Ready or Not. What kind of strange name is this for an ultra-realistic and ruthless SWAT simulator? When I first heard about Void Interactive’s ambitious project three years ago, I thought it was a Gamepass-oriented hide-and-seek game with a Viva Piñata aesthetic. Because that’s exactly what it sounds like. “Ready or not here I come!” Ridiculous.
At the same time, it makes sense not to be too predictable and typical in the nomenclature. Create an initial puzzle before throwing a handful of 9-gauge pistol ammo directly at the player. Crap! Then you sit there with flushed cheeks and a bright red skin tone covering every inch of your once beautiful face. I’m rambling a bit, sorry. I know, and it has to do with the effect this game has on my brain. Because in the last 24 hours I’ve been concentrating so hard that at times I’ve almost fainted, and that’s (believe it or not) only positive. Void’s uncompromising police simulator demands a lot from you, but ultimately gives you a lot in return when things go well. In that sense, it’s a truly brilliant action experience. But I better explain it little by little.
Sierra’s SWAT games were once some of my favorite titles. You are forced to plan, think about every move, every advance, every door you go through and sneak into a hostage situation in the dark and, before the situation escalates, banish the kidnappers to the realm of the dead and the Ensuring the release of civilians without gunfire Healing wounds was a strangely relaxing experience for me many years ago, and when I was with friends it was even better. As we all know, Irrational Games, under the leadership of visionary Bioshock creator Ken Levine, developed SWAT 4, and I still consider it probably the best title in this subgenre, as do the developers of Ready or Not in my opinion. Because this is very reminiscent of SWAT 4. Very.
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Here you take on the role of police officer David “Judge” Beaumont, who, along with four colleagues, are assigned a series of missions in the fictional town of Los Sueños (which looks like South Central, Inglewood, Compton and Lawndale combined). You have to rescue hostages, deal with delicate situations and shoot baddies of varying rank or capture them on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs. Ready or Not can be played alone with four police officers at your side, controlled by Void’s enhanced AI system, or with four friends in co-op mode. It is tactical, difficult, slow and very realistic. You can’t take a handful of bullets into your body, retreat behind a wall, wait for your health to regenerate, and then charge into the room with the trigger fully pressed. None of this works. However, here you have to think again and break away from all the manias that you may have acquired in Call of Duty, Rainbow Six and Battlefield.
For the last two years, Ready or Not’s developers have been in Early Access with the help of fans, polishing and perfecting their game. As I said, I didn’t have time for many gaming sessions in 2023 and therefore couldn’t see in detail what and which aspects will be improved at what pace and in what order, but a lot has happened here. things since February.
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The biggest improvement I notice now compared to the February version is undoubtedly the support AI, which was abysmal back then but is now brilliant. You can give the four companions different orders or leave them to their own devices, which leads to maximum irritation/frustration in many games of this type, but not here. They move intelligently and tactically, they move when you draw your weapon, they cover the right parts of rooms, they tend to react to enemies before you have time to do the same, and they make smart decisions when things get hot comes here.
Like all good tactical shooters, it’s all about patience and being careful, measured, narrow and disciplined. Some games in this subgenre don’t create the right conditions for this, or rather the atmosphere, which often made me play too hard and too aggressive, which is not the case here. “Ready or Not” does a phenomenal job of lulling me into the gravity of any situation, and I almost never fail to take the proper safety precautions and ensure that all of my cronies are in the right place on every walk with loaded guns and no safety pins in one Space, and there is, as I said, an incredibly wonderful feeling of absolute reward when it shakes. Covering a room and firing a few 5.56 bullets into the chest of a psychotic kidnapper in a neon-filled nightclub is a gaming experience that, for example, Rainbow Six offered in its time, but which has long been missed. At least I think so.
There are parts of the actual management of how I have to deal with my companions between missions that I really don’t like. I understand that the therapy part, after the gunshot wounds and all, is designed to create a realistic atmosphere and add depth, but in my hours of playing I felt that it felt a little forced and forced to have a width It’s not necessary to create between shoots. The graphical aspect also needs to be improved, although Ready or Not, based on Unreal Engine 4, is by no means ugly. It looks too clean, generic and streamlined, which I hope Void fixes. If you want to achieve a more realistic design and “look” of your game world, with more dirt, particles, debris and clutter and a blurrier “body camera” feel in terms of image filters. At least that’s what I would like to have.
Ready or Not is of course the kind of game that is constantly being developed, added to, perfected and improved, which was also the case in the early access phase. Of course, in the absence of a Rainbow Six adventure as meaningful and realistic as SWAT 5, this is a truly brilliant experience full of challenge and depth. If, like me, you’ve been craving more SWAT, it’s really time to get your hands on this and use tactics, strategy and patience to fight back against the worst criminals in Los Sueños.
