They finished it for a machine already going down. Every version that came after is built on what they made there.
Policenauts went on sale for the PC-9821 on 29 July 1994. Its first console version arrived on the 3DO on 29 September 1995. The 3DO had launched in America at US$699.99. The PlayStation had been on sale in Japan for nine months by then, and within about a year the 3DO would be gone from the market altogether. Kojima's team went to the trouble anyway: for this version they had the studio AIC animate the story, and they recorded new music. Four months later, Policenauts came out on the PlayStation. Then, the following September, on the Saturn. Both of them carried the animation and the music that had been made for the 3DO. The machine sank. The work done on it did not.
About this game
Hideo Kojima's science fiction detective story, written and directed by him, first sold on the PC-9821 in 1994. Its first console version came to the 3DO in September 1995 — and the animated scenes and new music made for that version became the basis of every version that followed.
Key Features
Jonathan Ingram was one of the first astronauts trained as police — a Policenaut. An accident set him adrift, frozen, and he was recovered twenty-five years later. Everyone he knew has aged twenty-five years. He has not. He is working as a detective in Los Angeles when his ex-wife walks into his office asking him to find her missing husband. Then she is murdered. The investigation takes him back up to the space colony he helped build, and into an organ trafficking ring run by people he used to work beside. The game is played by pointing, looking, and asking, with occasional shooting sequences. The 3DO version added animated scenes produced by the studio AIC, and newly recorded music.
The Story Behind
Policenauts is usually filed as a 1994 game, and that is right — but the 1994 game was a Japanese home computer game, on the PC-9821. It did not reach a games console until 29 September 1995, and the console it reached was the 3DO. By then the 3DO had been on sale in the United States for nearly two years, having launched at US$699.99, and the PlayStation had already been out in Japan for nine months. Four months after Policenauts appeared on the 3DO, it appeared on the PlayStation (19 January 1996), and later on the Saturn (13 September 1996), which restored scenes and added light gun support. It was never released outside Japan. An English Saturn release was announced in 1996 and cancelled. The translations that exist were made by fans, for the PlayStation version (2009) and the Saturn version (2016).
Tricks & Tales
There is a second 3DO disc that people mistake for the game. The Policenauts Pilot Disk, released on 21 April 1995 — five months before the game itself — carries a glossary of the setting, behind-the-scenes material and a demo. It is not the game, and it turns up in listings as though it were. The original PC-9821 version was drawn in pixel art. The animated scenes everyone associates with Policenauts did not exist until the 3DO version, which is also the version that carries slightly fewer lines of dialogue than the computer original.
Collector's Guide
What to Watch Out For
Before buying, these are the points worth knowing — from someone who handles original Japanese Policenauts copies regularly.
Is the 3DO version the original Policenauts?
No. The original is the PC-9821 computer version, sold on 29 July 1994. The 3DO version (29 September 1995) is the first console version, and the first to contain the animated scenes by AIC — the ones the PlayStation and Saturn versions inherited. It is a legitimate first, but it is not the first release.
What is the "Policenauts Pilot Disk"?
It is not the game. The Pilot Disk is a separate 3DO disc released on 21 April 1995 containing a glossary of the setting, behind-the-scenes material and a demo. Check what a listing is actually selling you, especially at a low price.
Can I play it in English?
No. Policenauts was never released outside Japan; an English Saturn version was announced in 1996 and cancelled. The fan translations that exist were made for the PlayStation version (2009) and the Saturn version (2016) — not for the 3DO. If you buy the 3DO discs, you are buying a Japanese game.
Will Japanese 3DO discs run on my North American 3DO?
The 3DO has no official region lock and Japanese and North American discs are broadly interchangeable — but a few Japanese titles rely on a kanji font that North American firmware does not carry, and do not display correctly. We could not confirm whether Policenauts is one of them, and we are not going to guess. Test it rather than assume it.
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Rooms this game lives in
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