the feeling of watching one of your officers getting shot 4 times while you turn a corner and shoot a civilian straight in the spine, paralyzing him for life at best, and afterwards looking at the area and realizing there was a better way the entire time simply cannot be bested

The absolute scariest game I have ever played, 9/9
Lags a lot if your computer is even slightly subpar from what I've seen though

After almost 850 hours of play, I believe it is time for me to post a review.

My options were positive or negative, and I believe I skew more towards neutral, than absolutely crushing negative. That being said, of the two, I choose negative.

You could argue that, with so many hours played, I got my moneys worth. I purchased it during its early access run at a cheaper price too, and found some fun gameplay and nice people along the way.

What skews this game to an absolute negative for me, is that the developers are completely tone deaf, and have decided to release updates alongside DLC releases.

People wait months for critical errors to be fixed, and they started this behavior already in the early access phase.

Today, as I am writing this, there are so many people crashing to desktop or freezing during gameplay or simply unable to play even when meeting minimum specs... And developers withhold any and all fixes to neatly bundle it up alongside a DLC launch. If this was still and early access game, I would actually lean towards a mildly positive review. But this is a full release, full price, and it is lacking features, and some of those implemented don't work.

At its core its got good SWAT gameplay. But for me, it is a buggy SWAT game... A crashing SWAT game... And so, in the end, a disappointing SWAT game. And I feel bad for those unable to play for whatever various reasons that came along after the first DLC update that introduced UE5. Which supposedly was going to make development faster and the game better looking and smoother. Well... Here we are. Suckers all of us.

With every update that comes, you will have to wait about half a year for the next update which addresses some of your frustrations. Who in their right mind has that kind of patience? Do you?

I still play. I still make friends. I still give this a negative review.

I can endure this, due to my absolute passion with this repetitive type of play. But do I recommend that anyone else suffer these developers? No. I do have a heart.

Maybe a few more years down the line, when they have managed to release their desired DLC's and fixed it up enough so it's stable and accessible... I may change my review to positive. Or maybe we've all moved on by then.

Initial: 29/10/2024

This game is genuinely fun at times but it’s not all there. It feels more like frustration condensed into a little jar and the game going through developmental hell doesn’t help. I like the idea, premise, art direction, some gameplay mechanics and some level design but as a whole experience it’s awful. It’s blatantly unfinished and should not have been released 1.0 of December 2023. I feel as if I can't mention anything about the good parts about the game because they’re so overshadowed by constant issues. I don’t recommend paying full price for this game let alone at 50% discount.

The biggest issue and probably the biggest point of criticism is AI. It is absolutely beyond ♥♥♥♥♥♥. If you thought Escape From Tarkov scavs were bad then I would say that Ready or Not suspects are on equal footing. You are not going up against some gang-bangers in the hood. They’re clearly cracked special-forces units being deployed to Los Sueños. Those armed robbers at the gas station in the first mission? Those guys are actually undercover Spetsnaz operatives. But seriously, though. Why is it like I’m fighting an army of T-800 Terminators? Suspects are so aggressive and cheat so much. They see through walls, will shoot you through them and have laser aimbot accuracy. They also have no self-preservation. On the same first mission I went around the back on the left side and zip-tied two people outside. One civvie and a suspect. I checked under the double doors and there was no one. I ordered the team to open and clear (no grenades). I go left and there’s two doors - one directly in front and another to the right with a staff only sign. I was checking under the front door and got blasted through both the wall and door that had the staff only sign while I was using the optiwand. The suspect then opened the door and blasted me some more, retreated further back into the room they were in and grabbed a hostage. There is no reason that should have happened. It was a quiet entry with no breaching devices or explosives. If it’s because they heard me zip tie someone outside that’s just equally stupid. For a game that boasts “realism” it already fails that. I have also had issues with the mission “A Lethal Obsession” where suspects would sometimes use doors wired with explosive traps to try to get to me and either blow themselves up or kill me and the entire team stacking up outside it because they can clearly see me through walls.

There are some other oddities with suspects that don’t make entire sense. They have no self-preservation and will always try to fight you rather than surrender. You’ll go to zip tie someone and they’ll pull out a knife. Some suspects will actually feign a surrender and get to their knees before pulling out a hidden pistol. I like that idea but not with how frequently it seems to happen. I can understand that for SOME suspects to be doing these things but it feels like it's almost all of them. I can understand terrorists doing it but not some random private security guard or generic no-name gang-banger. I want some suspects to run and hide and I want others to try and fight. Not everyone should shoot you at a moment's notice. Some suspects do try to hide and run away but it happens so little. Suspects can hide under beds and in closets but that's only available on a small handful of maps. Some maps have holes in the walls and suspects can move between them but more often than not they use them to attack you from behind rather than to try and get away. Non-compliance is also a good idea but doesn't play as I feel that it should and is more of an annoyance than anything. How many beanbags do I have to dump into a guy before they get to the ground? I have emptied entire mag-tubes while mashing the “yell for compliance” key for it to all be ignored. Some suspects just outright ignore tasers, beanbags, the pepperball guns and the pepper spray can. CS gas seems to be the only effective non-lethal option. There is no way to force someone to the ground if they ignore compliance and there really should be an option to do so. There's also plenty of dialogue that makes no sense given the context. Why are the civilians in "Neon Tomb" defending terrorists and saying they did nothing wrong when I blast them for shooting me? Terrorists in "Relapse" also sometimes act as if they are innocent and did nothing wrong when you zip tie them. It feels out of character. Los Locos members are always aggressive towards you once zip tied and some will have lines about asking for deals so they can be cut loose. That makes perfect sense for them. The terrorists should have much more aggressive and fanatical dialogue.

The SWAT AI is also beyond useless. It feels like I’m constantly babysitting. They can’t do anything right and frequently ignore commands. It works okay enough if things do work. They seem to have a hard time engaging anything out of the room they are currently in and will typically ignore threats outside of it. They constantly struggle with “move and clear” commands and won't do them. This is especially apparent when stairs are involved. They’ll prioritise zip-tying people and collecting evidence instead of fighting back when getting shot. Sometimes you’ll have to issue a command a second or third time just to get them to do something. I don’t know why this is but the SWAT AI will sometimes move towards civilians and suspects backwards or diagonally to zip tie them.

Commander Mode isn’t great either and it’s half-baked. It’s the de facto single player mode. You have a roster you fill out and each officer has a trait that can be unlocked after doing some missions with them. The traits don’t seem to do much and I forget they are even there. Sometimes when doing missions or failing them stress of a team member will go up and then you have to send them to therapy. That’s it, that’s Commander Mode. I feel like there should be more to it but that’s it.

On top of all these issues the game’s performance isn’t optimised and it's filled with bugs. If you told me this game was made by Bethesda I’d believe you. Performance isn’t consistent and gets pretty bad on some missions. “Ides of March”, “Valley of Dolls” and “Relapse” are some examples of missions with awful performance that I have experienced. There is also so much clipping and it really shows how unfinished the game is. NPCs have clipping with their clothes and so does the SWAT cosmetics for you and your team. As an example, gas masks don’t fit correctly on suspects faces and the headband clips through their heads. Some of the other bugs I have encountered is that sometimes the HUD bugs out and places itself in the top left corner of your screen. The phone/PDA thing that you use to manage your roster and check mission briefings can become unresponsive when opening it and won't let you select anything. Sometimes NPCs become shadow-people and have a completely black texture. Sometimes when leaning with the taser it won’t hit it’s target and that makes me think it's hitting an invisible collision mesh. I’ve had SWAT AI yell at suspects standing outside closets. I’ll shoot them with a taser to get them to comply and they’ll either rubberband or warp back inside the closet and exit it. Zip-tying downed suspects or civilians sometimes causes them to ragdoll and launch very slightly into the air. SWAT AI sometimes can’t see suspects in a room when entering and won’t engage them. Sometimes suspects in that same room will only engage the player and ignore the SWAT AI. Honestly, anything I’ve mentioned about the AI can be assumed as bugs or just ♥♥♥♥ game design. Ready or Not’s modding scene is in its infancy but there are some AI reworks and fixes for things.