Ready or Not (video game)

Ready or Not is a 2023 tactical first-person shooter video game developed and published by Ireland-based VOID Interactive and released for Microsoft Windows. Ready or Not follows the operations of a police SWAT team in the fictional American city of Los Sueños in the midst of a violent crime wave.

Ready or Not was released through Steam early access on December 17, 2021, before it was officially released on December 13, 2023. The game was well-received for its atmosphere and gameplay and has been considered a spiritual successor to the similar SWAT series by Sierra Entertainment.

Gameplay
In Ready or Not, the player takes the role of an American police tactical unit leader within the Los Sueños Police Department (LSPD) pitted against criminals. As a tactical shooter, realism is a central pillar of gameplay, with both players and enemies being killed in only a few shots; therefore, tactical strategies and careful planning are emphasized.

The player is given a wide selection of rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, and handguns to choose from, with extensive customization options for sights, rail attachments, suppressors, and other attachments. Equipment such as stun grenades, stinger grenades, fiberscopes, ballistic shields, and breaching devices are key items available for the player and their team to equip and use. As the player is part of a police unit, apprehending suspects alive is greatly encouraged; therefore, a variety of less-lethal weapons such as tasers, riot guns, and pepper spray are available as alternatives to lethal force, and players are awarded more points for arresting suspects instead of killing them. However, unlike SWAT 3 and SWAT 4, less-lethal weapons such as beanbag shotguns and pepperball guns have the chance of either incapacitating or killing suspects and civilians alike.

Players are also encouraged to handcuff downed suspects as they can either be incapacitated or will fake their death in order to ambush the player. Ready Or Not recommends players to fire at the suspect's center of mass when using lethal force.

Fire discipline becomes especially essential to completing missions, as players who shoot restrained suspects, civilians, or AI team members will be engaged by police as punishment for violating those rules and ethics within the universe of the game.

Modes
Ready or Not 's missions feature five game modes that vary in difficulty, with different rules of engagement (such as only killing a suspect if they are attempting to kill the player or others) that have penalties for violating them.

Depending on the context, each mission can fall into one or more game modes. Thank You, Come Again and A Lethal Obsession fall into the "Barricaded Suspects" section, where suspects must be dealt with, hostages must be secured, and evidence must be collected, while following the RoE. Valley of The Dolls and Buy Cheap, Buy Twice fall into "Raid", essentially Barricaded Suspects without RoE penalties. Neon Tomb falls into "Active Shooter", where one or more suspects actively targeting civilians must be stopped. Relapse and Elephant falls into both "Bomb Threat", where bombs must be located and defused within a time limit and Active Shooter. Sins of The Father falls into "Hostage Rescue", where hostages must be saved from criminals who will attempt to execute them upon detecting police presence.

Missions are available in singleplayer with AI teammates, or cooperatively with up to 5 players through online multiplayer. A competitive player versus player mode is planned for sometime after the 1.0 release.

Four single players modes are available at the start, those being the Commander mode, Practice mode, Ironman, and Training. Training is a tutorial that takes place in the firing range of the LSPD station that teaches players the basics of the game, such as leaning, firing, aiming, and how to use basic equipment. Commander mode is the main single player offering, the player manages a SWAT team, dealing with factors such as stress which changes based on how the mission goes. Ironman is the same as Commander mode, however a single death will wipe your progress. Practice mode removes the management, but is otherwise the same.

Development
Development began in June 2016 and a reveal trailer was released on YouTube on May 3, 2017. An alpha version of the game was made available on August 19, 2019 for owners of the Supporter Edition under a non-disclosure agreement. Supporters and select YouTubers were invited to a PvP test in April 2020 and were allowed to publish footage. The game was released on Steam Early Access on December 17, 2021.

At The Game Awards 2023, VOID Interactive announced that the 1.0 version was released on December 13, 2023. The full release includes a mission dealing with swatting and illegal crypto mining. The 1.0 release also addresses overhauls to the effectiveness of less-lethal equipment, mental health in law enforcement, inter-agency cooperation, and officer personality traits. Similar to SWAT 3, Ready Or Not 's 1.0 release will include sophisticated AI that performs actions such as restraining suspects and taking cover autonomously rather than relying on player input.

VOID Interactive planned to release two DLCs by Spring and Summer 2024, respectively; the former having the working title of Home Invasion. After news of delays, Home Invasion will release on July 23, 2024.

Publishing issues
A partnership with Team17 to publish the game under their label was announced on March 22, 2021. On December 20, 2021, VOID Interactive announced that their partnership with Team17 had ended and that they would no longer be publishing the game. Speculation suggested that this was due to the developers teasing a school shooting level on Reddit one day prior, although this was denied by VOID.

On June 16, 2022, Ready or Not was delisted from Steam after a takedown request was issued against the game for trademark infringement relating to a level set in a nightclub. Though media reports suggested it was connected to the level's release date—June 12, the anniversary of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting (VOID did not comment on why this date was chosen)—it was noted that the name of the in-game nightclub, "Pryzm", was also the name of a British nightclub chain owned by Rekom UK. The game returned to Steam on June 18 with the infringing elements removed.

Reception
Ready or Not currently has a score of 79 on Metacritic, indicating "generally favourable reviews". It was the best selling game on Steam in the week after its release, and has been favorably described as a spiritual successor to the SWAT series and early Rainbow Six games.

Rick Lane, writing for NME, praised the game's atmosphere and similarities to SWAT 4, but said he felt uncomfortable with the game's "propaganda"-like depiction of law enforcement, especially in the wake of the George Floyd protests, and opined VOID Interactive would be unable to effectively handle the game's touchy subject matter unless "it is willing to ask the questions that SWAT 4 never did".

Ethan Gach, writing an early review for Kotaku, called Ready or Not a "tactical horror game" and "an unsettling SWAT fantasy", praising its atmosphere but also criticizing it as tasteless due to insensitivity towards police brutality and jarring tonal shifts between crude humor and dark drama. Gach also highlighted apparent references to alt-right memes such as redpill and the use of "Jogger" as a racist euphemism (in reference to Ahmaud Arbery). VOID responded to Gach's review, denying any connection to extremism, claiming the alleged dog whistles were coincidental, and stating they would remove the references in question.