Strategy games are a good way for the player to be powerful. If all goes according to their plans, they could end up ruling the overworld, or even chunks of the cosmos! It may have required some rule-bending to get there, like making some unsavory deals, reneging on old arrangements, or other political shenanigans, but sometimes, that’s what it takes to get ahead.
So, what would happen if, instead of the normal overworld, players sought to control the criminal underworld instead? Where they’d need to trade in all sorts of contraband and keep the long arm of the law busy elsewhere until they make Don Corleone look like a hot dog vendor by comparison. For those thrills, players should check out these crime-based strategy games.
8 Gangsters: Organized Crime
For Methodical Would-Be Mafiosos
One of the earliest crime strategy games was Gangsters: Organized Crime, released all the way back in 1998, where players send their hoods out to expand their territory by finding new businesses from which to extort protection money. They can recruit them from all sorts of places, like gyms and pool halls, but they need to pick the right ones to get ahead.
They need muscle to threaten people with, smart lawyers to cool off any hot water with the law, accountants to manage bribes, money laundering, etc. If they build up enough clean money without the law breathing down their necks, become mayor of the city, or destroy every rival gang, they win the game. Its reception was largely mixed, but more positive than its buggier sequel, Gangsters 2: Vendetta.
7 Antihero
Get 'Em By Gaslight
People don’t have to play as 1920s Chicago mobsters to manage crime. Antihero takes a more board game-like approach, letting players build up their own guild of thieves in a Victorian city. It’s less like Al Capone and more like Oliver Twist. Players can even take on their friends in multiple different sessions via its asynchronous multiplayer mode.
No matter the number of people playing, the name of the game is the same: build up a gang of street urchins to pick pockets and burgle homes, thugs to threaten and blackmail the rich, and even assassinate targets if they get in the way of their functioning underworld economy. Players can’t get better weapons, skills, or ‘staff’ if they can’t get more cash, so if they can’t grease a person’s palm, they’ll have to bump them off instead.
6 All In The Game: Crime Strategy
Become The Kingpin Of Crime One Turn At A Time
- Developer: Strangelet Games
- Platform: PC
- Release: June 2024 (Early Access)
For players who want something more modern, there’s All in the Game: Crime Strategy. It’s like Gangsters, in that players pick a street corner, then slowly plot out how they’ll expand their influence turn by turn. They’ll need Middlemen to manage the money, Experts to handle tech issues, and Soldiers to give rival gangs a taste of hot lead if they try to invade.
By using all three well, they could take over the city in different ways. They could take the violent route and essentially become a gangster warlord, or they could act hush-hush, paying the law to look the other way, or bring them down from within. People can even trade and use illicit substances, but it’s akin to Saints Row 2, where they have as many minuses as pluses (booze buffs morale but debuffs attack, etc).
5 Dough: A Crime Strategy RPG
Get Money, Gain Power, Win Glory
- Developers: NeverNorth Games and Not the Best Games
- Platform: PC
- Release: July 2024 (Early Access)
Gangsters isn’t the only game to invoke the Prohibition era for its crime strategy sim. Dough: A Crime Strategy RPG does what it says on the tin: let players go from rags to riches by using RPG elements to take over the city. They just pick their nationality, pick a playstyle, and start their journey to rule the underworld through 250 different encounters.
They can take the usual route of becoming a crime boss, setting up illegal businesses to operate, upgrade, or shut down if things get too hot. But they could also become politicians and use their know-how to divide and conquer their enemies, while staying squeaky clean by managing their PR through the media and paying the law to stay off of their backs. There’s more than one way to be a gangster, after all.
4 The Dope Game
It's Exactly What You Think It's About
- Developer: Tenth&Hess Games
- Platform: PC
- Release: May 2016
Being a crime lord isn’t the only way to strategize around crime. As the name suggests, The Dope Game is all about dealing drugs — though not necessarily by choice. The player’s character tries to escape the grotty (and thankfully fictional) city of Starkham by helping their friend, Preston, get $2,000 from the notorious loanshark, Sweaty Mike. Unfortunately, they now have to pay it off within a time limit without upsetting the law or locals.
To do that, they’ll have to get on top of the drug market and know what illicit substances are hot and which ones are not. Then, when things go all wrong, they’ll need to use whatever they earn to get some weapons and armor to protect themselves. Either way, they’ll need as much cash as they can get to get some good gear, or repaying the loan will become the least of their worries.
3 Pixel Gangsters: Mafia Manager
Rule The 1920s Like It Was The 1980s
- Developer: Gidib Games
- Platforms: PC, Android
- Release: November 2022
Like the sound of All in the Game or Dough, but wish it was more pixelated? Pixel Gangsters: Mafia Manager is all about building a criminal empire by recruiting the right goons to extort businesses, rob places, and assassinate targets that can’t be bribed. It’s just all rendered in 320×180 res pixel graphics, and each key figure has stats like mentality, loyalty, and social skills that players can work with.
That said, it does have its own touches. Players have to beat out their rivals to control their randomly generated city. But, they can do more than kill enemy goons with better firepower. They can interrogate them and get the chance to spy on their turf to find weakpoints and other exploits. It adds an extra tactical layer where players can capitalize on intelligence over brute-forcing their way across town or in the courtrooms.
2 City Of Gangsters
Get Dollars Out Of Distilleries In Prohibition Era America
Some games set themselves in the Prohibition era but focus more on the gangster side of things rather than underground booze production. City of Gangsters makes it the focus, as the player’s goal is to make it big by making their own illicit hooch, then setting up speakeasies and gambling dens to peddle their wares on the sly.
The more they expand their business, the more careful they’ll have to be, from maintaining enough funds to bribe the right cops and officials, to avoiding the eyes and ears of any snitches on the street. If players build up their secretive businesses — and know who to gladhandle and who to manhandle within the game’s 13-yr time limit (booze got legalized again in 1933) — they’ll end the Prohibition era as the rulers of their town.
1 Plutocracy
See What Kind Of 'Hard Work' It Takes To Become A Billionaire
- Developer: Redwood
- Platform: PC
- Release: November 2019 (Early Access)
As far as openly gangster strategy games go, City of Gangsters may be top of the tree. But Plutocracy shows no one became a billionaire by being legit. The game encourages underhanded tactics as well as more on-the-board ones. Like gathering the right ‘agents of influence’ to lobby for their causes in the courts and political houses, and ones that cause ‘accidents’ at their competitors’ companies to sabotage them.
Then, they could find ways to commit wage theft on their own workers to keep their coffers topped up. It might be illegal, but players can always bribe the courts to get a slap on the wrist at worst if they get caught. While that might not make Plutocracy as crime-focused as other entries on this list, it still lets players commit crimes to strategize their way into being the new Carnegie of late 19th century America.
