Buckle up, the developer of Cruelty Squad is making a game about thoughtcrime cops with mechs

In-development screenshot of game Psycho Patrol R. It is a low-poly, low-fidelity graphical style with deliberately clashing colors and interface elements.

(Image credit: Consumer Softproducts)

Creator Consumer Softproducts is back, folks, with a creatively upsetting and extremely intriguing idea for another hybrid FPS and Immersive Sim: Psycho Patrol R, a game that has you as a mech-piloting cop with some kind of almost-surely-upsetting superpowers.

Like Cruelty Squad, this is an immersive sim, and will emphasize "a wide variety of routes and approaches," but Psycho Patrol R will be set in an open world and emphasize a lot more interacting with NPCs. I expect it'll have much the same kind of weird systems going on as well. Screenshots show meters for things like Health, Radiation, Fatigue, Heat, Occlusion, and Orgone, of all things. I expect that it's going to be a lot to deal with.

"Psycho Patrol R is a mecha FPS hybrid policing and punishment simulator set in the decayed state of Pan-Europa. You play as an officer of the European Federal Police, a V-Stalker pilot of Psycho Patrol, a special unit tasked with solving mental crime, among other things," says Consumer Softproducts, the business name for solo developer Ville Kallio.

Consumer Softproducts' previous game, Cruelty Squad, caused a real stir here at PC Gamer when it released in 2021. Reviewer James Davenport gave it a 93/100 in his review, calling it "the natural product of furious people exhausted by wealth inequality, police militarization, and the stubborn structures that keep humanity rolling towards total annihilation of the soul." Wes Fenlon gave it his personal game of the year pick in part because it made him a bit sick: "Cruelty Squad gleefully aims to depict what rancid sushi does to your body in the form of a first-person shooter," he said. That just made him like it more.

It's the kind of praise you rightfully earn when your game is not only gleefully and artistically transgressive, but also genuinely fun and enjoyable to play. For certain very specific definitions of fun and enjoyable.

For now, you can follow Psycho Patrol R on Steam, where it's listed as "Coming Soon." I've put the five screenshots that exist, as of post time, below.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.