Recent reviews by pow

Currently cannot recommend this game in the slightest. I was expecting that after several YEARS in early access, the developers of this game would have been smart enough to optimize their game's core systems, rather than simply layering more barely-usable content on, alas, we are where we are.

Suspect AI is simultaneously oddly efficient and horribly incompetent. I have had DOZENS of scenarios where a suspect will acknowledge my presence, yell several voice lines of engaging me or my AI teammates, and simply stand in place with their gun at a low ready. When the AI does work, most of the time it ends up firing precisely at you through multiple surfaces, even after breaking contact through walls. They will often sprint while shooting, which does not seem to reduce their accuracy at all. What's even odder about this is that the suspects are stupidly easy to deal with! Often it is possible to surprise them, even if you've just exploded a door one single room over, they seem to do very little damage, and they are very simply just Not Smart. It doesn't feel like a desperate person robbing a store, or highly trained assassins anymore, the suspects feel like Suspect AI that are often just robotic and confusing.

What I find fascinating is the devblogs showing us multiple "cool new things" the suspect AI can do. They can sneak around you, pick up weapons that have been dropped, kill themselves when at critical morale, set traps, prepare ambushes, try to stab you with a knife if surrendered, squeeze through small gaps, hide under beds and in closets, all kinds of interesting ideas. However, THEY NEVER ACTUALLY DO ANY OF THESE. In about 60 hours of playtime after the largest "suspect overhaul", I have never seen a suspect kill themselves, hide, flank, or anything of the sort. The primary behavior I see is AI behaving like ChatGPT attached to a camera, before becoming an Ultrakill character and sprinting at maximum velocity while shooting.

Friendly AI also suffers this odd hybrid issue of being incredibly broken and incredibly cracked as well, though. Often the friendly AI gets confused and fully locks up on doorways, hallways, stairs, attempting to arrest people, or even just on a simple lip of a hallway. They sometimes will run off in an absolutely inane fashion upon being told to search a single room, often getting killed running of on their own. They often ignore contacts and will be killed like lemmings if an order is issued that for some reason prevents them from moving while engaging. The friendly AI is also incapable of dealing with hostage situations, and will in my experience, 100% of the time reliably gun down both the civilian and suspect.
HOWEVER. When the AI DOES finally work, they are incredibly efficient and accurate*, and are actually somewhat enjoyable to interact with, until they stand in a door paralyzed again.

*(They hit 30% of the shots they take. Suspect AI lands about 50% and is usually much more willing to open fire and move away.)

Currently, the game just exhausts me. It used to be an enjoyable experience. The suspect AI was actually quite reactive and tough to deal with in earlier versions, a few years ago, which I found enjoyable. There were multiple scenario options for each map, like bomb threats or raids with incredibly aggressive AI that you were allowed to kill on sight. The mission UI on the board in the station even has this system left in it! The "Barricaded Suspects" text on every single mission is completely vestigial from this time, as barricaded suspects used to be the default and easiest scenario!

Overall, the game is just.... Sad.

The thick environment, grime, suspense, that it claims to inherit from SWAT 4 are gone. Sometimes it shines through in the subtle soundtrack of a rainy map, or the way a room is lit, but the issues with the game are inexcusable and have been built so far into the game's very core it will be impossible for it to recover.

Ready or Not has not found it's identity. It flip-flops between being a realistic police simulator in text, while hinting at government conspiracy with it's gameplay and lore, but when you play the game its essentially just a game about surprising unengaging AI in various ways in a sandbox with a very small layer of story and polish put into it.
The story is simply not present outside of what are essentially the Arkham City audio logs and some admittedly okay environmental setup. The gameplay is frustrating, uninteresting, and unintuitive. The environment and world is occasionally a bright spot, before another ragdolled dead civilian turns into spaghetti through half the map again. The tone I get from this game is raw confusion and disinterest.

I hate to discuss motivations, but I really don't think the developers care very much about this game anymore. I think they've built something on a sandy foundation that they knew would collapse, but are far too deep in to fully fix anymore. The priority seems to be on selling new DLC content, which I can understand from a small team that needs funds, however this game has been such a runaway success that I'm really not sure where that money is going. I KNOW the developers are smart enough to fix these issues, I KNOW they CAN do it, because they've done it in the past, and they've made some genuinely interesting systems for the AI, so I'm left to conclude that they either simply do not care enough, or the people who made those awesome things are not working anymore.

Simply, this is not SWAT 5. Los Suenos is deader than an actual Exxon gas station in the middle of nowhere. While some missions successfully capture the tone of the SWAT series, if only for a second, it loses it in the next.

Heavy topics such as human trafficking, acts of mass violence, systemic societal deficiencies, immigration, drug production, sexual abuse of minors, and even MKUltra are touched on, but no more than simply at a surface level of "Hey look, aren't we cool for showing this." The game comes across as entirely an entirely surface-level, COD MWII No Russian-level of engagement with policing. It seems like shock value, marketing, buzzwords, not actual storytelling.

This is, at it's core, a sandbox, and a very small, uninteresting one at that. There are, at least on paper, several interesting parts to this game. None of them work. If one eventually does work for you, it will be at about halfway capacity. Even without the issues, the game at it's core is just bland. It's lost the SWAT spirit of highly atmospheric maps. The color grading is awful. The suspects aren't engaging. The environments can be pretty to look at, but they aren't characters themselves like they were in SWAT 4. Teammate AI is randomized, and often has exactly one unique line of dialogue per mission. Everything is just kind of off, and overall, this is categorically one of the most loosely designed, balanced, and conceived games I have ever seen.

I'll probably keep playing for nostalgia and for the occasion my friends decide to play, but this game is not worth any price above five dollars. I am sorry, VOID, but you've really let me down. I was betting on you for quite a while, but you've absolutely failed to deliver a product marketable as anything close to a SWAT sequel, let alone a product worth FIFTY US Dollars.






If you wanna see something more interesting than this game, go to literally any grimy, dirty, weird gas station at like 8pm in the winter. Literally any one. Gets across the vibe this game was trying for significantly better than VOID did.

the r a t s