Ready or Not Reviews

One of the first games that I can truly remember playing and enjoying as a kid was Police Quest 2 The Vengeance. I was terrible at it and I daresay some of its larger themes flew right over my head, but it nevertheless made me enamoured with the idea of being a cop.

Ready or Not absolutely nails the feeling of being in an Elite SWAT unit, packing mass appeal for tactical shooter fans.

A police sim based on the idea of a non-PVP Rainbow Six Siege is not something I thought that I would see, to be entirely honest with you. A game where you need to work as a commanding officer to bring down those who threaten chaos and the safety of people you know. That is essentially how Ready Or Not is advertised to you while looking at it online, ready for you to pick up and learn what goes into planning a full on raid of a building, whether it’s a house, a shop, or wherever else you ma...

I didn't think it was possible, but Ready or Not’s unique thrills and overwhelming controls have adapted well to the PlayStation 5.

Ready or Not’s grounded, gritty gameplay is one of the best tactical experiences on console. It requires you to take it seriously to be successful, but that’s what an elite tactical shooter will do. If you’re into this sort of thing, I highly recommend it.

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Tough, tactical, and totally uncompromising, Ready or Not delivers a standout experience for those after something smarter than your average shooter. Every encounter demands precision and patience, with real consequences for poor decisions. Ready or Not is a must-play for fans of methodical, high-stakes gunplay.

Still, Ready or Not is a very unique kind of shooter that we simply don't see enough of anymore. We used to be flush with options for slower-paced tactical shooters, but those days are far behind us. Anyone who spent a considerable amount of time in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six or the aforementioned SWAT franchises will feel right at home in Ready or Not, and the ability to play in both solo and multiplayer with a surprisingly competent AI means that players can hop in and hone their skills on their own before joining up with a squad for the co-op mode where the game truly shines.

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If you’ve been looking for a SWAT simulator for console—and judging by the game’s popularity on the PlayStation Store, a lot of people have—Ready or Not really is as good as they come. It could do with some more polished controls across the board, but VOID Interactive has done a great job bringing the game to a lot more players, even if PC gamers must suffer some very minor consequences.

I’m slowly maneuvering through a neon-lit club that’s been the site of a casualty-heavy shooting alongside another teammate. The music is blasting and the lights are dazzling, but nobody is here save for a few terrified civilians, a handful of armed attackers, and crude piles of innocent bodies on each dancefloor. It’s grim, and I’m tense as I search every room for enemies. I slowly swing a door open…and it swings back towards me to close. I swing it open once more, and it returns back at me yet again. Before I can press the button to open it a third time, it pulls all the way back to reveal a shotgun-toting enemy who was behind it all along, and I laugh and scream as I frantically start shooting take him down. It’s fun and tense, it’s stupid and scary, and it’s Ready or Not.

Ready or Not can be a little formulaic at times, but so is police work. It's the second police game I've reviewed this year, but the first one I can wholeheartedly recommend. If you are here for the multiplayer, the PC players might move too fast for you, but you can just disable crossplay. The controls are intuitive, the AI is generally easy to command apart from some menu clunkiness, and the dystopian grit looks great on a big TV screen. I'm definitely going back to playing the PC version most of the time, but that doesn't stop Ready or Not from being the best tactical shooter available on consoles today.

Putting you in control of a SWAT team, Ready or Not tasks you with diffusing a variety of hostile situations. As you'd expect, it's a tense and atmospheric affair, where making effective use of commands is a must. And while I think it particularly shines in single-player, you can still have fun online if you can get a good team together.

Ready or Not is a game that is designed to make players feel uncomfortable. In one way, its tense gunfights and the uncertainty of what's behind the next door achieve that in spades.

While Ready or Not isn't without its minor bugs and occasional performance issues, it remains a solid game. It offers a distinctive gaming experience that is somewhat rare in today’s gaming landscape.

Ready or Not takes a little longer than it should to deliver the goods, but once it does, it more than fulfills its promise. This is an entertaining game of tension and gore with a strong funny bone, all in a well-wrapped package clearly designed with surprising thought and artistic effort with a star-making performance for Samara Weaving.