Psycho Patrol R early access review

Mech my day punk

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Consumer Softproducts

• Developer: Consumer Softproducts
• Publisher: Consumer Softproducts
• Release: March 24th, 2025
• On: Windows
• From: Steam
• Price: £34/$40/€39
• Reviewed on: Intel Core-i7-11700F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, Windows 10

I cannot review Psycho Patrol R in any way that matters. I could approach this mech-piloting, bullet-hungry immersive policing sim like any other first-person shooter with RPG elements, and tell you about its levels, storytelling, and gamey features. Or I could evaluate it on its own terms, as a piece of hallucinogenic hypercapitalist critique wrapped in a kevlar jacket of impenetrable irony whose own €39 price tag appears to be part of the joke. Neither approach is going to work. Psycho Patrol R requires a buy-in of brain rot and an almost memetic openness to mania. You’ll need to play it to better misunderstand it.

Some of that work takes place in the pilot seat of your mech. Some of it happens on-foot, with an off-brand AK-47 teetering at the end of your arm. Because of the frailty of your character, you’ll likely end up driving your mech around like it’s a big bulletproof car with legs. Small arms fire from regular soldiers can’t hurt you like this. You can put the sirens on and scare civilians who walk in random paths through the streets. Or you can simply stomp them to bits for cash. You are the police. There are no consequences for killing innocents.

You can step in and out of your mech any time. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Consumer Softproducts

The world is a geometrically primitive warren of streets and hubs, slathered in slapdash textures and separated by quick loading screens and huge doorways marked by glowing holograms with “EXIT” scrolling across them. Take one route to cross a bridge full of shipping containers and be blown to pieces in a fraction of a second. Take another route to enter a town district patrolled by mechs and foot soldiers on high platforms, where you will last entire integers of time. 1 second, 2 seconds. maybe even 10 seconds . Perhaps this, then, is the way to go. This method of finding the path of least resistance is representative of how I approached the game as a whole. But it’s worth reiterating that (like the maker’s previous game Cruelty Squad ) the phrase “least resistant” is one of gut-spilling relativity.

In other words, you will perish many times before you figure out a good attack pattern to rid the streets of threats before they strip away your mech’s armour and health. For a player like me, this results in a cautious game of gingerly poking around corners, and dashing back into cover whenever threatened. For fiercer minds, death’s embrace might spur a who-dares-wins speedrunniness. Dying does have harsh consequences, in that you’ll drop all your cash and only get one Soulsian chance to recover it. But there are workarounds, and you always reappear at the nearest checkpoint with pacey determination. Fighting fast and thoughtlessly certainly suits the theme of coked-up cops much better than Rainbow Six timidness. Yet I remain afraid of death.

Is there a point to dual wielding when a single bullet kills? Oh who cares. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Consumer Softproducts

Outside your mech, a sharp burst of bullets from one stray soldier can kill you in an instant. You can activate “very easy” mode in the settings if you like, but I’m not sure what it changes. You still pop like a balloon full of blood. In the stompy V-Stalker you’re slightly more sturdy but you’ll still get shredded in about two eye blinks by any enemy mechajerk. Upgrades will make you more hardy, but later enemies will threaten you anew with higher calibre weapons and beefier armour of their own.

That last sentence could describe any video game. Please, do not be misled. If an immersive sim lives and dies on the strength of its verbs, then Psycho Patrol R, even in its larval early access form, is an aggressively robust carnival of capabilities. You can kick down doors and hack keypads, of course. But the game’s slant attitude extends even to the design tenets of an entire genre. You don’t just buy a cola from the vending machine, you buy a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. You don’t flush the toilets, you pick them up and throw them around. Reading governmental documents increases your toxicity by 1. You can press O at any time to summon an apparition of the State, a grinning spherical mascot of Pantone Reflex Blue surrounded by swirling stars who will give you “helpful” “hints”. You can bribe nearly anyone you meet.

The mascot’s name is Bion and he describes himself as “a trickle of blood running underneath the iridescent summer moon.” When you summon him, he shouts: “yay!” |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Consumer Softproducts

You can also invest all the blood money you earn into stocks - a familiar process to the organ brokers of Cruelty Squad. I accidentally invested my entire bank account in a strange food company. I thought I was spending 100 euro, but actually I was buying 100 stocks. You have a daily limit of financial transactions, which meant all my money was locked into a single company I did not research one bit. How do I tell my wife about this? Do I have a wife? Are wives permitted in Pan-Europa? It is not clear.

Confused? You can pause to consult the “help” screen - a scrappy document of tips ’n’ tricks that reads like a GameFaqs page circa 1997. Note: the pause menu is purely ceremonial. People will still shoot and kill you. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Consumer Softproducts

It is a satire of video games as much as it is a satire of fucked up governmental institutions and corporate malfeasance. In one early quest I had to calm an angry man in the government lobby who had a complaint about passport processing times. I tried to give him 10 euros to go away. “Keep your change, peasant,” he spat. Even after trying to calmly explain to the man that his anger was the result of a “psychohazard” and not, say, a corrupt bureaucracy, he refused to listen. He became furious and began to shoot at me about his passport. I ran into the offices, lost sight of the perp, then used the game’s “Track individual” option to highlight his whereabouts through the walls. I waited at the top of some stairs, watching a door, as his highlighted name stormed through the offices toward the entrance. BLAM. His head exploded. Passport processed.

I reported all this to my immediate superior - a manager with no eyes called Lorenzo - who reprimanded me for failing to perform a “psychonegotiation” with adequate skill. “Get out of my office,” he said, referring to the room with one thousand books textured fakely to the walls. The protagonist reveals in a note that they are in love with this manager. The password on your work computer is his whole name: LORENZOVISCONTI. It is case sensitive.

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This is a coffee shop. You can buy an espresso for 79 euro. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Consumer Softproducts

All this is to highlight the true appeal of Consumer Softproduct’s games. They aren’t swish, professionally polished products of an industry. They are scrappy murder pictures of comic disgust. The world of Psycho Patrol R is full of unsettling quest givers and chatty NPCs with no filter. There are military contractors with orbs for heads, start-up bros with big plans for potato logistics, bureaucrats with a severe cocaine addiction. Their dialogue is overpoweringly verbose, stupid, and sublime. It is basically what would happen if thecatamites was made creative director of the next Deus Ex .

Shortly after shooting a would-be assassin in the street, I spoke to a nearby woman in a suit. I could tell she had something to say because she stood still, unlike the dozens of other wandering NPCs you will run over for pocket money. The company woman went off on a rant about how each instance of human, animal, and plant life has a numerical value. A CEO’s dog is more important than the average human by these calculations, she said. “I can tell your value is about 0.4,” she told me. “Which is fine. Don’t worry about it.”

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Thanks, Beatrice. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Consumer Softproducts

In her case, she had no quest for me, and could be freely murdered. But others are more significant. The game’s Steam page boasts (accurately) that “Every quest is a side quest”. And maybe more games could afford to embrace this philosophy. These quests involve important europolice duties, such as getting a businessman’s noisy neighbours to turn the music down, or finding a hedge fund manager’s lost pet. It sounds plain on paper, until you hear the “music” involved, or learn that the pet in question is a “humandog” called “Faceripper” who has been badly mistreated.

When I discovered this about the poor dog I confronted the hedge fund guy - a crass man called Vladimir. He shouted at me about how the dog needs discipline, and told me to fuck off. In my log, the protagonist’s feelings were noted: “He was very hostile to me, for some reason. I don’t respect people who don’t respect me. I need to meditate on this.”

The fatigue meter naturally builds and can be offset by slurping energy drinks or drinking coffee. Smoking a cigarette stops fatigue dead in its tracks but the ciggy eventually burns down. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Consumer Softproducts

I meditate by shooting Vladimir in the head and taking the 50,000 euros he has in liquid cash. I use the money to buy a new core for my mech, some beefy steel legs, more body armour for my fragile human bod, and a hacking tool, which allows me to perform a torturously opaque hacking minigame. The night vision goggles I likewise purchase cast the world into a horrible blown-out green, even if it’s totally dark. I equip them only in the sewers, where I am eaten to death by “flesh rats” because I cannot aim my rifle straight from fatigue. I have not taken enough cocaine, or I have taken too much cocaine. I am not sure.

By now you either understand why this game is enticing, or you have abandoned any desire to play it. Perhaps both. You know a game is not an ordinary shooter when it generates Steam discussion topics such as: “how to become an accredited investor” or “can you change the computer wallpaper?” (By default your computer pause menu shows an image of William Blake’s Nebuchadnezzar - I see no reason to change it).

The hacking minigame is hexadecimal hell, unfathomable without a guide. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Consumer Softproducts

There is, to the abhorrence of some onlookers, a deep hunger for this kind of rampant simulation of militarism and madness. Whether that hunger is sated with this early access version, I don’t know. I still haven’t gotten past the “Apartment Wars” quest which sees you choose between corpo pondlife or raver dirtbags. I cannot discount the endless empty rooms with hideously clashing textures, but it is also difficult, given the nature of a Consumer Softproducts blaster, to tell what is an unfinished area, and what is just meant to look unfinished. I won’t discuss the surprising price tag any further, other than to say I recently spent the same amount of cash on a wrench, and I can say with solemn certainty that the bright moving images about getting my head shot off are more interesting.

This review was based on a free review copy supplied by the developer.

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Psycho Patrol R

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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