Now a detective in Los Angeles, Ingram travels back to the colony to investigate the murder of his ex-wife and her husband's disappearance.

He wanted the production quality to match that of major motion pictures, and created a scripting engine to give him more creative control.

Lorraine asks for Jonathan's help in solving the disappearance of her husband, Kenzo Hojo; the only clues are a torn leaf, a set of capsules, and the word "Plato".

After failing to catch the culprit, Jonathan decides to fulfill Lorraine's final request and travels to Beyond, where he is reunited with his former LAPD partner, BCPD Vice Department chief Ed Brown (Shōzō Iizuka), who agrees to help Jonathan investigate the circumstances surrounding Hojo's disappearance and Lorraine's murder along with Vice Unit members Meryl Silverburgh (Kyoko Terase) and Dave Forrest (Bin Shimada).

Tokugawa and Becker are revealed to have both been responsible for Jonathan's accident, and the prime movers behind an illegal drug and organ trafficking ring designed to counteract the negative side-effects of being in space for long periods of time.

When apparently cornered, Jonathan tricks Becker into revealing the whole scheme through a live video feed, exposing the scandal to Beyond Coast.

[6] Kojima began to explore concepts for Policenauts during the development of Snatcher (1988) when memory limitation issues prompted them to take a break.

After the release of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990), he developed a scripting engine so he could maintain control over when animations and music played instead of the programmers.

[6] Concurrently, many NASA documents about space travel and its effects on the human body were being published in Japan for the first time and were hot topics among Kojima's friends and family.

[6] Kojima mixed his space interests with the aforementioned social issues to build the thematic basis of Policenauts and hoped the players would ponder these topics.

[5][14] A short demo with a game glossary, artwork, and design documents was released on April 21, 1995, called the Pilot Disk.

When Policenauts was being evaluated, Shuhei Yoshida of Sony Computer Entertainment told Kojima they were discussing the extent of breast jiggling in the game.

[12] His hope was that players would feel more emotion using the gun in Policenauts than in games like Lethal Enforcers (1992) which he felt did not evoke empathy.

[6] The Saturn version also has some of the content featured in the Pilot Disk and Private Collection bonus discs released on previous consoles, such as some of the making-of videos and an interview with voice actress Kikuko Inoue (unlocked after completing the game once), as well as the glossary, which is now accessible during play, allowing players to look up keywords whenever they are first used in the story.

[26][27] According to Jeremy Blaustein, who worked in Konami's international business department and led the translations of Snatcher and Metal Gear Solid (1998), there were never plans to localize Policenauts.

[5][28] He personally felt it was one of Kojima's weaker games, not enjoying the "space cowboy" theme and feeling it lacked the tension and humor of Snatcher.

[2] Industry journalists have speculated in hindsight that Konami may have passed on localization because of Snatcher's commercial failure and Policenauts' long scenes and protracted dialogue during an era of heightened consumer interest in 3D action games.

[36][37] Sega Saturn Magazine felt it was more like a movie than a game and praised its unique blend of genres, but found some of the text difficult to understand and warned that its heavy scientific writing may not be suitable for everyone.

They felt the game had an interesting plot, "bizarre and inventive" characters, and appreciated the "level of senseless violence and gratuitous rudity of graphics.

They concluded that Policenauts was "a masterful achievement, a near-future scenario so intricately detailed, well thought out and full of originality it puts Hollywood's best attempts at sci-fi to shame.

[2][3][5] Mark Ryan Sallee of IGN called the game a manifestation of Kojima's film obsessions, and accomplished in its "unique direction and striking moods" thanks to the strength of its animation and vocal performances.

[2] N. Ho Sang and Peter Tieryas of Kotaku wrote that "Its flashes of Lethal Weapon-esque intrigue give way to the deep metaphysical meanderings that makes for the usual Kojima mind meld on top of fantastic production values and mesmerizing art.

[39] Kurt Kalata of Hardcore Gaming 101 criticized the story as predictable, and described it as "empty, merely a buddy cop film with some sci-fi elements".

[2][5] Parkin wrote that its format is outdated and not for everyone, but still called it "a triumph of gentle interactive storytelling", and felt it could be enjoyed by those with interests in "thrillers, point and click adventures, science fiction homage and Japanese esoterica".

[41] N. Ho Sang and Peter Tieryas of Kotaku included it on a list of desired sequels, and expressed interest in a proper English port of the original.

[42] While still working with Konami in 2012, Kojima expressed interest in exploring a follow-up to Policenauts, but felt it was difficult to carry out from a business perspective.

[43] Bob Mackey of 1UP.com criticized Konami for failing to acknowledge or pursue localization of Policenauts and other non-Metal Gear games by Kojima.

"[40] IGN called them "arguably two of the biggest cyberpunk/sci-fi games to ever grace consoles",[41] and Eurogamer described Policenauts' sci-fi elements as "some of the medium's strongest.

[2][39][44] Some of the Policenauts staff went on to hold lead development roles on Kojima's later efforts, including the Zone of the Enders and Metal Gear series.