YMMV / Ready or Not

The Game

• Angst Aversion: Ready Or Not is a game that routinely places you in the center of some of the most heinous acts that bad people with the right resources are capable of doing. Just as a few examples, you begin your duty by responding to a mass shooting in a gas station perpetrated by crazed drug addicts, and they've already killed the store manager (who has a daughter you must rescue) and a pet dog (where you can see the bloodied, but still fresh remains). Later on, you must take down a CP ring, stop a mass school shooting complete with improvised bombs, stop a terrorist cell that's held up in a hotel, and so on. It's not surprising, then, that some people just plain don't want to put up with a game that is so unapologetically bleak.
• Awesome Music: Being a Spiritual Successor to SWAT 4, it shouldn't be surprising that the game has music that does wonders for the atmosphere and gameplay.
  • Mindjot features a percussion heavy theme with the sounds of synths to emphasize the location being a building filled with electronics and armed security.
  • 213 Park Homes consists of drones and in combat grungy and unnerving dark basses and percussions, however outside the music becomes a beautifully ethereal and serene piece despite the level taking place in a dirty, trash filled street where you're about to commence a highly dangerous drug bust on a meth den. Regardless, it manages to be incredibly soothing in a game filled with disturbingly real situations.
  • “Valley Of The Dolls” has an intense soundtrack with a variety of memorable moments. There’s a tense buildup throughout that sounds like some sort of tea kettle mixed with percussion that brings a ticking clock to mind. Sometimes this is mixed in with some urgent and dramatic string sections. It brings to mind how dangerous and depraved the whole situation of the map is, and the rage building within the officers at the sick and disgusting things they witness within the house. An ominous synth bass adds to the darkness and the buildup is further intensified with pounding drums. Once combat kicks in, a dark beat explodes with industrial synths, bongos, and that tea kettle noise all together. The unique combination of industrial and tropical sounds is very fitting for the setting of a swanky California penthouse under the beautiful golden sunset, hiding depraved, perverted horrors. There is also some excellent creepy ambience that plays in certain sections such as the entrance to the level and the basement.
• Fan Nickname: "SWAT 5" for the game itself, especially after it was shown its gameplay mirrored SWAT 4's quite a bit.
  • "Piss"/"Piss Spray" for Pepper Spray, on account of how its pepper stream looks and sounds.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Most fans of the game are not Americans due to the situation of most countries outside the USA, particularly concerning firearms-related crimes and the legality of firearms, isn't "hitting home" as much as Americans did.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The gameplay trailer not coming out and being delayed many times has become a big meme in the community.
  • //SOON//
  • The Anal Staircase^ExplanationA sign for an establishment of this name shows up during a climb up some stairs in the debut trailer
  • "Read the FAQ" is the common response to questions and ideas on the Subreddit.
  • The since-removed "Simmer down, we're pressed on time here." briefing for the hotel missions became a bit of a copypasta.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Upon the successful completion of a mission, TOC will give you one last command, and it's always music to the ears, since it's a sign that you can finally take some deep breaths.
  TOC: Put 'em on safe and let 'em hang. Great work.
• Narm:
  • One of the lines for arrested female suspects/civilians is smugly saying her mom has a Mexican maid, and the cop might know her. This is a bizarre taunt, especially considering the usual dim lighting, the fact that the suspect might still be stunned from less-lethals, and the cops' head-to-toe tactical gear, but especially when the suspect was begging those exact same cops not to shoot her seconds earlier. Word of God confirmed this was a placeholder and it's all since been replaced in the January 2022 update.
  • There's also a chance a female suspect will say "don't break my nails!" (presumably an arrested line) just before starting a firefight with the cops.
  • Among other bizarre, since-removed placeholder statements, a female suspect will compliment the officer on his tattoos despite him being fully covered. Perhaps she's desperately trying to flirt her way out of trouble like she got a traffic ticket.
  • Like a lot of more modern games, magazines thrown away in empty reload animations become in-world objects, with physics applied. And it seems under various circumstances, the force at which these models are thrown can get...a little silly.
  • The edginess of some missions, such as what should have been a simple SWATting also involving CP, an illegal crypto farm, and a bunch of armed gangsters looking for a death-or-glory firefight goes straight from "grim, dark depiction of America" to plain absurdity.
• Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page.
• Player Punch: "Ends of the Earth" pits D-platoon against a family of gun-runners operating out of a coastal neighborhood. As you gun down hostiles, arrest a pair of elderly folks and clear the house, the true tragedy becomes clear. The reason the three men took up illegal gun modification? Their mother had end-stage cancer and the family was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And now they are dead or in prison and thus she's going to die with a ruined family. Do you feel like a hero yet?
• Realism-Induced Horror: While Ready or Not is a tactical shooter first and foremost, many people have argued that it can also be viewed as a bit of a horror game. This is because several of its scenarios and gameplay mechanics are relevant to the real world.
  • Several levels in the game are based on real-world atrocities. From mass shooting, a "swatting incident" where the inhabitants are, despite being technically innocent, have their Second Amendment rights to self defense and general paranoia toward law enforcement, a crack den with strung up addicts, a wealthy pedophile ring, and a terrorist attack, all of which are portrayed as realistically as possible.
  • In several games, you and your friends are bullet sponges that can take a lot of punishment. That is not the case here whatsoever, as just a few shots are enough to take you out. If you're particularly unlucky, just one well-placed shot will kill you instantly. This also applies to every single NPC, from the enemies trying to kill you to the people you may be trying to save, meaning that one misplaced shot can end up wounding a civilian, or worse.
• Scrappy Mechanic: In the 1.0 update, the enemy AI is beyond difficult, which is already a massive pain. However, when you're in Commander Mode, the enemy AI being as broken as it is compounds several small issues that wouldn't be so big of a deal otherwise. It's worth noting, however, that a series of hotfixes vastly reduced the frustration from this by toning down enemy AI accuracy and increasing the variance in their behavior.
  • Firstly, if one of your squadmates dies, they're gone for good. If you had a squadmate that had a particularly beneficial trait, they're gone. Considering how easy it is to die, this will happen a lot.
  • Second, you also have to manage your squadmates' mental states. They can become more unstable and stressed depending on how missions go, eventually culminating in them either leaving the force or needing to go to therapy. Obviously, leaving is not a good thing, because you don't want to lose any officers, but if they end up in therapy, they're out of commission in the same way as an officer that was incapacitated. This leads to...
  • Third, your out of commission squadmates are gone for a few missions until they return. Not just any missions, though. Successful missions. If you repeatedly fail a mission, you don't get any of your squadmates back. Thankfully, this one was fixed, and now all missions count toward squad recovery.
  • Finally, and possibly worst of all, even if you fail a mission (as in, you're shot and killed), your squad still takes all of the mental and physical hits. This essentially turns some levels into constant feedback loops of dying, losing squadmates and the benefits they bring, dying, losing squadmates, etc., until you run out of available squadmates or succeed through sheer brute force. The only way out is doing another mission and succeeding to gain morale and regain officers.
  • Another issue involving the AI is their unwillingness to surrender, quick reflexes, and pinpoint accuracy which many deride as being akin to Terminators, which is especially erroneous when the suspects D Platoon are facing are drug addicts, delinquents, and other criminals that would not be very efficient with firearms or be willing to risk their lives facing off against better trained and equipped SWAT officers. Thankfully, this was solved within a few days of launch, and enemy AI is now more dynamic and will sometimes surrender, feign death, fake surrender, and most importantly, no longer have laser-accurate aiming.
• Spiritual Successor: The game is widely considered to be the successor to beloved but long gone tactical shooter franchises such as the S.W.A.T. and Rainbow Six series.
• Tear Jerker:
  • A trick that the game loves to pull on you is having a dead body on the floor covered in blood, and then having a phone ringing close by. It's bad enough when it happens with one person at a gas station, but it's infinitely worse when it's dozens of dead people being called by their loved ones, like in a night club.
  • Some of the 911 calls that you receive during mission briefings are painful to listen to because of how terrified people are. Of particular note are the ones you're given during "Elephant", in which students and workers at the school that's currently being shot up plead and beg for help over the phone. In one of the calls, the caller is shot before the call ends.
  • In certain levels, particularly ones with active shooter scenarios, you're frequently treated to the harrowing sound of people in the distance panicking and begging for their lives, only to be cut off by a gunshot.
• That One Achievement: The World requires the player to finish the game in Ironman Mode, which is extremely challenging due to enemies' accuracy and unrealistically fast reflexes. Worse, there's also The Hermit achievement which adds the additional challenge of finishing Ironman Mode without any officer dying or quitting because of stress.
• That One Level: There are a few maps that experienced players simply dread.
  • "Sullivan's Ridge" is your first introduction to the near-invisible door traps after previous levels let you smoothly open and clear every possible door you encounter. They instantly kill the victim on the spot.
  • "Sinuous Trail" has the Mindjot data center, whose interior is simply a nightmare to navigate due to the tight hallways, interior windows that allow the AI to spot SWAT officers more easily, and the central server room which is both large yet extremely cramped with numerous server stacks providing plenty of cover and hiding spots for enemies to ambush you from.
  • "Greased Palms" is particularly difficult due to the warehouse portion of the post office, which contains so much cover with small openings and slits that the enemy AI can instantly spot you through without you being able to see them, and then shoot you from the opposite end of the building.
  • "Carriers of the Vine" is one of the largest missions in the game, and that's why it's also one of the most frustrating. In addition to having an absurd number of rooms that you need to clear, some of which are below ground and incredibly claustrophobic, but there are also massive stretches of open ground that leave you and your teammates exposed. To make matters worse, this mission also has some verticality to it with a possible sniper atop a tower, who can and will pick off your squad from a long distance before you see them.

---