightening and unique experience of Ravenous Devils is worth checking out. But for those of you who do decide to give it a try, beware… for someone knows your secret.
Trick unsuspecting customers into entering the backroom of your shop, where you’ll brutally murder them, steal and resell their clothes, and dump their bodies into the basement where you’ll turn them into delicious meals for your pub. With meat prices these days, what else is a business owner to do?
#9: Mafia (PC/PS2/Xbox)
Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven (Trailer)
Nothing makes being a low-life criminal feel more prestigious than being part of a mob family, and that’s exactly what winds up happening to unsuspecting taxi driver Tommy Angelo winds up being strong-armed into becoming a getaway driver for the Salieri crime family. Mafia is set in the 1930s during the final years of prohibition and takes place in the fictional city of Lost Heaven, Illinois, which includes not only architectural styles but also vehicles, public transportation, and landmarks that are all heavily inspired by real-life Depression-era American cities, such as Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, a stunning level of detail that makes the game feel heavily authentic to America during the final years of prohibition. This level of authentic detail also applies to the people you’ll meet in-game, whether they’re innocent bystanders, dirty cops taking a bribe, or other mafia members looking to rise up the ranks in the family.
Players will take control of cab driver turned reluctant mafia getaway driver Tommy Angelo across more than twenty thrilling missions inspired by events from the 1930s that take place in Lost Heaven and the surrounding countryside that makes up over twelve square miles of map to explore. You’ll climb through the ranks of the Salieri crime family, going from a family foot-soldier to a Made Man as you start small, banging up somebody’s ride with baseball bats and performing daring escapes in era-appropriate vehicles, then moving up to bootlegging jobs and enacting mob hits, and even being part of high-stakes bank robberies, all while getting involved in vicious shootouts along the way. Years go by as Tommy gains more and more power in the Salieri crime family, all the while questioning his morality as things only get more dangerous and violent as time goes by, inevitably forcing Tommy to make some drastic decisions.
Mafia’s 2002 release earned high praise and even a few awards for its music, gameplay, and the game’s overall story, among other things, with specific praise given for being a more realistic and serious story compared to the usual Grand Theft Auto-styled games of the time. The game’s story still holds up today, to the point where publisher 2K Games released Mafia: Definitive Edition in 2020 which featured updated graphics, an original score, and expanded story elements, which showcases the staying power and legacy that the 2002 original had, and still has today. Now, over twenty years later, if you want to experience the thrilling original story and gameplay that started it all for this award-winning franchise, you can go and check out both the 2002 original and the 2020 definitive edition of Mafia on Steam today.
In the 1930s, Taxidriver turned mafia foot-soldier Tommy Angelo finds himself inexplicably working for the Salieri crime family, and though the rewards are too big to ignore, he still finds himself more conflicted than ever with the new life he has chosen.
#8: Police Simulator: Patrol Officers (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X/S)
Police Simulator: Patrol Officers – Console Release Trailer
In the fictitious American city of Brighton, you are a newly enlisted member of the Brighton City Police Department who is ready to begin experiencing the day-to-day life of a police officer in all its glory. That is to say, as a new patrol officer, you’ll start at the bottom rungs of police work by performing tasks like citing violations, giving out parking tickets, and even keeping an eye out for anyone carelessly tossing their trash onto the sidewalk. But you should always expect the unexpected because you never know when you’ll witness a car crash, arrive on the scene of an accident, or even find yourself chasing down a suspect across the city when you first set out on patrol in Police Simulator.
Police Simulator: Patrol Officers places the proverbial shoe on the other proverbial foot, as in this game you’ll be the cop who finds themselves first on the scene for any kind of traffic incident or petty crime instead of being the one responsible for it. You’ll start with smaller-scale jobs like previously mentioned, but over time as your experience as a cop grows so too will the responsibilities you have to shoulder, which include unlocking new city districts and neighborhoods to explore as well as being allowed to pursue new crimes such as stopping drug deals in the park or chasing down speeding cars with your siren blaring. Police Simulator uses a dynamic traffic system that organically creates the traffic flow and car accidents that happen around you, as well as emergencies that can randomly pop up during your shift, and the Intuition System will help you notice important clues when investigating crime scenes, interviewing citizens, or interrogating criminals.
Though perhaps it's not quite as dramatic as it looks on TV, many of the day-to-day activities of a police officer can still be important work to generally keep the peace, at least if they know how to do their jobs properly. And thanks to the amazing world of video games, now you too can get the experience of a police officer’s daily routine without any of the potential threats they face on any given day! So if you have ever wanted to know what upholding the law and protecting the community from threats big and small felt like, then Police Simulator: Patrol Officers gives you all that and then some. Or maybe you’re just a stickler for the rules, but that works too.
Patrol the city and keep your eyes peeled for dangerous high-speed chases and drug deals going down, as well as simpler issues like parking violations and illegal graffiti during your daily activities as a police officer protecting the neighborhood.
#7: Hitman 3 (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X/S/Nintendo Switch)
Hitman 3 - Official Launch Trailer
Enter the World of Assassination and take control of Agent 47, a genetically engineered contract killer without empathy and perhaps the greatest assassin alive, as you travel the world in pursuit of elusive high-value targets in a variety of unique settings. There are over twenty different locations from across the globe for you to explore, each being its own living, breathing world filled with potentially hundreds of individual NPCs, and each with a target or two for you to hunt down and assassinate. What makes each world and each target special in Hitman 3 is that there is a vast number of ways for you to approach any assassination, meaning that in one playthrough you could take out an entire security team to reach your target, while in another you can sneak through the building unseen and kill your target without anyone even knowing you were there, a feature which allows for an incredible amount of replayability for each mission in the game.
Hitman 3 is the third and final installment of the World of Assassination trilogy that concludes the story arch started in 2016’s Hitman, where Agent 47 and his handler Diana Burnwood work to track down and eliminate members of Providence, a secretive alliance of corporate executives, politicians, and industrialists collectively and unjustly wielding political, military, and economic influence. On top of the brand-new maps introduced in Hitman 3 that will take you to places like Dubai and China, it is also possible for you to play missions from the last two Hitman games within Hitman 3 itself, where you’ll have the option to either import your save progress from those games or two start anew when you first begin playing Hitman 3. These maps can be played either in the story-based campaign game mode or alternative modes like Freelancer, a roguelike mode where you have to take down several crime syndicates in missions without help from the Agency that supplies you extra tools or the ability to save, or the Elusive Targets mode that gives you little-to-no help from your HUD or Instinct ability during a mission that only appears once, and cannot be played again once completed.
Hitman 3’s gameplay retains the same core features from across the series, such as the ability to disguise yourself with the clothing of people you knock out or kill, allowing you to blend in when moving through certain areas on the map, as well as the game’s sandbox gameplay style that’s been greatly expanded on. With the open-ended freedom to explore the map at any pace you want, the game encourages the previously mentioned replayability through a list of Challenges present for each campaign mission, which include the more straightforward Challenges like strangling your target with Agent 47’s signature Fiber Wire or killing them with a headshot, and then more difficult options like killing them through an environmental accident or with discrete poisoning. Then you have map specific challenges like pushing your target into an open grave in the mission Death in the Family, for instance.
In Hitman 3, the deadliest weapon you can use is your own creativity. When playing across the game’s many missions you will need to keep your eyes peeled for whatever opportunity you can find to take out your target in the most efficient way possible, whether that means strangling them, shooting them, blowing them up as they enter a vehicle, putting them into a wood chipper, stabbing them with a tattoo needle, or whatever else your twisted mind can think up is entirely up to you. If you want to be the world’s greatest assassin you’re going to need to use strategic planning and maybe even a bit of patience as you track down and take out targets all over the living and breathing world that awaits you in Hitman 3.
Suit up for a spy-thriller like no other as you become Agent 47 and travel across a living world filled with intriguing characters and lethal opportunities.
#6: Ready or Not (PC)
Ready Or Not - Official Gameplay Trailer
Developers VOID Interactive have consulted police units from across the globe to ensure a deep level of authentic realism for Ready or Not, a tactical FPS where you take control as a member of a SWAT team in a city where crime runs rampant. Realism is a central pillar of Ready or Not’s gameplay, meaning that not only is the world of Ready or Not brought to life with spectacular visuals and sound design, but you will also need to use true-to-life police tactics when you go head-to-head with dangerous criminals across the game’s many unpredictable missions. Breach and clear rooms by kicking down doors and throwing flash bangs, slowly creep or swiftly advance through buildings, and do what you can to minimize damage as you take charge of the violent situations you’ve been called in to resolve.
On top of using a variety of customizable lethal firearms like rifles, shotguns, and handguns, Ready or Not both gives you and encourages you to use nonlethal items such as beanbag shotguns, pepper spray, stinger grenades, and more to use against criminal combatants you encounter, as arresting a lone perpetrator with a half-empty handgun by tossing a flashbang through the door is far preferable than painting the wall with his blood using your rifle for both your score and the criminal themselves. You will also be able to use equipment like pole cameras to safely examine a room ahead via a window or an open doorway, and ballistic shields to better protect you and your fellow officers when charging into gunfire, along with other equipment like tasers and breaching devices. When playing Ready or Not, you will be in charge of issuing commands to your AI officer teammates whose equipment you can also customize, giving them orders that best suit the situation at hand so you and your squad can better capture suspects alive, locate and secure any civilians that the criminals have taken hostage, and an assortment of other objectives that vary between game modes. Along with the single-player story-driven campaign, you can also replace your AI teammates with real-life players in co-op, or engage in online PvP matches.
Ready or Not has been considered by some a spiritual successor to the similar SWAT game series developed by Sierra Entertainment for its overall atmosphere and realistic gameplay, as well as its story elements between certain characters you’ll interact with in the game’s story. Though the game is still in Early Access on Steam, Ready or Not already offers a highly immersive experience through what gameplay is already present and the level of care they’ve put into the game’s realistic details. If you’re looking for a more intense experience in the line of police work, Ready or Not will put your skills to the test by putting you face-to-face with aggressive and dangerous suspects across many intense close-quarters-combat experiences.
Confront aggressive suspects and rescue erratic civilians as you and your SWAT team infiltrate and defuse several intense close-quarters-combat missions by using true-to-life SWAT infiltration tactics.
#5: Yakuza: Like a Dragon (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Xbox Series X/S)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon | Announcement Trailer
Yakuza: Like A Dragon is the eighth mainline entry in the long-running Yakuza franchise, a series that heavily focuses on story and character interaction in a Japanese crime drama setting. In Like A Dragon, players will take control of Ichiban Kasuga, a low-ranking grunt of a low-ranking yakuza family in Tokyo, who at the start of the game faces an 18-year prison sentence after taking the fall for a crime he didn't commit. Ichiban remains loyal to the family and serves out his sentence, but when he eventually returns to society, he discovers that no one is waiting for him on the outside and that his clan has been destroyed by the man he respected most, leaving Ichiban to take matters into his own hands, to set out to discover the truth behind his family's betrayal and take his life back, drawing a ragtag group of society’s outcasts to his side along the way.
Like most of the Yakuza games before it, Like A Dragon features a gripping overarching storyline filled with tense moments and dramatic action, but for the first time in the series instead of the main gameplay element being a real-time beat ‘em up brawler, Like A Dragon utilizes a new real-time turn-based RPG combat system that allows not only Ichiban, but three other characters to be used when battling rival Yakuza and other lowlifes across the game. The ability to use items in the environment around you remains from previous Yakuza games, giving you the means to, for example, pick up a bicycle and swing it into an enemy if it’s close enough, along with being able to throw enemies into the surrounding environment or being able to kick an interactable object into an enemy if the item is along your movement path for that turn. The game also features “Jobs” as an in-game class system, with nineteen unique jobs ranging from Bodyguard to Musician that you can apply to the characters in your party to alter their playstyle. As a final note, you can also summon a range of crazy characters called “Poundmates” through Ichiban’s smartphone, which can dramatically help change the tide of a battle when used.
When you’re not busy busting heads across Like A Dragon, the game gives you plenty of additional content like minigames to play that include gambling and singing karaoke, along with the game’s side missions, called substories, where you can interact with plenty of strangers and potential allies across Yokohama. Your main allies in Like A Dragon are Adachi, a rogue cop, Nanba, a homeless ex-nurse, and Saeko, a hostess on a mission, a group of societal outcasts that join Ichiban on his mission, becoming an unlikely group of friends in the process. But even more unlikely than their friendship, together they are drawn into a conflict brewing beneath the surface in Yokohama, where they must rise to become the heroes they never expected to be.
The Yakuza series has always been known for the emotional depth of its story and characters just as well as its unique charm and sense of humor, with Like A Dragon being no exception. Even if you aren’t too invested in the ongoing story of the series that’s been in progress since the 2005 release of the first Yakuza, Like A Dragon takes a new turn on the story that gives a good jumping-on-point to new players, on top of giving returning fans an all-new gameplay experience to look forward to. So if you think you can handle the surprising depth of this Japanese crime drama, or if you just want to experience a mix of story and gameplay that will leave you on the edge of your seat for the entire game, Yakuza: Like A Dragon is a game that will leave you wanting more even after you’ve gone and finished the thing.
Ichiban Kasuga, a low-ranking yakuza grunt left on the brink of death by the man he trusted most, sets out to crack some underworld skulls with his legendary bat on a quest that will turn him into the hero he always wanted to be.
#4: L.A. Noire (PC/PS3/PS4/Xbox 360/Xbox One/Nintendo Switch)
L.A. Noire 4K Trailer
During the post-war boom of Hollywood’s Golden Age, LAPD Detective Cole Phelps finds himself thrown headfirst into a city drowning from its own success, where corruption is rampant, the drug trade is exploding, and murder rates are at an all-time high. In 1947 Los Angeles, players will control Detective Phelps as he travels across the city solving crimes, climbing the ranks, and overall trying to do what’s right as he confronts dozens of mysterious cases, including arson cases, murder cases, racketeering conspiracies, and many more. As you and Detective Phelps do what you can to battle against the L.A. underworld, you will also find yourself confronting members of your own department in your mission to uncover a secret that could shake the city to its rotten core.
L.A. Noire puts players in the shoes of a 1940s LAPD detective in every sense of the word, as through most of the game you will engage in high-speed car chases and shootouts against criminals using vehicles and weapons that are authentic to the period, just as you will have to carefully comb over crime scenes in search of clues and evidence that at times can be as subtle as a single, easily missable bullet casing. The most prominent feature in L.A. Noire, however, is its usage of motion capture technology that captures the facial expressions and movements of the in-game actors from every angle, giving the characters in-game an incredible level of realistic detail that few games even today have even been able to replicate, which you will need to take full advantage of when interviewing civilians and interrogating suspects. Across the game, you will need to keep track of important information in your notebook, which will be updated with the more clues you uncover and the more information you learn from other characters, which will be important when interrogating or interviewing other people, as using what you know can help influence whether you believe or don’t believe your witness, or if you want to outright call them a liar. Each decision you make and each piece of evidence you do or don’t discover will ultimately determine whether or not you succeed in solving your cases.
From patrol cases like “Armed and Dangerous” to homicide cases like “The Golden Butterfly”, L.A. Noire features a wide range of unique crimes to solve that fall under different case categories, which each tell their own story across the game’s episodic mission structure. It’s up to you to put your skills of deduction to the test against the nefarious criminals waiting for you in the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles, as only your skills as a detective stand between justice being served and the guilty party getting away with their crimes. Join Cole Phelps, if you think you have what it takes, and bring justice to a city surrounded by crime and corruption in L.A. Noire.
Detective Cole Phelps seeks to bring justice to Los Angeles’ most guilty one case at a time as he climbs the ranks of his department and is eventually faced with drastic choices that could end up tearing the entire city apart.
#3: Payday 3 (PC/PS5/Xbox Series X/S)
PAYDAY 3: Launch Trailer
Feared by law enforcement and the criminal underworld alike, the legendary Payday crew has been ripped from their peaceful retirement by a new, unknown threat born from the chaos the Crew left in their wake, and are forced to rejoin and return to the criminal underworld they have left behind. Leaving their Washington DC roots behind them, the original heisters Dallas, Chains, Hoxton, and Wolf, along with the two newer heisters Joy and Pearl, the Payday Crew moves to New York in order to identify and crush this new threat. And while a new location will bring plenty of new challenges with it, it will also bring plenty of new opportunities for a heister with a plan in the highly anticipated sequel that is Payday 3.
The core gameplay that’s made this series a best-selling fan favorite returns in Payday 3, where you and up to three friends in co-op will engage in a crime spree spanning across New York City, with you and your crew committing daring and cinematic heists that range from emptying bank vaults, raiding mob-controlled night clubs to resell their drug stash, crashing armored truck convoys, and many more heist variations with plenty of expensive goods to steal from the rich and give to yourself. But Payday 3 also features a litany of new features to help spice up your heisting spree, including a revamped skill tree system and greatly improved AI for the NPCs, along with more prominent new features like the ability to grab civilian hostages to either use them as human shields or to force bank manager civilians to open locked doors for example, and the new smartphone tool that lets you hack into security cameras and glitch guard radios. With the fortunes that you’ll be stealing across the game, not only will you level up and unlock new skill points to alter your gameplay style, but you can also buy entirely new weapons and weapon modifications to further shake up how you play a heist, along with the ability to purchase cosmetic masks that show off your stylistic flair on top of hiding your identity.
A professional heister knows it takes hard work, excellent planning, and a fair bit of luck to execute a successful heist. So whether you choose to go guns blazing into a heist, fighting through waves upon waves of police officers, or choose to use stealth to ensure you get in and get out with your prize without anyone ever knowing you were there, each pathway you can choose for a heist will require a modicum of planning ahead if you want to make it out alive with everything of value strapped to your back. However, if your plan is just to run in and cause as much chaos as you can alongside your friends, that works too. Sometimes a little too well, even.
After a new threat born from their chaotic past forces them out of early retirement, the legendary Payday Gang returns to the criminal underworld in the only way they know how. Join the tightest crew ever and give in to your greed as the Payday Crew begins an all-new crime spree across New York City.
#2: Watch_Dogs 2 (PC/PS4/Xbox One)
Watch Dogs 2 – Launch Trailer | Ubisoft [NA]
The Bay Area of San Francisco, the birthplace of the tech revolution, becomes the first city to install the next generation of ctOS, short for central Operating System, a computing network that connects every device into a massive single system developed by technology company Blume. Naturally, ctOS 2.0 is being used by criminal masterminds and corrupt individuals to monitor and manipulate San Francisco citizens on a massive scale, which includes the talented young hacker Marcus Holloway, who is punished for a crime he didn’t commit when the ctOS 2.0 tracking systems named him a “probable” threat. This is what leads Marcus to join a group of other like-minded young hackers known as DedSec, who set out to bring chaos to Blume by raising awareness of the harm ctOS 2.0 can bring to innocent citizens across San Francisco in pursuit of ultimately getting this exploitable and abusive system shut down for good.
Watch Dogs 2 lets players loose across the Bay Area around San Francisco and gives them dozens of hacking tools to play with across the game, which includes abilities carried over from the first game such as hacking into security cameras to spy on the world around you and hacking into the phones of civilians and security guards alike to distract them, along with new tools to use like the deployable drone and RC car, which both can be used to get a new look at the world and to sneak through air vents and other small spaces to reach your objectives. If you’re in a high-speed chase with the police, you can hack traffic lights to create a pileup in the middle of the street, raise electric road barriers to cut off the path behind you, and even hack other cars around you to make them swerve in random directions, along with dozens of other new hacks that will be unlocked with skill points earned throughout the game. And with this being an open-world Ubisoft game, there are dozens of side missions and discoverable content sprinkled throughout the world, including places to put up graffiti and certain locations to take photos of, all of which give bonus points that you can use on skills and on unlocking new weapons and other pieces of equipment, which you can create using the large-scale 3D printers located within DedSec’s base of operations.
Watch Dogs 2 gives you everything that might be expected out of an open-world experience and combines it with its unique hacking-based gameplay and vibrant San Francisco setting. If you want to prevent this dawning oppression from taking root and killing individual privacy for good, you will need to rally as many as you can to your cause and show the world that Blume’s empire of information isn’t as secure and user-friendly as they would want you to think. Ignite the rebel in you and break the rules for what’s right, for “the lulz”, and most importantly, because you can.
After being wrongfully linked to a crime he didn’t commit by the ctOS 2.0 threat probability systems, Marcus Holloway joins the hacker group DedSec and sets out with one simple goal: execute the biggest hack in history.
#1: Grand Theft Auto V (PC/PS3/PS4/PS5/Xbox 360/Xbox One/Xbox Series X/S)
Grand Theft Auto V: The Official Trailer
I think it’s only natural that we close out this list of games all about crime with one of the most memorable games about crime, in one of the most memorable franchises about crime at that, released in the past decade, give or take. Of course, I’m talking about Grand Theft Auto V, the 2013 smash-hit that reached the series to all-new heights with its invigorating gameplay and memorable story, along with a beloved cast of characters, all of which has only helped keep this game in the public eye even as the game reached its tenth anniversary this past September. If you somehow haven’t heard, well, anything about GTA V at this point, then allow me to open the proverbial curtain just enough for you to see why this game managed to make over $815 million in worldwide profits in just 24 hours of its release.
Grand Theft Auto V takes place in Los Santos, a satirical parody of Los Angeles, and focuses on the exploits of three individual and playable protagonists, consisting of Franklin Clinton, a young up-and-coming street hustler who has bigger aspirations than being stuck in the hood doing petty crimes like vehicle repossessions forever, Michael De Santa, a retired bank robber who struck a deal with the government to settle down with his family in peace, and now finds himself yearning for his past glories again, and Trevor Philops, a terrifying psychopath and Michael’s former bank-robbing partner who previously thought Michael dead, until a happenstance occurrence leads them to reunite with his old running buddy. These three soon find themselves entangled with some of the most frightening and deranged elements of the criminal underworld, the U.S. government, and the entertainment industry, which ultimately forces our three leading men into a series of situations where they must pull off a series of dangerous heists to survive in a ruthless city in which they can trust nobody, least of all each other. Franklin, Michael, and Trevor can be freely switched between at any moment once the story progresses enough, meaning that you’ll be able to play both missions that are exclusive to each character and missions that will require two, or sometimes all three men to be present for the job ahead.
Each of the three protagonists has their own progressing storyline alongside the grand narrative that ties them together, with Franklin wanting more out of life than “hustling” in the hood, Michael trying to fight off his bitterness and be a good family man on top of getting unceremoniously pulled back into being a criminal, and Trevor trying to be an entrepreneur by starting a new drug and gun running business while also being blinded by rage on occasion, and of course, a desire to reconnect with Michael in that heavily aggressive way he does things. Most activities throughout the world of Los Santos will have you getting into shootouts with rival gangs or policemen, meeting plenty of strangers and freaks across the city and surrounding state of Los Santos, and of course, stealing and driving a wide range of vehicles that can range from more common and affordable cars to luxurious high-cost sports cars, along with a range of other vehicle types like motorcycles, helicopters, planes, and more. And when you’re not stealing cars and shooting at cops, Los Santos offers plenty of side content for you to go and explore, like driving taxi cabs for an extra buck or doing yoga just like everyone else in this plastic city.
And if you have already seen enough of GTA V’s singleplayer, then you’re free to go and explore GTA Online, the real cash cow for Rockstar when it comes to GTA V at this point. In GTA Online you can create a custom character to look however you see fit, then be unleashed to play however you want across Los Santos, which includes either running around in free roam across the map or playing one of the hundreds of online minigames alongside other players, which range from PvP shootouts to intense high-speed races, and you can even play custom player-made maps that include modes like stunt-races or “Snipers VS Cars” where you have to kill an enemy in a sports car before they knock you off your small-sized platform, among hundreds of other examples. And once your GTA Online character gathers enough money, you will be able to not only purchase new clothes and weapons but also purchase high-end luxury apartments and custom vehicles to show off your wealth and style to others. And if you want to take it a step further, you can purchase several expensive buildings and facilities that open up new opportunities for you and other players in your crew, such as becoming a CEO of a company to mask an illegal Import/Export business, buying a clubhouse to become the head of a biker gang and to sell batches of meth, cocaine, and other drugs, and even a massive doomsday bunker that you’ll run a gun-running business out of, among many more options.
When it comes to a thrilling criminal experience, few games can match the grand heights that GTA V has been able to reach, which is why it only makes sense for the game to be in our #1 spot on this list. From stealing fast cars to getting into intense police chases across the state, or maybe just playing a relaxing game of golf at the local country club, there’s plenty for any up-and-coming criminal to do in the ridiculous world of Los Santos. And with it being confirmed that Rockstar is developing a new GTA after all these years, there’s no better time than right now for you to finally get your hands on Grand Theft Auto V and experience all of the amazing content that it has to offer, if you somehow haven’t played it even once already in all this time. Trust me, if you’re a fan of games about crime, GTA V is one game that you’ll have a hard time putting down once you pick it up.
A young street hustler, a retired bank robber, and a terrifying psychopath find themselves forced to pull off a series of dangerous heists if they want to survive in a ruthless city in which they can trust nobody, least of all each other.
Conclusion
And that’s it for this article. If you’ve made it this far into this list, I would love for you to comment any thoughts you have down below! Whether you want to share how much you love the games above or if there are a few fitting games you want to shout out that didn’t make it on this list, such as games like Disco Elysium or Ace Attorney, and plenty of other games that would have made great additions to this list. If you have anything to say, I’d love to hear it. But otherwise, I’ll keep it short by simply saying that’s our list, so thanks for reading it.
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