Ville Kallio has already proven himself as a standout game designer with Cruelty Squad, and I can safely say even in its unfinished state Psycho Patrol R proves his earlier success was no fluke. PPR is not a sequel to Cruelty Squad, despite featuring many familiarities in dialog, character design, and weaponry, but is clearly built on the foundation of the earlier title. This is due to split goals - CS is more of an action-shooter with a level-focus, where PPR is an entire RPG with interlocking maps and a heavy shift toward more deliberate actions and reactions. Fans of CS will likely find PPR just as overwhelming as someone new to Kallio's work: gone are augments, floating targets, and the stiff direction of the handler, replaced instead by a grounded artstyle (for Kallio), a more restricted movement system, looser gunplay, and the open-ended, lofty goal of resolving a detective case that has no active leads. While the freedom of CS is hard to give up, I found myself adapting very quickly to the world of PPR. The futuristic society of Pan-Europa is surprisingly inviting, and the core of the game is just fun - I particularly enjoy the new gun behavior, and the way the muzzle floats just behind your crosshairs. The case system and the detective angle is exceptional. The added depth from this system reinforces one of Kallio’s biggest skills - dialog - encouraging the player to interact with every NPC and allowing them to become far more developed characters than they ever could be in Cruelty Squad. There is some generic repeated dialog, like in CS, but unique characters are easily marked with yellow names. Despite having over a dozen cases, most quests are completely optional, and connections to the main case are stated pretty explicitly. This creates a comfortable balance where it doesn’t feel tedious to go discover new areas and characters (there are no dead-end areas with nothing to do, either) but at the same time disinteresting cases can be safely ignored. Some other new features I enjoyed were hacking, which is near impossible to understand diagetically, the log book, which holds onto important dialog snippets and also injects a bit of the main character’s conscious into our decision making, and the MY COMPUTER interface, which includes an instant messenger, a budget master, an NPC database (with a tracker!) and the stock market. There are some fair complaints with the game, most common being combat and the low time-to-kill. This is indisputable - both on foot and in a mech, enemies do a lot of damage to your character, especially in the early game when armor and health options are low. While this did feel oppressive at times, I think PPR wouldn’t be much fun to play without it - the threat of enemy units does so much to elevate the RPG and immersive-sim elements. Take for example Versten Residential, a small housing block in one of the early game areas. There’s about a half-dozen cases to pick up here across a few different apartments and a walled-in villa. There’s also a sewer system to explore through, and a coffee shop. Beyond this all is a large mansion surrounded by hedges, guarded by two mechs trained to shoot intruders as they enter the gate. Of course, my first instinct is to enter through the main entrance: shot dead instantly. I try again, attempting to carefully skirt around the hedge line. No such luck. I come back again (death has no real consequence; “DNA-DAMAGE” which increments when you die does nothing, it seems) and this time inspect the hedge wall for an impregnation. Again, no luck. I climb a nearby building and notice at the far wall I could fall into the yard of the mansion and try to map a path over rooftops to the drop. Next, I look into the sewers, which are too dark to traverse without night-vision goggles. By now, I have explored four different methods of breaching the mansion, each of which was discovered naturally by me the player, seemed plausible, was attempted, and then shot down for one reason or another. Finally, I have tried all my ideas and the game’s day-night cycle has switched over - it is deep night time in Versten Residential. Suddenly, a fifth and final idea presents itself: can I shoot out the street lamps? Punching out the lamps in front of the mansion with a silenced pistol bathes the gate in darkness, and my VISIBILITY meter drops to 4m. Now I try again, and sneak through the gate, then to the right, and successfully into the mansion, where I am rewarded with an extraction point I can freely travel to and from in the future. This was only one of many examples of creative problem-solving I got to experience during my playthrough of PPR, but each of them was just as rewarding as the last, and left me feeling smart and accomplished. I do think mech combat leaves something to be desired. In its current state, it is intended to be beaten through trial and error, which easily becomes very expensive (at the end of the day-night cycle, the player earns a paycheck of a few hundred dollars and is deducted the cost of the ammunition they used. Mech ammunition, especially armor-piercing rounds for mech combat, is quite costly) and adds a level of compounding difficulty. It also encourages the player to roll back the save after they have worked through a combat encounter, in an attempt to beat it at a low cost. I think many would agree that some of the most frustrating parts of the game are mech-combat heavy: Abandoned Highway, Bitter Gorge, Bridge of the Sovereign. Personally I didn’t mind these areas too much - when I became frustrated or hit a wall, I could turn around and pursue something else, or explore a new area usually, until I had upgraded my mech to punch through. In the case of the bridge, this area is completely avoidable. Still, I found myself avoiding mech combat whenever I could. Another difficulty I expect for many players is with instruction. This is a bit of a style choice for Kallio, and one I respect (I think the drag-down reload innovation is worth being confused with anything else) but in PPR in particular, some extra reading will be required. There is a tab in the MY COMPUTER interface with some notes from Kallio which are very helpful, but some things will slip through the cracks - for example, it took me several hours of playtime before I discovered where the shop terminal was and how to use it, which is the most important terminal in the game. In all, Psycho Patrol R is an easy recommendation from me, even at the high price point and Early Access stage. Patience will be required, and an appreciation for the avant-garde, but if you possess these two qualities, I am confident you too will find Kallio is a true artist, capable of consistently creating uncomfortable and alien worlds, filled with characters that command a morbid curiosity, and which lead the player on winding investigations that double-back, twist, require critical thinking and exploration. This makes for an experience that is memorable and engaging, fun, and sometimes inviting reflection on your own morality.* *See the Horse case, which almost made me cry.