Ready or Not is an engaging SWAT sim with controversial undertones

Ready or Not Source: VOID Interactive

Over the course of the last few weeks, I've been playing Ready or Not, a Steam Early Access SWAT sim tactical shooter from New Zealand-based VOID Interactive. The game is the closest matter we've gotten to a sequel to 2005's SWAT four, and I've been having an absolute blast with it. You play as a fellow member of a five-man squad of SWAT officers in Set up or Not, and your goal is to tactically infiltrate a number of real-world locations like gas stations, houses, hotels, and car dealerships to rescue hostages, neutralize armed suspects, stop active shooters, and diffuse bombs. The game can be played singleplayer with bots you lot tin command, or with 4 other human players.

Set or Not's emphasis on non-lethal takedowns is refreshing.

Unlike the vast majority of activity-heavy mod shooters such every bit Call of Duty: Vanguard, Ready or Not encourages you to deal with enemies non-lethally. Equipment like PepperBall launchers, pepper spray, beanbag shotguns, tasers, tear gas, and flashbang grenades can exist used in tandem with verbal barks for compliance to coerce suspects into dropping their weapons and surrendering, rewarding you with a higher score.

This can exist accomplished with tools that, when used effectively, brand it easier to take hold of suspects off-guard. These include mirrorguns that allow you to check under doors for traps and enemy locations, lockpicks for quietly unlocking doors, and battering rams, breaching shotguns, and C2 explosive charges for situations where rapid entry is ideal. You can use more than lethal options similar handguns, rifles, and shotguns to kill suspects who open up fire on y'all, but you'll rarely need to if your team coordinates properly and uses the tools the game provides.

Ready or Not Source: VOID Interactive

Fittingly, Gear up or Not foregoes standard shooter mechanics like sprinting (you can movement around a little faster by going into a low ready position) and jumping, instead forcing you lot to arroyo situations methodically with crouches and leaning mechanics that allow y'all to peek around corners while keeping almost of your body behind comprehend. The game also features bullet penetration, pregnant yous'll need to consider the cloth of the objects y'all stand backside (you lot tin besides shoot enemies through thin walls and flimsy pieces of cover if necessary).

Overall, information technology's a gameplay loop that hasn't gotten old during the 30 hours I've played the game thus far, especially since the positions of suspects and civilians change with each new mission. Each room or area across the game'southward eight maps offers a tense, complicated challenge for my teammates and I to overcome with our tactics and equipment, peculiarly since suspects volition often hear you coming if y'all're not conscientious and will even pretend to be civilians on occasion, keeping you on your toes.

The tension is heightened past Set or Not's excellent visual and audio presentation, which can only exist described equally both striking and oppressive. The game's visual style is nighttime and gloomy, with the but illumination coming from tedious lite fixtures or the glow of multicolored neon. In-game locations like secret meth labs or overtaken aircraft docks are built with immaculate attending to detail, featuring layouts and props that are mostly contextually appropriate (more than on that subsequently). Flashbang grenades, gunfire, and explosives are frighteningly loud, making each encounter feel genuinely terrifying. The pièce de résistance is the game'south moody noir-style soundtrack that perfectly rises or falls in intensity based on the moment-to-moment gameplay.

Yet, despite everything that Fix or Not does well, I can't help but feel uncomfortable with some of the game's content. Recent events take made a variety of critical problems with modernistic constabulary forces abundantly clear; the prevalence of police brutality, racial discrimination, and the rapid militarization of constabulary enforcement has led to a significant change in how the general public views the law. Because of this, information technology'south crucial for VOID Interactive to construct its depiction of law enforcement with maturity and integrity, keeping real-world context in mind.

Unfortunately, I feel that VOID has failed on this front end in a few ways. Firstly, Set up or Not features a variety of juvenile props in some of its locations, including bags of "Dick's Murphy Fries" with the slogan "The all-time dick you've always tasted," bottles of cleaner labelled equally "Jizz," a box of pills for "Blooper Health" from "Whore Foods," and shelves full of medicine called "Over Dos Ahs." This childish humor has no place in a game with sensitive discipline matter like this, and while VOID has stated that these props came from a contractor they no longer work with and that they'll be removed in a hereafter update, it'south still baffling that they were there in the kickoff place.

Despite everything Ready or Not does well, I tin't assist but feel uncomfortable with some of the game'southward content.

And so there are the voicelines and animations in the game that range from young to downright inappropriate. Arrested civilians and suspects may quip that, "My mom has a Mexican maid. Maybe y'all know her?" or might flirt with yous past saying, "Nice tattoos ..." or "You guys (SWAT officers) expect similar the guys in the movies. Overnice guns!" When placing handcuffs on a suspect, there's a chance that an blitheness of your officeholder unnecessarily striking their head will play. Sometimes your officer will threaten arrested suspects, ordering them to "Shut your mouth or I'll close it for you." Even each mission's general "Bring Order to Chaos" objective feels uncomfortably edgy and authoritarian, framing each of your operations every bit a lethal crackdown instead of a defusal. Once again, VOID has committed to addressing a lot of this — the patch notes for the latest Blastoff update of the game country that information technology removes "outdated legacy voicelines" — but what fabricated the developers retrieve they were appropriate to have in the game to begin with?

Ready or Not Source: Windows Central

The inclusion of childish and inappropriate content like this is concerning, especially when you consider that VOID has doubled down on its plans to add together a school shooting level to the game. I don't believe that developers shouldn't exist able to explore sensitive topics in their games, simply if Prepare or Non is going to become downwardly that route, information technology needs to exist washed with extreme intendance and respect. VOID states that it "hopes it can play some minor role in honoring those who accept been impacted by these real-world tragedies with a portrayal that does not trivialize their experiences," only information technology remains to be seen whether the developers will truly commit to creating a more mature version of Ready or Non without any of the aforementioned nonsense.

Ultimately, Ready or Non is an incredibly fun game — easily one of the best PC games for tactical shooter fans — and I greatly appreciate that VOID Interactive'due south tactical shooter promotes non-lethality in an era where many other games encourage yous to shoot everything in sight without fifty-fifty thinking about it. That doesn't alibi the game's tasteless props, voicelines, and animations, though, and I sincerely promise that the developers work to brand Ready or Not a more than appropriate and self-aware game moving frontward.

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