Crime Simulator throws you straight into the deep end of the criminal underworld, fresh out of jail and drowning in debt. Developed by CookieDev and published by Ultimate Games S.A. and PlayWay S.A., this gritty stealth-action title challenges you to pull off some low and high-stakes heists alone or with up to three friends. Whether picking locks, knocking out guards, or smashing your way in with brute force, every job brings you closer to that debt-free freedom you strive for.

Crime Simulator gave off strong Thief Simulator vibes, from the overall map layout to how you collect and interact with items. Everything from grabbing dollar bills off countertops to stuffing electronics into your pockets.

It more or less just felt like a rebranded game I’d played before, which was disappointing. There were a couple of changes here and there, but there was not enough to set it apart from Thief Simulator titles. It’s not a bad experience, but it will feel like a moment of Deja vu if you’ve played the others.

One of the highlights is the variety of locations and missions. You’ll get to explore three locations, each with its vibe, layout, and level of security. The missions are designed to keep you on your toes and stop you from getting bored with looting the same couple of houses.

You can also tackle the game solo or jump into a 4-player co-op, which I could not do. It would have felt cool, but it could have ended messily if you had the wrong people. There is no shortage of items at your disposal.

There is a solid arsenal of tools to easily pull off your missions. You have everything from classic lockpicks to a crossbow for those more unique moments. You can pump sleep gas into rooms to knock those pesky civilians out, and with each mission being on a timer, you have a sense of urgency, so sometimes you need to be a little quicker.

Sometimes, you need to think about what gear you’re going to run because if you run the wrong thing, it will slow everything down and make your life a little harder than it needs to be.

I was impressed with the progression system in Crime Simulator. There are 15 unique skills you can acquire along the way, which, like all skill-based games, you can tailor for your playstyle to have the strongest chance. There is anything from upgrading your inventory to hold more loot or even enhancing your perception to spot those hidden threats from a distance.

Each skill unlocked unlocks bigger opportunities for how you can smash out in the next job. It also brought in a voucher machine, which was confusing when first used but became a godsend when I worked it out. You can call the police or repair all your tools, which was a cool little addition to the game.

The last little thing is your hideout. It’s a safe space that is more than somewhere to hide out. It lets you boost your field performance. For example, adding a bed will help restore health, or a treadmill will improve your stamina; therefore, you can run. There is no bad addition to the hideout; it all just depends on what you want to improve first.

The sound design was minimal but surprisingly effective in all the right ways. There’s no overwhelming soundtrack or constant background noise, which works in this game’s favour and lets the atmosphere speak for itself. I would have liked to hear more things like floors creaking, windows sliding open, or even something as simple as a door opening, alerting the house owner so you can sneak attack them quite easily.

You can hear the owners creeping around their homes, but they don’t hear you. Another thing I was not a huge fan of was that you could hear the people ringing the police and then hear the police from a mile away, so you were back in your truck by the time they had even arrived. In a future update, I would love to see the sounds just get fine-tuned a little more to make it more immersive.

The controls were quite simplistic, making jumping straight into the action easy. Basic movement is exactly what you would expect from a PC game with WASD for walking and the mouse for aiming your sight around, and everything felt smooth and responsive. Picking up items and looting was as easy as pressing the E key, which was the same as interacting with items such as doors and windows.

There was no overcomplication with the controls, and even something like lock picking was as easy as moving your mouse where it was needed for the pin and pressing D to see if it would unlock. I’m a big fan of these titles, which don’t overcomplicate things and let you enjoy the game without much hassle.

I was surprised by the graphics in Crime Simulator and noticed how quickly they became a standout feature, thanks to how polished and realistic everything looked. Some items and locations looked like they could have benefited from some texture to polish them up. The lighting and environments were clean and detailed, a welcome change from the standard cartoonish graphics in most simulation games.

I would have liked night time to be a little darker, needing to use torches to see what you’re doing without it feeling like dawn or dusk the entire time. I liked how clean and simple the UI was to use, and it looked super clean.

Crime Simulator offers a gritty and grounded take on the stealth-heist genre, throwing you straight into a life of debt, desperation and increasingly daring jobs. While it borrows heavily from the Thief Simulator series, sometimes too heavily, it still delivers a solid gameplay experience packed with variety and customisation.

Written by: Hayden Nelson