The best crime story games: our picks, from Hong Kong to Lagos

Plenty of games let you commit crimes. Fewer make you care why. The crime story games people remember are the ones where the crime is the setting and the story is about a person: someone who owes money, someone in too deep, someone who has to decide which side of a door to stand on.

These are our picks, not a ranking. Every fact about another game was checked against the sources listed at the bottom of the page.

At a glance

Our picks

Sleeping Dogs

United Front Games made it and Square Enix published it in 2012, after Activision had cancelled the project. You play Wei Shen, an undercover police officer working his way into a triad in Hong Kong. The pull of the story is the same question every undercover story asks: how long can you pretend to be someone before you are them? It came out on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, with a Definitive Edition for PS4 and Xbox One in 2014.

Mafia: Definitive Edition

Hangar 13 and 2K released this ground-up remake of the original Mafia in September 2020, for PS4, Xbox One and PC. You are Tommy Angelo, a cab driver who rises through the mob during Prohibition. It is a story about loyalty, and what it costs, told like a gangster film.

Yakuza 0

From Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and Sega, released in Japan in 2015 and worldwide in 2017. It is set in 1988 and follows a young Kazuma Kiryu in Kamurocho, a fictional version of Tokyo’s Kabukichō, and Goro Majima in a district based on Osaka’s Dōtonbori. It is a prequel in the long-running Like a Dragon series, and it swings between a serious crime drama and some very silly side stories.

Disco Elysium

ZA/UM released it in 2019. You are a police detective who wakes up after a binge with no memory and a murder to solve in Revachol, a fictional city still living with a failed revolution. As he works the case, he begins to remember his own past. If you want a crime story that is mostly reading and thinking, this is the one.

AJ Cities

Our own game, free in your browser and 18+. It belongs on this list because its crime story is about something ordinary and hard: owing money to people with power.

AJ was deported from London to Lagos. Days after landing, he was swept up by police off a bus stop and held in a cell, and he walked out with nothing. Now he lives in Room 3 of Iloro House on June 12 Street, on the edge of Ajegunle where Navy Town meets Kirikiri. The crime in his story comes from three directions:

• The gate police. Officers Sola and Tunde will open the north gate once AJ has “settled” them: ₦2,500,000, which they are happy to take a little at a time. Sola has decided AJ came home across the Sahara from Libya, and no London accent will change his mind.
• The bush. In the bush beside the estate, three officers on a permanent smoke break lend AJ a shotgun for bottle practice, as long as he gives it back. A bookie takes bets on the street football.
• The Warden’s table. The Warden, Chief Lazarus Ekanem, spent thirty-one years at Kirikiri prison across the road. Now he owns Prizm, and at his back booth an importer with a stuck container meets a man who knows a man. The Warden only introduces, hosts and witnesses, and takes ten percent for the table. He never signs and never touches the goods. And he has heard about a young man with a London accent.

The story is told in conversation, not cutscenes, and the humour is street-level satire of authority: police who want to be settled, a neighbour “in opportunities”, a club owner who quotes Proverbs and the prison rulebook in one breath. Every character is fictional, and so is the estate; Ajegunle, the real neighbourhood that gave the game its name, is not portrayed as a crime scene. You can read AJ’s story in six short chapters, or the Warden’s story, before you play.

What makes a good crime story game?

Looking at these together, the good ones share a few things:

1. A person with something to lose. Wei Shen’s cover, Tommy’s family, the detective’s mind, AJ’s chance to start again.
2. A place with its own rules. A triad’s Hong Kong, a mob town, a broken city, a walled estate where the gate costs more than most people earn.
3. Power that is not where it says it is. In most of these stories, the people in uniform and the people in white linen are closer than they look.
4. Choices that land. Not always big ones. Sometimes the choice is just whether to shake a hand.

Which one to start with

If you have a console or a gaming PC and an evening to spare, Sleeping Dogs and Mafia are the classic crime films of this list: big cities, cars, a clear story from start to end. Yakuza 0 is the one for players who like a drama that is allowed to be funny. Disco Elysium is for readers; give it time and it gives back. And if you are on a phone, on a work laptop, or simply do not want to buy anything yet, AJ Cities opens in a browser tab, free, and the first person you go to is an old friend stirring a coal pot. The crime comes later. It always does.

Want more? See our picks of open-world crime games with a story and mafia games online.

What is a good free crime story game?

AJ Cities is free in a browser on a phone or a computer: an 18+ story about a deportee in Lagos, a debt to the gate police and a club owner who takes ten percent.

Is Disco Elysium a crime game?

Yes, a detective story. You play a police detective who wakes with no memory and has a murder to solve, in the fictional city of Revachol.

What is Sleeping Dogs about?

An undercover police officer, Wei Shen, working his way into a triad in Hong Kong. It was released in 2012.