Ready or Not Review - A Return To Tactics
When Rainbow Six Siege originally released, I had hopes that console shooters would move to a more strategic pace, ditching overpowered characters sprinting blindly into battle, parkouring and sliding their way to victory. Arcade-style shooters have their place, without a doubt, but I yearned for a smarter shooter. Something that at least attempts to accurately reflect intense situations that could unfold in real life.
After Siege found its fanbase, Call of Duty experimented with “combat pacing” in Call of Duty Vanguard, asking players their preferred playstyle to offer better matchmaking. This was abandoned as Sledgehammer Games failed to encourage players or develop the feature further. Rainbow Six Siege slowly morphed into a hero shooter akin to Valorant and plays wildly different today than it did at launch. And so, console shooters missed the opportunity to evolve into something deeper and instead plunged further into the cartoonish rabbit hole of wallet-devouring juggernauts like Fortnite. That is, until now…
VOID Interactive are answering the call with Ready or Not, a squad-based tactical shooter with a heavy focus on teamwork and realism. After developing the game in early access on PC for a number of years, they’ve finally released it on console, where it is already dominating sales. I’ve been playing the game for a number of weeks, and it is easily the most exciting shooter of the last few years.
The game tasks players with navigating realistically portrayed scenarios with a number of varying objectives. The stakes are high. Combat is fast and intense, and teamwork is crucial to success. There’s nothing quite like it.
Before diving into a hostage situation or bomb threat, it’s advisable to play the optional tutorial to learn the game’s controls and mechanics. If you’ve played an FPS before, you’ll be familiar with most of them. If you’ve played more tactical games like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, Rainbow Six Siege, or SOCOM, even more so.
At first glance, Ready or Not plays deceptively similar to other FPS games. Players can walk, crouch, lean, aim down the sights, and switch between their primary weapon, secondary, and tactical options. Tactical gear is integral to success. Some situations call for a non-lethal approach, with pepper spray, beanbag shotguns, pepper pellet bullets, tasers, flashbangs, and more. Others require speed and efficiency, so bringing C2 door charges, battering rams, frag grenades, etc, may be in order.
Speaking of the various tools of the trade, players are able to use a multitude of guns and tactical items from the get-go. There’s no need to unlock anything, and you can customise weapons to your liking immediately. Cosmetic items are rewarded for completing missions on select difficulties, which I quite like.
I said earlier that teamwork is crucial to success in Ready or Not. Having played with a full squad for the majority of my time with it, I can honestly say that the game is an absolute blast with others. Splitting the squad into two teams worked well for my friends and me, each squad covering different floors of apartment complexes, or left and right directions when a hallway forked. When things go wrong, however, they can go very wrong. Having a dead team member means losing some of your score at the mission’s end, and it affects your grade. If you want to get an A+, try to keep everyone alive.
The alternative to playing in multiplayer is obviously single-player mode, where players will direct their teammates via a radial menu. There’s a plethora of options available. You can have teammates walk into a room and clear it, or they can breach a door, kick it in, flash bang and clear – whatever your situation, there’s a strategy for it.
There is the odd hiccup here and there with NPCs. Quite often, I had them tell me I was in their way, even when I wasn’t. Then there are times when they are extremely slow to react to a surprise attack from a hostile, meaning someone on the side of law and order would be killed.
Given VOID Interactive’s goal of reflecting tense situations realistically, it’s understandable that the SWAT team members controlled by the players aren’t as nimble as other FPS characters. You can lower your weapon to move slightly faster, but it isn’t a drastic improvement over your standard movement speed. With that being said, there is a certain floaty, clunky quality to moving your character in the game that extends beyond playing as someone in SWAT issue gear. The overall feel of the game takes some getting used to.
Visually, Ready or Not is a bit of a mixed bag. There’s talk on online forums of the game being “visually nerfed” before its console release, across consoles and PC. Having not played before the console release, I can’t speak on that. I will say that there are times where the game looks absolutely gorgeous, only to be marred by garish inconsistencies. In a mission, buildings and weapons look realistic and the lighting is stellar. In the station between missions, character models are ugly, with hair textures popping in and out of NPCs’ mannequin-looking heads.
Other areas that tarnish a near-perfect game are the finicky radial menu. Players have to keep holding the direction as they release the button to select something. This sounds simple enough, but every single player I’ve teamed up with has complaints about this. It feels unnatural to hold the direction down this long, as it feels like you’ll end up walking in that direction. There have been times when it simply hasn’t worked for me at all.
When the game works, however, it is some of the most enjoyable, albeit tense action a gamer can hope to enjoy. It has an incredible atmosphere, built by excellent sound design, fantastic visuals, a focus on teamwork and gritty realism. Speaking of the gritty realism, VOID Interactive have courted controversy multiple times with the development of RoN. Firstly, there is some confronting/disturbing content in the game. I won’t say what it is specifically, but it is a very real and serious crime that real SWAT officers would face. The representation of this crime in the game at present leaves an empathetic player feeling disgusted and depressed, but it is a harsh reality that SWAT teams must deal with.
PC players have complained about the nerfing of this content, claiming that Ready or Not accurately depicted dark subject matter that has now been diluted with the console release. For what it’s worth, I still feel missions involving dark subject matter have undeniable gravitas.
Ultimately, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time with Ready or Not. The gameplay is satisfying, the focus on teamwork and realism is appreciated, and the satisfaction of nailing a difficult mission is something lots of games could learn from. I highly recommend this game.
Ready or Not was reviewed on Xbox with code kindly supplied by the publisher.
