This Is The Police spin-off Rebel Cops is law-enforcement XCOM
This is (still) the Police
In This Is The Police, corruption was easy. Sitting pretty at the top, skewing your officer's patrols to help funnel the right folk into the right jails and the proceeds into your pocket? That's all in a day's work, really. Someone like that needs taking down a peg.
Enter, Rebel Cops. With nasties in the town hall and your squad waging a guerrilla war, it might sound like the sorta thing you'd scroll past on Netflix. But behind all that, Weappy's newly-announced spin-off looks like it could bring an interesting twist to the tactics scene.
It's XCOM, with cops. XCOPS! Developers Weappy Studio have put together an in-depth trailer flaunting this curious spin-off - no detective work required.
In Rebel Cops, you're not controlling a squad of shoot-to-kill defenders of humanity. Cops are generally not supposed to kill people, even if that's unfortunately not quite how real life plays out sometimes. You've got an arsenal of tools to make more non-lethal takedowns and arrests.
If (let's be honest, when) things get violent, the situation can spiral fast. Rebel Cops ditches hit points. While armour and cover can provide protection, everyone plays by the same one-hit-kill rules. Downed squaddies will bleed out, giving you a chance to patch them up. Take care, though - all the painkillers and plasters in the world won't treat a headshot.
This Is The Police's zoomed-out management layer is still there. You'll have to manage your officers' needs and keep yourself kitted out. You not a real cop anymore, remember, you can't just phone up the DoD and demand the tanks roll in to handle some graffiti artists. The town has its eyes on you, too, and might just stop helping your little shadow war if too many citizens get caught in the crossfire.
Brendy found all that management nonsense a bit grating back in This Is The Police. As a side note to a tight little tactics game, maybe all that fluff will work out.
We don't have to wait long to find out. Rebel Cops hits Steam and GOG for $9.99/€9.99 on September 17th. It's published by THQ Nordic.