It’s not often that a tactical shooter carries all of the potential trauma a seasoned law enforcement officer experiences in the line of duty back to the office, and expects its players to manage affected officers lest they decide to leave the force entirely.
However, VOID Interactive’s Ready or Not does just that, adding a layer to every mission that works well with its level design and an intense gameplay loop. It creates a sort of tension that could have players checking behind doorways long after they power down their gaming systems.
In lieu of a more traditional approach to tactical FPS titles, Ready or Not takes a bold approach to its many mission types, creating a gameplay loop that is both challenging and rewarding depending on how its players tailor their approach to achieve the best possible outcomes when they are out in the field.
The result is a game that replicates the tension that an officer of the law is likely to experience when they hunt down dangerous criminals, often accompanied by equally trigger happy teammates and the desperate cries of bystanders caught in the crossfire who must be rescued in the process.
Ready or Not is unforgiving, punishing mistakes with mechanics that actively discourage an all guns blazing approach that has been present in many other FPS titles. Instead, its encouragement of a more careful, almost painstaking approach to your mission objectives is something that we simply cannot get enough of even as we find ourselves with spiked adrenaline levels when chasing down suspects who seem to pop out of nowhere on many occasions.
It’s a tension that can be quite hard to put into words but we’re going to give it a fair shot and take a look at how VOID Interactive has managed to get its players wondering what’s waiting around each corner, bed, or window sill.
The Anticipation of Danger
It’s quite surprising to realize you spent only half an hour on a mission in Ready or Not. Even on the shorter missions, every moment feels like an eternity as you carefully navigate apartments, stores, schools, and even tunnels, with terrorists, criminals, or cultists seemingly lying in wait to ambush you.
It doesn’t help that as the Commander of an elite SWAT unit looking to manage a crime wave in an alternate universe version of Los Angeles, you’re on the right side of the law and as such, must act within its confines. It’s here that the tension begins to build, helped along by VOID Interactive’s excellent presentation of each mission and what is expected of you and your team.
We would argue that these briefings are a crucial part of the experience. You are given information about the situation you and your teammates, either real players or AI-powered, are about to dive into. Your loadouts are more of less in line with what a SWAT officer in the real world would take to such encounters. You are briefed about the suspects, their backgrounds, civilians who need rescuing, and about potential points of entry that you could take.
While all of this sounds pretty standard on paper, listening to the 911 calls made by civilians stranded on the scene and hearing their terror and fear begins to feed the tension that VOID Interactive is aiming for long before you step into your van to make your way to the danger zone. Each suspect also gets fleshed out, their motivations making it likely that things could go south if you were to antagonize them in the field.
They might be high on dangerous intoxicants. Or perhaps they subscribe to a higher cause than themselves. They could also just be plain evil, choosing violence just because it suits their motivations and is easier than taking a more reasonable approach. In the real-world, SWAT officers would undergo rigorous training and a lot of prep before they take on such high-stakes missions and face such dangerous individuals.
As a player, you will have to rely on the efficient use of your loadout to come out on top. It’s a clever way of putting players in the shoes of an officer, providing them with the physical tools they need to get the job done but not emotional safeguards against the violence they are about to witness – and perhaps commit.
It’s an important part of an intense gameplay loop that works very well alongside its other elements.
A New Kind of Fear
The knowledge that your suspects could be hiding anywhere, just waiting to sink a few bullets into you or one of your teammates honestly wears you down as you begin to carefully explore the mission area and attempt to incapacitate any troublemakers.
That gritty realism is helped by levels that are designed to effectively bring those dangers to life, giving each new doorway or corner a layer of unpredictability that you are expected to manage. The knowledge that even the slightest mistake could mean the imminent death of one of your teammates or a helpless civilian constantly preys on you.
VOID Interactive’s emphasis on gritty realism means that you and your fellow officers are not the bullet sponges found in other FPS games, and neither are your enemies. It’s a fair fight and one that you need to bring your best trigger finger to, every single time. That’s exacerbated by the fact that a criminal could try faking their surrender only to pull a gun on you. Or perhaps an uncooperative civilian disregards your orders and reaches into their pocket for their phone to click a picture.
That could easily result in either you or a teammate immediately shooting that innocent individual to death when all they wanted was to capture a morbidly unforgettable moment. It’s a mistake that anyone could make but with costly consequences for everyone involved.
The teammate in question could be impacted by that error, the trauma from the incident resulting in them being less effective in the field just as VOID intended. As their Commander, you will have to order them to seek professional help after you’re back at the office. However, you are then left without access to their unique perks for a few missions thereafter.
In a game where you need to bring along any advantage you can get, that choice can be a hard one, but absolutely necessary considering that managing your teammates’ emotional states is a part of the experience. It’s another layer of realism that feeds the intensity of each mission, as the knowledge that not all of you may make it back to HQ the way you left it is another factor that weighed on us as we went about our tasks.
Ready or Not thrives on fear. It’s your own fears reflected in the eyes of hapless civilians, or in the eyes of dangerous criminals who are looking to find a way out of a tough situation, one way or another. It’s a sense of hopelessness that pervades every level you take on, and stays long after you complete it.
One Step At a Time
VOID Interactive’s choice to forego a sweeping, inspirational musical score to accompany the action is a very clever choice in this regard. For the most part, the only sounds we could hear were the mutterings of our suspects or their cruel threats to hostages, while the ones we were intent on rescuing fuelled the fire with their pleas to be released from their plight.
Our own commands to our teammates, issued in a gravelly voice, were also tinged with a sense of urgency with Judge maintaining a carefully noncommittal tone that belied the strain of leading his unit through a situation that screamed of uncertainty and danger. While the voice actors involved deserve a lot of credit for the way they performed their lines, we couldn’t help but wish that they could have perhaps toned it down a little. And we mean that as a compliment, believe it or not.
When you couple all of the above with the fact that you are expected to at least try and bring in suspects alive, with lethal force only authorized if your fellow officers or a civilian are in imminent danger, it acts as the final piece of the puzzle. It presents a clear picture of how Ready or Not builds tension right from each mission’s briefing, and brings it all to a head from when you take your first step out into the field.
Alongside limited ammo, unpredictable enemy and civilian AI, and the possibility of a single mistake ruining what could have been a perfectly executed mission, VOID Interactive has crafted one of the most immersive and harrowing experiences we have had with a tactical first-person shooter in recent times. And for that, we gladly give them credit.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.