game is fun, but it's *NOT* a swat shooter. it feels more like you're playing as military special forces in fallujah with how piss-poor the AI are. shoot first, ask questions later.

there is no incentive to take the whole swat element seriously, since there is no incentive to actually care about the suspects and civilians - they're all randomly generated. this may *seem* fine for replayability, when it really isn't. neither SWAT 3 or 4 had randomly generated characters - they were all pre-written to fit not only the narrative of the level, but to also seem like real people who have real lives. in Ready or Not, you're fighting nameless NPCs with no ties to the game world or environment, and most of the levels there's 2 maybe 3 different models for the characters as well. it's especially bad on the brisa cove level, where wounded veterans all happen to have the exact same leg amputation with the same face and haircut.

it's a shame, too, since mechanically this is a direct upgrade to the previous swat games, and yet swat 4 still comes out on top simply by having human-like AI, rather than the empty shells we have here.

UPDATE: Post UE5 upgrade;

the game got worse. suspects no longer stagger from gunshots, and the game looks graphically worse despite upgrading to unreal 5. suspects also have better recoil control than your "trained" swat officers, leading to frustrating moments where you cannot reliably get shots on target through 0.3 inch sightlines the way suspects can, leading to you having to just magdump in a general area and hope for the best, since you also can't move away from the gunfire faster than a leisurely stroll.

civilians still surrender half the time by simply existing, and suspects refuse surrender unless they get bean bagged or flashed, and flashes still don't work reliably either.

the core game is still garbage, yet they're pushing paid dlc content before fixing the game, or at the very least, pushing fixes alongside the dlcs.

it's one step forward, six steps back with VOID...

game is fun, but it's *NOT* a swat shooter. it feels more like you're playing as military special forces in fallujah with how piss-poor the AI are. shoot first, ask questions later. there is no incentive to take the whole swat element seriously, since there is no incentive to actually care about the suspects and civilians - they're all randomly generated. this may *seem* fine for replayability, when it really isn't. neither SWAT 3 or 4 had randomly generated characters - they were all pre-written to fit not only the narrative of the level, but to also seem like real people who have real lives. in Ready or Not, you're fighting nameless NPCs with no ties to the game world or environment, and most of the levels there's 2 maybe 3 different models for the characters as well. it's especially bad on the brisa cove level, where wounded veterans all happen to have the exact same leg amputation with the same face and haircut. it's a shame, too, since mechanically this is a direct upgrade to the previous swat games, and yet swat 4 still comes out on top simply by having human-like AI, rather than the empty shells we have here. UPDATE: Post UE5 upgrade; the game got worse. suspects no longer stagger from gunshots, and the game looks graphically worse despite upgrading to unreal 5. suspects also have better recoil control than your "trained" swat officers, leading to frustrating moments where you cannot reliably get shots on target through 0.3 inch sightlines the way suspects can, leading to you having to just magdump in a general area and hope for the best, since you also can't move away from the gunfire faster than a leisurely stroll. civilians still surrender half the time by simply existing, and suspects refuse surrender unless they get bean bagged or flashed, and flashes still don't work reliably either. the core game is still garbage, yet they're pushing paid dlc content before fixing the game, or at the very least, pushing fixes alongside the dlcs. it's one step forward, six steps back with VOID...