LA Noire is a unique open-world detective title that doesn’t “have a point of reference from other games”, according to Rockstar.

In other words, though it’s being published by Rockstar and takes place in an open city (a near street-for-street recreation of LA circa 1947), those expecting GTA to turn up in a fedora have been following a bad lead.

Informed by real police records, newspapers and maps of ’40s Los Angeles, you’ll gather and examine evidence, interrogate witnesses and shake suspects down. Depending on who you talk to, how much evidence you turn up and what you are able to deduce from these, cases might take any number of directions, or indeed fail altogether.

“With traditional adventure games, everything is based on what the designer wants you to figure out,” says Jeronimo Barrera, vice president of product development at Rockstar. “We’ve kind of gone for a different approach which is more like real-world detective work.”

“You don’t have to find an anchor and combine it with a grapefruit,” says Brendan McNamara, co-founder of developer Team Bondi and the primary creative force behind the game. “Everyone knows cop shows – I think that keeps it reasonably approachable. Players know if you turn up at a crime scene you usually have to go and talk to someone and look at the clues around a dead body. Even if the game isn’t that familiar to them, that format is.

“The risk Rockstar took was buying in to my idea – that we could make a huge genre in movies and literature work in games when no one else had,” adds McNamara, who was the director of The Getaway on PS2 when he was with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s Team Soho.

“For us it’s always good when you are crafting something and you don’t have a point of reference from other games,” counters Barrera. “Even though you could say it’s like GTA because you have this open city you can run around in, it’s paced completely differently. To us that’s what we have to sell: ‘Look, it’s not super-high action like GTA, though there is action, but it is as compelling because of the interactions the characters are having’.”

“The difference between this and GTA is that you play a guy who’s out there trying to do good,” says Aaron Staton, who plays protagonist Cole Phelps (and also Ken Cosgrove in the TV series Mad Men). “Everyone will initially want to punch old ladies – I probably would – but people are then going to be interested in the story and solving the cases. And seeing what other old ladies they can punch.”

“Hopefully we’ll make the audience take a few leaps,” agrees McNamara. “That’s always scary but I think a lot of people will appreciate that stuff too. We’re never trying to dumb it down for people. I think you should assume your audience is pretty smart.”

LA Noire is due for release on PS3 and Xbox 360 this autumn.