I've been waiting for a spiritual sequel to SWAT 4 for a very long time. I have been so eager for this hypothetical game that 4 years ago I - a person who never preorders anything - spent $120 United States Dollars on this game when it was just a video. Please adjust your perception of me accordingly.

There was a long alpha period where I was too afraid to pay much attention to the game, save for reading a few excited emails about how they've finally implemented doors (and oh boy, have they). Now that it's finally purchasable for the general public on Steam, I've tried it and… it's pretty good?

Don't get me wrong, this is not even remotely a finished product. Within our first three missions, a friend and I already ran into a bug that forced us to completely restart the level because I couldn't interact with the only door out of a room. But the core of SWAT 4's gameplay is here and it feels pleasant and modern - most importantly, actually using the equipment you lug around doesn't feel like a chore anymore. There are tweaks to the formula too, welcome changes that modify the balance of the game or add features present in popular mods for SWAT 4. Turning the game into a joke by spamming the beanbag shotgun is no longer an option, a melee button allows you to subdue civilians who won't let you handcuff them (grandma), and the addition of trapped doors forces you to slow down and greatly adds to the paranoia that comes with being outnumbered in a hostile environment.

BUT

As much as I enjoy the gameplay at the core of the experience, I've got a couple gripes, and they can be real stinkers, depending on your perspective.

The first and most minor are the early access-related complaints. I don't mind a lot of the jank since I've been playing SWAT 4 for years now, but new players are going to have questions that the game doesn't answer, bugs that you're not sure are truly bugs or not, and a lack of features / equipment. The game also doesn't feel like it's trying too hard to stray from SWAT 4's formula (thus becoming its own thing), but it feels like it's too early in the process to say whether the end product will feel the same way.

The other big one is the game's politics. A game like this is going to be overtly political and frankly I wasn't expecting a lot, but the developers of this game have made some… interesting choices. Probably the most objectionable is the civilian dialogue, as most of them will say something after you handcuff them - again, like SWAT 4. The women have terrible voice lines, including at least two separate lines hitting on the cops, and one racist voice line that also just… doesn't feel like it even makes sense? Thankfully the game has very little story compared to The Other Game, since the trailers for this game very much leaned into the "careful, devoted cop heroes are the only thing keeping a tidal wave of crime from crashing upon this city" idea. I know the developers split with the publisher of the game, and I've only seen a single mention of it so far indicating that it may be due to the devs' intention of setting a future level in a school shooting. Not really thrilled about where this game could go in the future - as things stand I'm expecting the game from 2005 to be the more respectful of the two.

All in all, I think I'm mixed on Ready or Not as a consumer product. I'm not holding out hope that this will become something I can recommend in good conscience, even though everything in it feels great. Kicking in doors feels thunderous. Developing a system to conquer missions becomes a satisfying collaborative puzzle. Taking a room where armed hostiles are mixed in with civilians without anyone (friend or foe) sustaining an injury is as exciting as beating any video game boss, crammed into a couple tense seconds. But I just can't recommend it, not before you look into the game, the developers and decide if you'd like to support them with $40 of your own money.

Perhaps this game will change, perhaps the devs will respond to my complaints if they get enough feedback. I've been pleasantly surprised before. Watch this space??

I love Ready or Not. I have played it in early access almost since the very beginning and have seen it grow and improve in a lot of ways. It is a tactical game that allows you to do more than focus on killing an enemy, and rewards slow, methodical play. This, combined with genuinely terrifying and wonderful environmental design each map tells a story, and has layers upon layers if you look hard enough that will really make you feel like the bad guy for doing the right thing. Valley of the Dolls is the perfect example of this. The guns all are very satisfying to use, and the music kicks in just right in dynamic situations. But the biggest, most critical flaw of this game: the AI.

The game wants you to experiment. Wants you to go into the game with the idea that you are supposed to play non-lethally, only resorting to lethal when there is no other option. But the AI doesn't let you play like this. If you walk up behind a subject with a gun, get the drop with five SWAT members telling them to comply and drop the weapon, their response shouldn't be to immediately 180 in a single second and start shooting with zero hesitation. But that is the case here. A scared teenager in a robbery gone wrong shouldn't be using automatic weapons. A terrorist ready to die for his beliefs shouldn't have the same chance of giving up as a drug dealer with a pistol. The AI is just not dynamic enough for what they want. It makes these unique locations with unique backstories feel the same gameplay wise, and it makes non-lethal feel like the wrong answer, when it should be the opposite. You can't really have emergent interactions with them. If you shoot a subject in the leg, it won't make them more likely to give up. If you have multiple people with you, it won't change anything. If you get the drop on a suspect and yell for compliance from behind, they won't even hesitate before they shoot at you. And if you go lethally and just headshot every suspect you see, you don't really have a penalty. It doesn't make his buddies more aggressive, it doesn't change anything. Using the pepper ball will partially blind you, so no it isn't great, there is no non-lethal siderarm you can utilize, and trying to do NVGs doesn't really help because enemies can see through the dark and don't care about a flashlight, so it is just better to do that. The sad thing is, a lot of mods are out there specifically designed to make the AI better and address some of these criticisms I have made, so I know for a fact it is possible that the developers do better. But, for whatever reason, they aren't emulating some of the most important things from SWAT 4, and it makes this game feel closer to what it is trying to avoid than what it is trying to be. It feels like you're just going in, guns blazing at a slower pace.

Another tiny thing, but should be mentioned: the amount of AI art they have is pretty insulting. Posters are obviously AI generated, faces are generated using AI which is creepy since a lot of it is to imply illegal substances are associated with them, even the graffiti spraypaint is AI generated. I see it as lazy and cutting corners for a small thing, and it really makes me nervous that the developers are putting such little effort into small, easy things. I'm glad they got to release, but for me to stay a long-term fan they will need to address these issues and show that they are putting effort into making this a swat game, not a tactical shooter.