Plenty of huge co-op games have come and gone these past couple of years, and while the likes of Helldivers 2 have dominated the headlines, Ready or Not is up there as one of the most successful newcomers. It’s now celebrating the first anniversary of its 1.0 launch on December 17, and it’s established a healthy player base and a community keen to unravel the secrets of Los Sueños’ criminal underworld. However, the realistic SWAT shooter has also faced criticism for its depiction of horrifying combat and hostage scenarios and previous inclusion of now-removed alt-right references. I spoke to lead designer Sean Gorman and art director Mark Ranson about the highs and lows of Ready or Not and what the future may hold for the hardcore FPS.
If you’re not tuned in to Ready or Not, you may be surprised to hear how well it’s done for itself. Sure, it’s not setting the Steam charts ablaze, but with daily peak players hovering between 5,000 and 10,000 concurrents, the self-published shooter commands a remarkably stable player base. The FPS game’s Steam user reviews also speak volumes – an 88% very positive score overall, with a 95% rating over the last 30 days.
“I find it incredibly humbling that people a year in are still playing it quite frequently, and if anything, are hungry for more,” Ranson tells me. “It makes us feel really, really good as developers that one of the problems that people have is ‘we need more content!’”
“Something [that’s] great to see is our community engaging with the lore, but also our modding community,” says Gorman. “There’s some great people out there who really just enjoy the gameplay, testing this stuff, giving us their feedback as well. That’s been something that I’ve personally enjoyed.”
Using the Mirage at Sea map from the new Dark Waters DLC as an example, which takes place in the aftermath of an elaborate party on a luxury yacht, Gorman also recalls the most challenging element of developing Ready or Not.
“[We’ve been] doing a lot of reference gathering to see what is not only fun and interesting, but also believable,” he explains. “For example, in the bows of a boat, there might be some really tiny spaces, but that doesn’t work for our metrics, so how do we get something that’s believable but still fun, how does it still work within this system – that has been a challenge, but I think we’ve got a nice balance there.”
On the topic of Ready or Not’s controversies over the course of both early access and its full 1.0 release, Gorman and Ranson say there is never an intention to offend. However, they also clarify that VOID will never back down from tackling the game’s subject matter.
“One thing that we take a bit of pride in as developers is that we’re completely neutral,” Ranson says. “We have no side, we have no allegiance, we have no political agendas. We don’t have any of that stuff. All we want to do, purely as developers, is simply shine a light on what some people call an incredibly dark subject matter. And it is, and there’s no denying that. We never, ever want to glorify anything, and I can’t stress that enough.”
“We consult with active SWAT officers,” he adds. “We have some fantastic people that we talk to who are literally on their day-to-day job doing this… It’s made us very empathetic as developers about what these SWAT officers go through on a daily basis as part of their jobs. So we try to bring that through to the game that we’re making. It’s not like we’re trying to deliberately make any controversial statements.”
As mentioned, Ready or Not just dropped its second DLC expansion, Dark Waters, which takes players outside of Los Sueños’ city boundaries to three “isolated,” “maritime” locations. Despite VOID managing to ship two DLCs in the game’s first year, alongside plenty of other gameplay updates and an engine switch too, it feels to me like there’s plenty more to come. While no concrete promises or timelines were laid out for more DLC, Gorman says the engine upgrade has “futureproofed” the game and gives VOID “a lot of space going forward.”
“Expect us to keep improving things,” he adds. “We’re here to support this game.”
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