Psycho Patrol R, the FPS-Mech sim from the creator of Cruelty Squad, is one of the most challenging, complicated games I’ve ever played⁠—and worth every second it took to figure out its deal

I’ve been curious about Psycho Patrol R for a long time, but after spending seven hours with it in early access, it’s now one of my most anticipated games: A ludicrously complex immersive sim, mech sim, and open-ended RPG in the tradition of Deus Ex, Morrowind, or Stalker. It’s also extremely difficult, and I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface after all those hours of playtime.

PPR has hardcore, complex systems that deliberately do not explain themselves and demand patient, curious exploration and experimentation. The gunplay feels good, but has milsim-quick time-to-kills.

Both you and enemies go down in just one or two bullets from even the dinkiest guns, and your foes have the quickdraw skills of an Old West gunhand. Fighting is risky, and exploration feels incredibly tense since an instant-kill enemy could be hiding around every corner⁠—is this what Escape From Tarkov feels like?

Once it starts to click, by god, it feels incredible. Even its basic premise, combining on-foot FPS and mech-piloting action, is such a rare and cool thing in games⁠—Titanfall has pulled it off, but in a linear campaign, not an open-ended RPG.

There’s a real joy of discovery in Psycho Patrol R, but also so much to find, I don’t think you’re missing much by peeping a guide ahead of time. This is a game where you might have to start over a few times before you actually come to grips with its systems, and to that end I’ve compiled some explanations of PPR’s mechanics, as well as some quick start tips to help power through those first couple hours that might make you throw up your hands, say “fuck it,” and play a game that doesn’t reference semi-disgraced 20th century psychologists as much. But first,

Is Psycho Patrol R worth $40?

Absolutely, or at least I think so. It’s in early access, with clear signs of unfinished stuff, but it’s also a massive, innovative, and already very generous-feeling RPG⁠. It’s aloof and withholding at first, but boasts endless depths to discover, like the male lead in one of those romantasy novels with a title like “An Epoch of Morningstars and Suzerains” so beloved on TikTok.

I’m not much for heavy early access play⁠—I usually prefer to save myself for marriage the 1.0 launch, but game journalism doesn’t write itself. I’ve already enjoyed myself immensely, though, and I’m extremely excited to play the full game.

Psycho Patrol R explained

What the hell is going on in this game?

Psycho Patrol R actually has a lovely, classico, PDF manual by Data Sparrow in the style of a PC Big Box game, and it’s available for download on itch.io. As befits PPR’s punk sensibility, it’s called a “zinelet” instead of a manual.

Wait a minute, a zinelet? The miniature form of a zine, which is already a tiny magazine? This thing’s longer than the actual, physical zines I picked up last week! Regardless, It lays out quite a bit of the story, and even a helpful breakdown of the first few zones of the world.

The gist: You are a bureaucrat-officer of the European Federal Police in an alt-history year 2000, part of a new unit dedicated to rooting out thought crimes or “psychohazards” under your mentor, Lorenzo Visconti. Your first mission is to investigate a propaganda campaign spreading misinformation(?) about carcinogens in toothpaste and shampoo. The primary weapon of this strange future-past is the “V-Stalker,” a sick as hell mech powered by “orgone energy.”

In our world, orgone was the pseudoscientific, crackpot output of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, a once-respected disciple of Sigmund Freud who coined the phrase “sexual revolution” and was also heavily influenced by Marxist thought. Orgone was, as proposed by Reich, an invisible energy force tied to life and sex. In Psycho Patrol R, orgone is real and Reich is referred to as the most influential “astrophysicist” of the 20th century.

How the hell do I even get in the mech in Psycho Patrol R?

Press the “T” button.

How does the mech work in Psycho Patrol R?

Like Armored Core, your mech’s legs determine how much weight it can carry. Each class has its own starting mech configuration, but you can find new parts and weapons out in the world. Enemy mechs drop their weapons, and I’ve found superior armor squirreled away in the levels.

Small arms fire from on-foot enemies does nothing to the mech’s armor⁠—armor in this game serves as a secondary health bar over your main one, and refreshes whenever you enter a new area. Small fries are able to damage your mech with large-caliber weapons, but they’re few and far between. You’re usually safe to ignore human enemies when in your mech until you can just splat them⁠—don’t waste your ammo unless they’re far away and/or in an area you might wind up exploring on-foot.

Other mechs, meanwhile, are extremely dangerous, capable of killing your own V-Stalker in one or two hits, and all of this goes the other way too: You can’t do much to enemy mechs on-foot, but you can delete them with extreme prejudice in your own mech.

How do I get new weapons in Psycho Patrol R?

Enemies drop their guns on death, and you just have to pick a gun up once to unlock it at your loadout terminal back at EFP HQ. You can equip both your guy and your mech from the computer terminal in the V-Stalker hangar.

Okay, but how do I save my game in Psycho Patrol R?

We joke around at PCG about the fact that “how do I save in X game” is always a weirdly common Google search even though it’s usually by pressing the “save” button, but Psycho Patrol R actually has a genuinely complicated system for saving your game.

In the EFP hangar, you’ll notice a Deus Ex MJ12-style globe floating in a little hologram cube. This is a combined checkpoint/fast travel spot. You can save your game here, and will also respawn at these on death, with PPR occasionally autosaving in addition to your manual save slots.

One of your main goals in each new zone is unlocking these fast travel spots. Enemies respawn on death or when you leave an area, so fast travel is how you progress and avoid having to slog through combat-heavy areas like the Free City over and over.

Do you really have to keep saying “Psycho Patrol R” in each heading? It’s annoying

It’s a Google SEO thing, sorry.

Psycho Patrol R what happens if you die in Psycho Patrol R, Psycho Patrol R?

It’s Dark Souls rules: You drop all your money on death. Die again without picking it up, and it’s gone for good. You also take a tick on a “DNA damage” meter that, so far, seems much less impactful than Cruelty Squad’s “Divine Light Severed” status.

How does money work in Psycho Patrol R?

Dark Souls rules again: It’s currency but also your experience points, with a terminal by your unit’s “psychoanalyst” at EFP headquarters serving as your level-up screen. It’s also basically how you persuade characters, too: You can bribe NPCs to improve their disposition and open up dialogue options they otherwise refuse to respond to. The more money an NPC has, the harder they are to bribe.

Money also ties into a very crucial mechanic: You have a daily operational budget where every bullet you fire has a cost that gets deducted. It’s very easy to fire enough that you exceed the budget, and money gets deducted from your running total instead of added to it at the end of the day, and it’s also possible to go into debt. Some weapons are more expensive to shoot than others, with the “best” guns not necessarily doing the most damage, but hitting a versatile price-performance sweet spot.

How do you make money in Psycho Patrol R?

As an avowed socialist, the stock market confuses and scares me. Thankfully, PPR’s exchange has been “nerfed” relative to Cruelty Squad’s, which was the main way to get ahead financially in that game. It’s still a major mechanic, but in early access at least, other sources of revenue are more impactful.

The biggest are completing missions and killing NPCs with a lot of dough in their pockets⁠—more on some choice early pay pigs down below.

What do the character stats do in Psycho Patrol R?

I have no idea. Perception and strength seem really good, though. The former reduces the lag of your crosshair when moving the mouse, and the latter helps you equip heavier gear and still move at full speed. 20-30 seems like a good sweet spot to hit for both.

What does fatigue do in Psycho Patrol R?

You’ll notice a red “Fatigue” meter constantly ticking upwards as you play. I don’t know what happens when it reaches 100%, but you can reset it by sleeping on your office couch or back at your apartment across the street from EFP HQ. You can only go to sleep if you have more than 50% fatigue, preventing you from spamming it to quickly rack up operational budget cash.

What’s the best starting class in Psycho Patrol R?

I like the Detective: He comes with a tool to enable the hacking minigame, which I don’t know how to acquire otherwise. His initial perception is very high, but his starting weapons are pretty booboo⁠—not a terrible issue given how quickly you can find better ones. Crucially, he looks cool and “detective” is a very fun class fantasy.

How does the hacking minigame work in Psycho Patrol R?

It looks way more complicated than it is. This Steam guide from Pipliko1 is very good. The gist of it is:

• Input the number of the computer you want to hack, visible on the web map of the local network that pops up when you’re at a PC and have the hacking tool equipped.
• From the “char” tab, hit the plus or minus sign to make the text shift from random characters into letters, eventually coalescing into a recognizable word or phrase, which will be the password you’re looking for. It feels like trying to manually tune into a radio station.
• Every password I’ve found so far needed to be input with all-caps, but they don’t necessarily appear that way in the “char” screen.

Psycho Patrol R advanced tips and quick start guide

Advanced tips

• Critical NPCs you should talk to have their names appear in yellow when you mouse over them.
• Armor is king, both on-foot and in your mech. You should invest in better body armor as soon as possible at the EFP HQ hanger terminal, but better mech armor can be found exploring. There’s a very strong option in the Free City that’s better than anything you can buy.
• The blisteringly fast time to kill and risk of exploration can encourage you to have an itchy trigger finger, but don’t always shoot first: I’ve fired on V-Stalkers that were actually friendly, and I’d rather reload a save or have to pick up my cash than ruin a questline.
• Cover and quick peeking are the name of the game in gunfights, but if you’re caught in the open in your mech, strafing is a viable option.
• Go left instead of right outside EFP HQ: The Free City feels like the critical path, while the Bridge of the Sovereign is like going north out of Goodsprings in New Vegas. They both lead to the same place eventually, but the bridge boasts desk-slammingly hard fights with little reward alongside some seemingly-unfinished content.
• The money held by an NPC determines how easy they are to bribe, so take all their money before bribing them: You can barter with anyone, and I’ll sell all my vendor trash to an NPC to bankrupt them and make a chump change bribe max out their disposition.
• Some easy sources of aforementioned vendor trash: There’s an archives room in EFP HQ with cubbies full of documents you can sell for a small, but not insignificant amount of money, and you can hack vending machines to give you stuff for free. Both the vending machines and archives seem to restock on leaving and returning to HQ.
• The NPCs I’ve run into with locked dialogue and too much money for me to pull my gaslight/findom routine on have had quests to complete and help improve my standing.

The best quick start in Psycho Patrol R

This eight-minute video guide from Tanner Lindberg on YouTube is a great way to get started on the right foot in Psycho Patrol R. I have a few alternate suggestions and addendums, but otherwise everything in the video will leave you primed with money and gear to take on the rest of the game with less trial and error. Here are some highlights in text form:

• The apartment across the street from EFP HQ (your apartment building) has two NPCs with €15,000 each you can kill with minimal consequence.
• The Lost Dog quest in the residential district on the other side of the Free City has some transformative monetary rewards and is easy to complete if you side with Silver. You don’t have to kill Silver to unlock his powerful helmet for purchase back at the hangar.
• The Apartment Wars quest in the Versten Harbor gives a ton of money, and many of the mooks are carrying the AUG (you may remember it from Counter-Strike), one of the better price-performance weapons in early access.

Some things I’d like to add:

• I’d advise against killing the questgiver in the apartment building across from EFP HQ or Silver in the residential area, at least on a first playthrough. The former means you miss out on a quest, and the latter is just a cool NPC I like.
• There’s another quest for the Luxury Apartment Building to find a missing agent, given by the woman standing by the car and ramp leading up to the buildings. It gives a smaller reward, but you’re going to the same place. I found that you can’t sequence break this one in early access⁠—the agent you have to rescue won’t have relevant dialogue unless you speak to his partner first. This will likely get patched.
• I’d also recommend methodically clearing out the Free City zone at least once, maybe after unlocking the rotary cannons for your mech. The Rheinstahl VS-A mech armor you can find there has served me well.