Open-world crime games usually aim for realistic cities, serious stories, and increasingly detailed worlds. Cartoon Crime takes a different approach. The indie title from BuBa Games combines classic crime sandbox gameplay with a colorful cartoon-inspired world.
Cartoon Crime entered Steam Early Access on August 26, 2026. The game gives players an open world filled with missions, vehicles, weapons, rival gangs, police chases, and several side activities.
Behind the project sits BuBa Games, a small two-person indie studio based in Istanbul. Despite the team’s size, Cartoon Crime already offers an ambitious collection of features.
Build Your Criminal Career in Cartoon Crime
Cartoon Crime puts players into a sandbox where they can explore the city and gradually build their criminal career. Story missions form part of the experience, but players don’t always need to follow them.
Instead, they can explore the world, steal vehicles, fight enemies, purchase weapons, and cause trouble around the city. Police can respond to criminal activity, creating pursuits when things get out of control.
Players can also recruit bodyguards to help them during their adventures. This adds another option when dealing with rival gangs or dangerous situations.
The game supports both third-person and classic top-down perspectives. Players can switch between them depending on how they want to experience the world.
More Than Missions and Police Chases
BuBa Games has also filled Cartoon Crime with activities outside its main criminal gameplay.
Players can go bowling, play billiards, visit arcades, watch movies, exercise at gyms, and participate in kickboxing. Various buildings can also be entered instead of simply acting as decoration around the map.
Vehicles play an important role as well. Players can drive around the open world while moving between missions, activities, and different locations.
The combination gives Cartoon Crime some similarities to older open-world crime games. However, its colorful visual style gives the game its own identity.
Cartoon Crime Continues to Expand
Early Access gives BuBa Games room to expand the project further. The developers expect the Early Access period to last roughly six to twelve months.
Several updates have already arrived since launch.
One of the larger updates significantly expanded the game’s world with dozens of additional islands. It also introduced boats and new wildlife, including sharks, turtles, and crabs. Players can discover additional locations while exploring these new areas.
BuBa Games has continued working on gameplay, graphics, and other parts of the experience as development moves forward.
That continued development will play an important role in Cartoon Crime’s future. Open-world games require plenty of content, especially when exploration sits at the center of the experience.
A Small Team With a Big Sandbox
Perhaps the most interesting part of Cartoon Crime is its scale compared with the size of its development team.
BuBa Games consists of only two developers. Building an open-world crime game with vehicles, missions, interiors, activities, combat, police systems, and exploration represents an ambitious undertaking for such a small studio.
The developers aren’t trying to compete with massive AAA productions on visual fidelity. Instead, Cartoon Crime focuses on providing a lighter sandbox experience with its own cartoon presentation.
That approach could make it interesting for players who miss more straightforward open-world crime games.
Cartoon Crime Is Available Through Steam Early Access
Cartoon Crime is currently available for PC through Steam Early Access.
Development remains ongoing, so players should expect the game to continue changing as BuBa Games releases additional updates. New content, improvements, and expanded gameplay systems could arrive throughout the Early Access period.
For players interested in indie open-world games, Cartoon Crime offers an unusual combination. It mixes crime sandbox mechanics with a colorful world and an impressive number of activities for a project developed by such a small team.
With BuBa Games continuing to expand the game after launch, Cartoon Crime could be one worth keeping an eye on as it moves toward its full release.
