L.A. Noire
Intense overall intensityWhat's in it
Serial murders, wartime trauma, and civic corruption run through a grim, morally bleak crime narrative.
Frequent strong profanity in dialogue among police, criminals, and witnesses.
Realistic 1940s gunfights, fistfights, and car chases against human criminals, with blood but no gore in ordinary combat.
Crime scenes display the posed, partially nude bodies of murdered women that the detective must examine.
A morphine trafficking ring drives the plot, and alcohol and tobacco are used openly throughout the 1947 setting.
Several murder investigations involve women killed in sexually motivated attacks, shown through crime-scene aftermath.
Homicide cases present mutilated corpses—cut, carved, and posed victims—that the player inspects up close for clues.
Vice and burlesque settings and murder cases carry suggestive sexual undertones and adult references.
The player is a detective investigating arson, homicide, and vice crimes, examining brutal aftermaths committed by others.
Vice cases reference sex work and burlesque within the criminal underworld.
Who can reach your kid
What it is
L.A. Noire is a detective adventure set in 1947 Los Angeles, where you play LAPD officer Cole Phelps rising through Traffic, Homicide, Vice, and Arson cases. Most play is investigation—searching crime scenes for clues, driving the open city, and interrogating suspects by reading their faces to judge truth from lies—punctuated by action sequences of gunfights, foot chases, and fistfights. The subject matter is adult: players examine graphic crime scenes including mutilated and partially nude murder victims, follow a morphine-trafficking conspiracy, and encounter vice, corruption, and wartime trauma. Alcohol and tobacco appear throughout the period setting, and the dialogue includes strong profanity. It is entirely single-player with no online or chat features.
How it's framed
The game frames its violence and corruption from the perspective of law enforcement, casting the player as a detective piecing together the truth rather than perpetrating crime. It treats its murders and conspiracies as serious, somber subject matter and does not glamorize them, though it does not shy away from lingering on disturbing crime-scene detail as part of the investigation.
Details
- Developer
- Team Bondi
- Publisher
- Rockstar Games
- Released
- Nov 8, 2011
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