Ready or Not was a big laugh among shooter fans, now it’s 93% on Steam – Why is that?

Ready or Not was announced in 2017, but was a laughing stock among connoisseurs for a long time. But the game has been in Early Access on Steam since December 18, 2021 and has enjoyed great success ever since and is considered the spiritual successor to the beloved SWAT games. As part of FYNG Summer 2022, MeinMMO will tell you what makes the game so good.

Even if the name sounds like a game of hide-and-seek among children, Ready or Not is anything but a delicate shooter. In fact, behind this name is a realistic police simulation in which you want to take criminals away as part of a SWAT team. And if at all possible in handcuffs instead of body bags.

Because although Ready or Not is a shooter, you should avoid wild shooting. If you break SWAT’s strict rules of engagement and kill anything in your sights, the game will punish you.

The game is still in Early Access, but it already has a lot of content for the price of €35.99 Steam. This is another reason why the gameplay trailer is 8 minutes long, because it explains in detail which methods you can use to bring law and order to this completely wicked version of America.

Especially from minute 2:30 the trailer makes it clear how different and unique Ready or Not plays:

A whole game like the best level from CoD: Modern Warfare

The hardcore shooter is thus in the same vein as SWAT 4, a game that made a small niche of shooter fans incredibly happy shortly after its release in 2005. Even ancient Rainbow Six games like Raven Shield or Rogue Spear are the clearer inspiration than franchise offshoots like Siege – not to mention the alien shooter Rainbow Six Extraction.

If you can’t imagine anything because you missed these games or belong to the younger generation: Do you remember the best level in CoD: Modern Warfare (2019)? Where you, as a special unit, clear a house in the deepest darkness with night vision visors, which is equally full of armed terrorists and innocent civilians?

Ready or Not is this level expanded to an entire game. In a modern, urban setting, you are a team of the best police officers, equipped with the latest military technology, and have to make the right decisions in extreme situations. Because the situations escalate quickly and you can die in a split second, the game is often more exciting than the most intense horror games.

What’s more, all the levels in the game have multiple missions to choose from, each with different levels of difficulty to solve. In addition, the distribution of enemies, civilians and their behavior changes with each new attempt at a level.

Whether your mission is in a cluttered house, a school, or a nightclub, your goal is to resolve each situation with as little bloodshed as possible. You can sneak up on enemies, intimidate them by yelling at them, shoot in the air as a last warning, or stun with tasers. You should only shoot deadly if all else fails.

In order for this to work, you have to assess the situation with your team in front of almost every door, come up with a battle plan and carry it out in a well-coordinated manner, especially in the difficult missions. You can do this either as a solo player with commands for your bot partners, or in co-op with your friends.

From “fraud” to the savior of SWAT fans

Back in December we reported to you how well this game was received by shooter connoisseurs. That has only become clearer since then. At that time the game still had 5,000 Steam ratings, about 6 months later it is almost 44,000, of which 93% are positive.

Some of these ratings say that Ready or Not is “what Rainbow Six Siege should have been”. Others even go a step further and say, “This isn’t what Rainbow Six could have been, this is better.” It’s even a kind of savior for fans of SWAT simulators who haven’t gotten a real new game of this kind since 2005 .

But it wasn’t always so positive. In an alpha version, the game was considered a “scam” that stole a whopping €120 from gullible players in order to smack them with a bad PvP shooter in the form of a CoD clone, contrary to big promises (via reddit). The game seems to have shed this reputation at the latest with the release in Early Access.

In addition to the gameplay, which is “simply a tactical delight” that “bucks up with two or more players”, the Steam reviews also praise the continuous updates. Just a few days ago, a detailed update for June was announced (via Steam), in which the AI ​​opponents in particular are to be made significantly smarter and more unpredictable.

The full release of Ready or Not is announced for around December 2022. Until then, more maps, weapons and UI and gameplay improvements are to come. A PvP mode is also planned.

Ready or Not fills a gap that is good for the market