Fellow officers,
we hope you had a good start into spring and are already looking forward to Easter! We looked around, filled our baskets, and found some amazing surprises along the way... including a first look at what's ahead of us when it comes to new content for Police Simulator: Patrol Officers!
Earlier this year, we went through all your wishes, the most upvoted Trello cards, thousands of comments, and evaluated their scope and possibility. That took quite a while (sorry for keeping you waiting!) but we have now greenlit a lot of things that are planned for the next updates in 2023 and beyond.
Changes in updates 9.0.0 and 10.0.0
First things first: Last year, we already announced the content that comes with the updates 9.0.0 and 10.0.0. Considering the updates that will come afterwards we decided that some changes needed to be made.
Being able to tackle a suspect will unfortunately not come with the next update 9.0.0, currently scheduled to release later this month. We believe that it makes much more sense to include it in a future update together with some additional, very fitting features. No worries, tackling suspect will still come – but at a later date :)
Update 10.0.0 will change completely: We're happy to announce that it is now themed around our patrol cars which truly deserve an overhaul and additional care. With the update, you will have the ability to change your car via a garage that you can find directly in-game. Change your selection of cars in front of the precinct according to your personal preference. You are also able to repair your cars via the garage! You will also be able to manage which trunk tools you want to take on patrol via the garage so you are perfectly prepared for your next callout.
Another change you can look forward to relates to the entire physics system and car handling and physics of our PVs: We're introducing an entirely new physics engine, switching to Chaos Physics. We'll share more details about the content of 10.0.0 the closer we get to it and we can't wait for it!
What comes next?
The future looks bright: Internally, we have laid out a plan for the entirety of 2023 and even the beginning of 2024. On our Trello, we shifted a bunch of cards (including a lot of highly upvoted ones) into the 'Community Feedback: Officially Greenlit' column, meaning that we plan to include them in future updates. Please be aware that this column is not 100% final, some things miiiiiiight be subject to change, but we have them all in mind and are really looking forward to them!
However, we also removed some of the older stuff in the column as it has been severly outdated. That might sound disappointing but we believe that we included much more frequently requested features that provide more value.
The features and improvements you see in the column are not sorted by updates yet – that's why only updates 9.0.0 and 10.0.0 are currently present. We will shift them into the update packages (11.0.0, 12.0.0, 13.0.0...) the closer we get to one. Keep an eye on Trello and do not forget to vote for your favorite remaining features, there's a chance they will be considered in the future as well!
We can't wait for all your feedback and wish you a lot of fun going through the greenlit features and discover what we have planned for the future of PS:PO.
Self-Defense
De-escalation, self-defense, and usage of a service pistol: We are actively and intensively researching the possibilities of including such scenarios in the game. It is important to us not to change the nature of the game but be as close as possible to reality. We take the matter very seriously, which is why the evaluation may take a while. Next to our research, we are consulting a bunch of former and active police officers from the United States and talk to those who have been part of the police in bigger cities. Please bear with us while we are working on the scope of these features, we do have them in mind, but we would like to give it a purpose, make it meaningful, keep it realistic and be aware of the consequences.
Just to provide an insight into another hurdle we are trying to work out: Currently, PS:PO is rated T (= age 13 and up) and their equivalent in most regions, primarily because a scenario where you must use the gun is not present at the moment. This causes a huge issue: If we introduce gun usage, there IS a risk that the age rating will be raised, causing a lot of problems as people who have already bought the game might have expected it to stay at this rating – and not for it to be completely different. We have to keep in mind the expectations of all our players and really want to do things right. In the meantime, we are talking to all agencies and partners involved to check if there's a solution, but it will take a while.
Thank you all for your patience, we know stuff hasn't been perfect in the last few months. The teams at both Aesir and astragon love PS:PO so much and we work hard to polish and advance it further. Thank you for your support, your feedback, your understanding, your engagement, your passion. We do not take it for granted.
Your Police Simulator Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/997010/Police_Simulator_Patrol_Officers/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2009550/Police_Simulator_Patrol_Officers_Urban_Terrain_Vehicle_DLC/
