Autobahn Police Simulator 3: Great Cop Ideas, Terrible Execution
The flashing blue lights and wide open highway networks promise the ultimate German patrol fantasy, but the reality of this experience leaves you stranded on a hard shoulder of mechanical frustration. Stepping out onto the tarmac as a fresh rookie, you are handed a massive sandbox packed with speed traps, remote off-road tracking, and custom waypoints that look brilliant on paper. But the second you twist the ignition key, the structural joints of this package begin to buckle under wooden character models and flat voice acting that kill any early atmospheric spark. It is an experience where big, solid concepts collide head-on with clunky execution, ensuring your shift ends in a headache long before you can pull over your first suspect.
QUICK NAV: [Specs] [Gameplay] [Performance] [Settings]
Autobahn Police Simulator 3 Review
- Developer: Z-Software
- Publisher: Aerosoft GmbH
- Official Site: Autobahn Police Simulator 3 Official Page
- Store Link: PlayStation Store UK
- Download Size: 12.51GB Download size.
- Trophies: Platinum trophy with 57 trophies.
- Included Content: Includes all DLC – speed trap, police motorcycle, and off-road packs.
- Save Slots: 3 save slots.
- Feature Focus: The Off-road DLC has its own menu and skill tree for you to go through, and it has unique tasks for the DLC.
Autobahn Police Simulator 3 Review
The core police officer simulator gameplay hits you with a massive list of moving parts right out of the gate, starting with a basic character creator where you just pick your character and gender. Your locker lets you quickly and easily swap out uniform and civilian clothing using shortcut buttons, and honestly, managing your wardrobe is an absolute highlight compared to the actual field work. Once you drop into the full 3D game world from a third-person perspective with full 360 camera control, tutorial pop-ups and button prompts guide you along, letting you opt in or out of an opening tutorial mission. Mission markers dot the map alongside custom waypoints you place yourself, pointing you toward multiple-choice encounters with no time limit, so you can completely take your time analysing the situation. The depth here is serious, giving you a massive amount of ways to approach a scenario, whether you are using the map to find emergency or breakdown telephone booths alongside random collectables like warning triangles and rubber ducks, or using the full photo mode option in the menu to track down hidden photo spots for bonus rewards.
But the second you actually have to execute these duties, the cracks ruin the fun. When you pull someone over, you choose exactly what you do or don’t do unless a mission gives specific orders, allowing you to check light functionality, search their boot, and use a cool 3D viewer to interact and investigate objects. You can run a breathalyser, check tyre pressure, or run drug tests while getting instant feedback on whether they pass or fail so you don’t have to worry about memorising requirements, all leading to an EXP payout based on performance. The massive problem is that all the typical cop stuff, like sirens and lights, is buried deep in a radial menu instead of a simple button press, and you can’t even block a suspect’s car, jump out, and do your arresting naturally. No, you have to stop, pull up, and be all nice about it. Suspects will regularly take routes blocked off to you by invisible walls or big no-entry signs, and when dispatch calls come in, responding sets a destination that routinely gives you the longest route possible, letting the criminal escape. Checking papers is a clunky chore of clicking parts of their license against your form, and a lot of the paperwork is entirely in German with zero indication or translation for what the words mean in English. To top it off, you get slapped with bills for any damage to your car, meaning a simple clip of a vehicle bangs your ride up and demands constant repairs.
Autobahn Police Simulator 3 Review: Performance & Fidelity
- Visual Quality: Nice graphics across the open world environment.
- Character Animations: The animation of the characters is bad, but it’s also funny. They always run like they have too much Fibre and can’t find the toilet. It’s comical.
- Cutscene Presentation: In-game cutscenes and character interactions with voice acting that are a bit flat, and the animations are very robotic and wooden.
- Driving Mechanics: The steering in cars is bad; you need to do some tweaking, but even then, it’s twitchy and oversensitive, making a simple overtake a whole deal.
- Camera Views: Two driving views, which are the dashboard in car view and third-person close. In the car, you see the steering wheel moving but not your hands, which breaks the immersion a lot.
- Pacing and Optimisation: A lot of loading screens, and you get them as you pull someone over, which again just breaks immersion, and sometimes the load times can take a while.
- UI Anomalies: Full statistics menu showing playtime, XP earned, distance driven, missions, etc. Fine, but it shows in kmh for all driving despite me setting the game to mph.
- Vehicle Tracking: Your vehicles have a tripometer to keep track of your mileage.
Settings, Customisation & Control Details
- Controller Options: Invert axis and sensitivity sliders, always north map toggle, and a vibration toggle.
- Control Limitations: You cannot remap the controls.
- Gameplay Toggles: Show tutorials toggle, damage and repairs tracking, aim assist, and driver camera jolting adjustments.
- Combat Adjustments: Shootout difficulty settings featuring easy, normal, and hard sliders.
- Audio Adjustments: Voice-over language options (German or English), subtitles toggle, and separate sliders for dialogue, effects, music, and master volume.
- Display Adjustments: The display setting is just a brightness slider, and that’s it.
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Autobahn Police Simulator 3 Review
Summary
What Makes Autobahn Police Simulator 3 Worth Playing?
The game drops you into a very in-depth simulator setup that hands you an impressive variety of tools to approach situations exactly how you want. Exploring the world rewards you for discovering new roads and landmarks, and hunting down collectables like warning triangles, telephone booths, and rubber ducks keeps you moving. The Off-road DLC adds a completely distinct menu and its own unique skill tree to progress through, giving the package some serious meat. On top of that, the locker system is an absolute highlight, letting you instantly swap out uniforms or civilian clothes with quick shortcut buttons. It is also genuinely funny watching the character animations; they run around like they have had way too much fibre and cannot locate a toilet, creating some pure comical gold.
The Biggest Frustrations In Autobahn Police Simulator 3
The steering in the cars is absolutely shocking; it is incredibly twitchy and over-sensitive to the point where performing a simple overtake becomes an absolute ordeal, and seeing a floating, rotating steering wheel with no hands attached completely kills the immersion. The game hits you with an overwhelming amount of tutorials and options, yet still leaves you totally in the dark on basic instructions, compounded by flat, cringy banter with your partner and robotic character cutscenes. Immersion is dragged out back and shot by slow loading screens that trigger right as you are trying to pull a suspect over. On top of that, your statistics tracking completely ignores your settings, reading out your speed in kmh even after you explicitly tell it to use mph, and the essential sirens and lights are buried inside an annoying radial menu rather than tied to a quick button press.
Autobahn Police Simulator 3 Overall Verdict: Is It Worth Playing?
I tried multiple times to sit down and get a good session in with this one, but it always ended abruptly with me feeling completely frustrated. The game has many solid ideas and has the total package for being a cop on paper, but the actual playing of the game is just plain bad and clunky. It offers a massive checklist of things to do, but the mechanical frustration makes it incredibly hard to enjoy your shift. Ultimately, unless you have an extreme tolerance for clunky simulator design, this patrol is probably one you should sit out.
