Ready or Not review

Ready or Not from VOID Interactive reminds me quite strongly of the hours and hours I put into the original Rainbow Six games, many years ago. For obvious reasons, too. This is an FPS title that relies heavily on your squad, and forces you to always be aware of your surroundings. Catching a bullet in the ear because you forgot to check your corners is a difficult shame to laugh off in the post-mission group shower, I can tell you.

So immediately we’re in familiar territory with Ready or Not, a tactical squad shooter that does nothing new, but does all the old things really quite well. As a member of a S.W.A.T team responding to various active crimes, you’ll see some pretty upsetting stuff. A cute little doggy in an early mission has seen better days, for example, having presumably attempted to play fetch with a piece of high-velocity ordinance.

This early campaign mission is actually indicative of Ready or Not as a whole. The tone is slightly all over the place, with dry humour in the dialogue that doesn’t quite sit comfortably in the passenger seat beside a grim atmosphere that seems determined to drive you headlong into wall after wall of misery. One of the missions, for example, features a shootout with several active shooters on a college campus, and it feels incredibly insensitive to the point that I can’t help but feel it only exists for shock value.

There are multiple missions that feature civilian collateral, and obviously your job is to detain them safely and keep them alive, and Ready or Not does a decent job of feeling tense and realistic, eschewing the usual gung-ho dramatics of the genre. Close-range headshots will drop you or enemies instantly, while wounds will slow you down – although you can still “Hold F to stop the bleeding” with magical bandages, so I don’t know what to tell you.

You can order your squad to detain perps and civilians, order them to breach certain rooms or regroup on you, and they’ll tell you if you’re in their way so they can get through. Unfortunately you can’t tell them to get the fuck out of the way when they’re standing in doorways counting the skirting boards. The AI is actually fairly inconsistent throughout the solo campaign. Your squad will stand in your way like cardboard cut-outs, yet can execute rooms full of terrorists with pinpoint accuracy.

In fact I lost track of the times when I would hear a shout followed by gunfire and find that my squad had helpfully taken care of all the bad guys while I was trying to squeeze past one of them and get in the room. In real life my mates saving me the trouble of going to the gunfight is welcome; in a video game I’d rather get some of the action, if you don’t mind.

Of course, the solo campaign feels barebones because it is. Ready or Not began its life as a multiplayer-only shooter, and it shows. Played with others it’s simply an elevated experience, as you call out orders and ping enemies to coordinate pincer movements and tandem breaches to clear out the enemies. With other people the game comes alive, as you’re no longer wondering where your teammates have wandered off to or trying to climb over a six-foot roadblock in jack boots.

Ready or Not is also decidedly less grim with friends. While I wouldn’t necessarily extoll the merits of laughing your asses off together while attempting to stop a bloody mass shooting in a nightclub, it’s better to go through such things with a spring in your step where possible, and having a few friends along can help you there.

Where Ready or Not really does excel, though, is in the gunplay and variety of tactics, gear, and options. The guns feel incredible, with realistic recoil and precision. The sound, too, is spectacular when played with headphones. There’s a large arsenal of weapons to unlock and equip in the armoury, as well as items like flash bombs to confuse a room full of would-be murderers before you kick their back doors in, so-to-speak. This is also the reason Ready or Not just doesn’t work well with a controller at the moment. There are so many buttons and commands, from dropping glowsticks to switching to a canted weapon stance that a controller just can’t handle it all.

The wide range of weapons is for more than just aesthetic appeal, too. You’ll need to take certain factors into account when choosing your loadout, such as whether you need a long-range weapon or something more close-quarters, whether you need to arm yourself with non-lethal gear (there’s even a beanbag gun option), or whether you need to keep your gun suppressed.

Throw all this into any of the 18 missions and you’re in for a tense, tightly-crafted multiplayer treat. It loses something in the solo campaign, but there’s still a palpable level of tension because Ready or Not does a great job of making you feel mortal. Position yourself wrong or leave yourself open and you’ll be dead in a few hits. Taking fire, even if it’s not doing damage, causes the screen to shake and blur, and the noise becomes deafening, disorienting you and forcing you to find cover. Conversely, executing a well-coordinated breach with other players never feels short of exhilarating, regardless of how many times you do it.

With enough practice you’ll be able to speed-run each mission, although the game does randomise things like enemy and civilian placement and which doors are open, locked, or need to be kicked down each time you load in. This always forces you to think on your feet and stops you taking anything for granted.

Ready or Not might feel at odds with itself a little from time to time, but it’s still a solid if unspectacular squad shooter. It maintains a welcome level of tension throughout and features some incredibly strong tactical gunplay, but comes apart a little when the crude humour rubs up against the distressing subject matter. Still, right now, there are few better strategic shooters to play with your friends..