The Best Tactical Shooter on Consoles! Ready or Not Review

Just to get this out of the way early, if you’re a fan of tactical shooters whatsoever and only play on console…go buy this game.  As someone who has dozens of hours in the PC version and played it in Early Access, I can attest that VOID Interactive has done a fantastic job of bringing the 1.0 experience to consoles.

Ready? Or Not?

If you’re unfamiliar, Ready or Not is a tactical SWAT simulator. Yes, it looks like a typical FPS (in some ways), but trying to play it like one will get you killed by a knife wielding crack addict faster than you realize what is happening. The game does not reward you for shooting everything on sight. In fact, it punishes you for excessive force. Whether it’s through a reduced mission grade, increased difficulty, or even your AI teammates losing morale and quitting (more on that later), Ready or Not expects you to approach situations carefully.

Coming from the PC version, I was morbidly curious how VOID Interactive was going to translate the staggering amount of inputs to a controller. And VOID has done an incredible job there. I’d even argue the controller controls are a flawless translation of the controls from PC.

Obtaining an S or A on a level involves defusing situations, arresting suspects, and using lethal force only when necessary. Ready Or Not is NOT a glorification of violence nor the police. Nor does it want to de-sensitize the player to the themes it deals with. Ready Or Not is the most unique tactical shooter on the market and demands the player to learn its unique systems and mechanics.

Ready Or Not also offers a staggering amount of replayability. While there are set missions, enemy placement is always randomized. So much so, that I was never able to memorize where an enemy would be at compared to my previous attempt at a level.

Commander Mode

Commander mode is the “story” mode for Ready Or Not. It is a series of levels that sees your SWAT team tackling situations across Los Suenos, a fictional version of LA. Going into the mode, I first thought that it was simply a random assortment of levels. Then I realized, the levels are connected. Paying attention to small details and mission context reveals a surprisingly rich narrative. If you skim over it, the mode may feel random, like I had originally thought. But if you pay attention, it becomes something deeper.

Prior to each mission, you are given a briefing detailing the situation, number of suspects, how well they are armed, etc. It is incredibly important to read this to know how to arm yourself and what gear to bring. These briefings are always kept in line with the realism of the game. In one level, a nightclub shooting, most details you’re given are sparse as the situation is rapidly ongoing. 911 calls are also included in the briefing and they are acted well. Too well. Many are horrifying to listen to and one made me emotional.

In a somewhat XCOM-inspired system, you can hire a roster of unique officers with individual names, traits, and abilities. At first, they’re rookies with no special skills, but as they complete missions, traits like faster suspect compliance, increased accuracy, better armor, etc unlock.

And yes, they can die. When they do? They stay dead. Morale and stress also play major roles. Completing a mission cleanly with few casualties will keep stress low. Botch the mission with high fatalities or injured officers, and their stress skyrockets. Leave someone on the bench for a while, and their stress reduces. But ignore the signs, and they’ll quit or be placed on leave by the precinct therapist. While not utterly complex, the system serves as a good reminder of the horrors you’re seeing in each mission and how those things affect the human psyche.

While there are unlockables tied to score for each level, I do wish that the Commander Mode overall was more in depth. Sure, the placement of enemies is always randomized each time you start a mission, but soft objectives like defusing bombs, finding files etc are always in the same place. Mixing up placement of these objectives would go a long way in further making each mission attempt feel unique. Finally, my pipe dream/request is the implementation of randomized layouts of levels-similar to roguelites. Meaning, while the base level of a house would remain the same, rooms and placements of objectives would be laid out differently each attempt.

However, the solo Commander Mode is still an extremely solid experience that is worth getting the game for alone.

Solo with AI Teammates Experience

Coming from playing the Early Access version of PC the last few years, my main complaint was the teammate and enemy AI. For this review I played entirely solo with AI teammates and was able to get A or Bs on all missions. Plus a few S ranks. If you’re someone wondering: “is this worth buying to play solo?” Yes. Yes it is. The AI is leagues better than what it was a few years ago. VOID worked tirelessly to bring real life tactics to Ready Or Not. Watching your Squadmates perform these maneuvers is always impressive and VOID deserves kudos for that.

Your AI squad mates are for the most part…decently or very competent. There’s no in between. Some missions, my squad mates would clear half a dozen enemies after I sent just one “move and clear” command. They’d execute their tactics flawlessly and with minimal babysitting from me. Other times? I’d watch as all four of them were killed by a single AI. Or I’d tell them to “fall in” and they’d just stand there. I’d tell them to “move and clear” on a door and upon executing the command, one or two of them would run the opposite direction in search of some mysterious other thing. Sometimes they wouldn’t fire their guns, or sometimes they’d entirely ignore enemies. It is incredibly frustrating to have to adjust your plan of attack because your AI can’t pathfind to door you want them at. Some missions, my squad mates were the only reason I survived. Other times, they were a constant source of flagrant idiocy and the reason why I lost.

Honestly, most of my criticisms of Ready Or Not stem from squad mate AI. They would get stuck on terrain, fail to follow orders, or the most anger inducing one: they’d block you from entering or exiting a room. I lost count how many times I would enter a room then to try to exit, but my teammates would block the door. And they DO NOT get out of your way. The only to solve this? Back up and tell them to move and clear the room they just came from. It’s an infuriating short experience that I hope is fixed.

All critiques aside, you WILL need their help. They’re fully customizable from their gear loadout to what they’re wearing. For example, I opted to always have one guy with heavy armor and a riot shield so he could always enter the room first and take a bulk of the shots safely. In general, the AI are able to perform the same actions the player is. Subduing suspects, checking under a door for targets, peeking a door, blocking a door, etc.

Enemy AI used to be in a real bad place during Early Access. They had laser focus accuracy and sometimes would flagrantly wall bang you. Thankfully, those issues are 90% gone. There were still a few times where enemies would peek me and fire like a Gold rank Rainbow 6 Siege player. However, these moments were thankfully few.

Guns, Lots of Guns

Ready Or Not does NOT skimp out when offering options to the player. There is a plethora of options for the player to define how they want to carry out their mission.

Pistols, Shotguns, SMGS, Rifles, Assault Rifles, PDWs, Battle Rifles, Beanbag Shotgun, Pepperball Launchers, Tasers, Pepper Spray, Gas Grenades, and so much more.

Each mission introduces different tactical scenarios. From suburban houses, a nightclub, to a hospital. Most of the missions bring with them different ranges you’ll be dealing with suspects at or introduce unique situations. While the player obviously can bring a long assault rifle to a suburban house, I definitely wouldn’t recommend that. This is due to the fact Ready Or Not presents firearms in a way that we are not used to seeing in video games. Did you bring a larger caliber gun? I hope you’re a good shot, because if not your bullets will tear through the wall and possibly hit a random civilian in a different room. Did you bring an assault rifle with a really long barrel to a house with narrow hallways? Good luck being able to aim it properly due to the fact that guns do not clip through walls in Ready Or Not. Instead, the game will not let you aim your weapon if you do not have enough space to realistically do so.

Bringing this level of realism to the weapons goes a long way in providing the extremely unique gameplay of Ready Or Not.

Move And Clear

If you want the coveted S rank, better make use of those less than lethal options or at the very least understand the tactics that Ready Or Not introduces. While you CAN simply open a door and start shooting-that’s not the preferred method. Blowing the door and tossing a flashbang or gas inside to disorient targets in an attempt to have them surrender is always the preferred method.

Ready Or Not has a dedicated “drop your gun and put your hands up” button. Pressing this has the player yell at NPCs who then can ignore or comply…or do something in between and make your life much harder. An armed NPC may stand there staring at you while you yell at them to drop their weapon, do you fire? Do you wait to see what they do? If you fire, do you try to shoot them in the leg to further attempt to get them to surrender? Even if they toss their weapon aside, they might fake you out. Drawing their sidearm from behind their back to take a shot at you while you are distracted. In some missions, bad guys will disguise themselves as civilians. A woman reaching for something in their pocket could be reaching for their phone or a gun. Ready Or Not gives you mere seconds to assess the situation and decide a course of action. Genuinely, never a dull moment.

Some missions might only have 3 or 4 suspects. But make no mistake, those 4 suspects are just as dangerous as 2000 enemies in an action FPS. The quiet tense moments before a firefight are just as anxiety inducing as when the bullets start firing.

Heavy Themes

Keeping in line with the tactical/realistic gameplay-Ready Or Not deals with some quite heavy themes. From child exploration, human trafficking, mass shootings, and a school shooter level-Ready Or Not does Not pull any punches. However, the developers have done a good job of making sure the game never glorifies violence. In fact, I was deeply unsettled during a few of the levels. Many of the levels serve as solemn critiques of the real world or reminders of constant injustices.

My only thought or musing here is that I do wish there was an option to skip the school shooter level when going through commander mode. Much like how COD offered the player an option to skip the “No Russian” level. As someone who has friends who have gone through school shootings or been affected by them-I would never be able to recommend this game to them.

But, I do understand Ready Or Not wants to make you uncomfortable and make you question just how much you’ve become de-sensitized to violence or stand as critiques for how the general public accepts mass/school shootings as just a part of everyday life now.

Graphics, Sound, and Bugs

Graphics in Ready Or Not are mostly superb. Just don’t look at the police NPCs in the police station-those folks are “odd” looking. However, the rest of the game looks great. Night time raids, missions set during extreme weather, and typical suburban houses all look fantastic. The lighting especially is on point. But, this was all on performance mode. I absolutely do not putting the game on Fidelity mode. The game runs under 30 fps the entire time-from my experience.

Sound is another standout feature. Ready Or Not might feature some of the most realistic sound design for a shooter I’ve ever played. The noise of gunshots echoing in a different part of the building, to the chaotic sounds of a door breach as your officers scream at suspects to drop their weapons, while the suspects yell back. It’s all a orchestra of chaos.

For the most part, my time with Ready Or Not was a smooth experience. The only odd bugs I found were some person’s hair not attached to their body (lol) and once I had an enemy stuck in a wall. Nothing a good grenade couldn’t fix. However, I did have the game crash a few times. It was always when I was playing off Quick Resume and would finish a mission. Thankfully the progress always saved.

Conclusion

With an extremely unique set of mechanics, gameplay loop, heavy themes, and realistic depiction of firearms, Ready Or Not is one of the best tactical shooters on the market. If you’re looking for a tactical shooter with tons of replayability, go buy this game. Plus, the game is only $50.

But if you’re someone who thinks they’ll be able to run Rambo through each level? Maybe skip this one.


Thanks for VOID Interactive for the review code! Reviewed on an Xbox Series X.