The tactical shooter Ready or Not relies on a lot of realism and is currently very popular on Steam. However, a controversy is now causing plenty of movement and discussion around the game.
With Team17, Void Interactive has now lost its publisher for the tactical shooter Ready or Not, which is inspired by SWAT operations. There was no official reason for Team17’s departure, but the timing leaves a lot of room for speculation.
Background: Recently, a developer of the game caused a major controversy, because in a Reddit thread a player asked whether Void would one day implement a school shootout as a setting in the game about the realistic setting. School shootings should really not be part of the content of a tactical shooter, but when asked about such potential content, a developer said: “You’d better believe it will be like this.”
As soon as the controversial statement made the rounds on the Internet, Team17 is no longer on board – possibly to distance itself from such content, even if this has not yet been officially confirmed. Developer Void meanwhile published a larger statement via Twitter. In this one emphasizes that one is willing to take up unpleasant topics in one’s own games that are far from the valid norm.
At the same time, however, they emphasize: “We recently had to remind certain team members to exercise the necessary care when discussing this content now and in the future.”
Team17 only became the publisher of Ready or Not in March of this year – and is no longer on board.