Ready or Not 1.0 Update – Rules of Engagement Revamped

Ready or Not’s 1.0 update has given the swat-based FPS a new overhaul and add-ons. Here are the major updates to look out for that have given the game more complexity in the right direction.

Feels Like A Completely New FPS Experience

With so many changes and additions in this massive 48 GB download. Void Interactive’s Ready or Not 1.0 update brings a new gameplay experience, enhanced visuals, and animations. Audio quality and a new user interface experience. With an addition to other improvements, players get a set of new weapons and maps included. Ready or Not is a modern-day Close-Quarters-Combat shooter with elements of realism. That means no respawns. Players will embark on tactical missions leading a team of 4 officers.

In FPS games, Players have health bars or recover from bullet wounds over time like in Call of Duty, however in Ready or Not, gunshot wounds need to be healed with a tourniquet or a bandage to stop the bleeding. What the game glows on is the usage of tactical equipment. Players can look under a door through a mirror gun to visualize any suspects on the other side. With the usage of a battering ram to break locked doors or ask your teammates to breach, and raid with a flash bang, players get to make their own decisions on how to go about the mission. Let’s discuss Ready or Not’s 1.0 update in further detail.

Gameplay

Commander Mode:

This is what the Ready or Not Single Player Experience is. This mode is what all elements of the game design, including all new features are centered around progression. And the ability to re-play missions. Commander Mode has 5 different elements as of now.

Ironman Mode

Ironman Mode is added which takes gaming towards realism a step closer. Players get a permadeath-style option. Once a player is dead in-game, they lose all progression, and their save file is deleted. Cosmetic rewards are given to players for completing this hardcore mode.

Exfiltration Mechanic:

Quitting a mission is not as simple now. Players could exit the game before but this time, quitting randomly will have a direct effect on their officers. It will increase their stress levels. Players must exfil from their spawn point with their officers.

Stress System:

A meta-game stress system that punishes teammates for putting lives in danger, or not exiting the game using the exfil mechanic. High stressed-out officers will need to be put on therapy or else they could leave the team permanently.

Officer Traits:

12 modifiers that affect your officer or team composition to benefit your playstyle. Each respective officer’s traits become available over time as you play missions with them.

Save Slots:

Players can save in 3 different slots for players to experiment on different runs or for other users to play on the same PC.

New SWAT AI:

Void Interactive has an actual SWAT advisory team to help them design their AI to be more lifelike in-room clearing with the addition of new commands for a more diverse gameplay experience.

• Commands are not just for your AI Teammates, but also for your online buddies to make it easier for players to communicate who don’t have microphones.
• Officers will be able to order surrendered and arrested targets to turn around and move to a marked location or officer’s position.
• Civilians can be told to escape to the nearest exit and flee the location. They will automatically be arrested at the exit, saving players more time to focus on the raid. The worst is when players are arresting a suspect and get jumped on and killed.
•  Police Trailer Units: Automated trailer units are added in Ready or Not’s new 1.0 update. These are police units that come in after a mission to collect arrested suspects, relevant people, and evidence. They will only arrive once “bring order to chaos” is completed during the mission.

A New Tablet System

For hardcore Tactical shooter fans, this is similar to the military’s phone mount attached to your chest rig, however instead of having ATAK (military’s android tactical assault kit – a smartphone app that allows small units to coordinate using map data) Ready or not has its own smartphone app.

Accessing it through the tab button, players can:

• Listen to a situation briefing and 911 calls.
• Receive images that might help provide some information on the level of threat.
• Read through a list of known suspects and civilians.
• Like ATAK as mentioned earlier, players can use whatever maps LSPD has available for the location, with the ability to draw and make plans with your team.
• Players can preview their team cameras and load-outs, as well as chat with other online players using a built-in screen.
• A New Level Selection Screen with updated videos and entry point selection.
• In the 1.0 update of Ready or Not, the option of choosing which mission type to play a level on has been removed due to limitations with design and testing, and to avoid conflicts between story narratives.
• Evidence Locker: With the addition of this new evidence locker, it will be available as different missions are completed. Each mission has three, each one for B, A, and S. These unique collectables will often point to elements of the story or reveal other hidden details.
• Replay Viewer: From the main menu, the mission can be replayed using a viewer option that also allows players to change camera settings. Such as aperture, color grading settings, focal length, spline paths, and speed. A timeline of the mission is available for players that can be scrubbed back and forth.
• According to VOID Interactive, the selection UI for replays is still a work in progress, but it can still be used.
• Replays are accessible from the commander, cooperative, and practice mode gameplay, and will work with mods as well.
• 15 Steam Achievements: PC players can now complete 15 challenging achievements if they want to be completionists.

Visuals and Animation

Visually there is some serious improvement in characters and gear. Players have a wider range of options in selecting boots, shirts, pants, armor, gloves, wristwear, headgear, tattoos, voices, face-wear, NVGs, gas masks, and helmets (along with mod support for players). Over 175 new characters have been added to Ready or Not such as new suspects, civilians, and other NPCs. Visual effects have been improved to an even higher standard. 3D muzzle flashes, impact effects, spalling, destruction, flashbangs, cs gas, pepper spray, OC launcher impacts, tracers, C2 breaches, and much more. In addition to a brand-new Police Station of Los Sueños, Tip Screens for new players are around the station. Placeholder assets have been replaced with more bespoke, custom assets with better optimization. The headcam perspective includes the officer’s helmet. Players have a low-ready toggle now so they can choose what tactical stance they would want to use during missions.

There are new and unique sets of animations added with Ready or Not’s 1.0 Update. More than 100 death animations such as different limb wounds, arterial bleeds, etc. have been added. Animation improvements such as footsteps, and overall movement look more realistic now than before.

Audio Improvements

Ready or Not’s sound quality was not bad, to say the least. It has great sound effects and gunshots, and being shot at was better than many AAA FPS games on the market. With the new 1.0 update, Audio sounds even more realistic than before. With the new Quantum Sound Manager, it supports precise sound reflections for a better-simulated occlusion, this system shines when players try locating targets. Audio will sound different when behind an open or a closed door. Even being behind a window, whether it is broken or not will directly affect sound. Gunshots have improved with the addition of distance layers. As targets get close while shooting, the sound effects have a better transition. New Soundtracks are also added to Ready or Not. The following levels have their soundtracks updated and all levels have received improvements to their sound design.

• Hospital
• Coyote
• Streamer
• Importer
• Sins
• Gas
• Farm
• Beachfront
• Valley/Dealer/Penthouse

SWAT team members have 13 new unique studio-quality voices. They give depth to the officer’s character. With over 50,000 voice lines across more than 120 characters be it a suspect or a civilian are added to the game. This will enhance and diversify gameplay giving more character and personality to NPCs. According to VOID Interactive, further language expansions will be added in future hotfixes such as Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Turkish. Due to temporal constraints, they were not included in the 1.0 update.

A New Cache of Weapons

Following is a list of all the new weapons added in Ready or Not’s 1.0 update.

• New MCX Assault Rifle
• New LVAR Assault Rifle
• New F90 Assault Rifle
• New SuperbNova Shotgun
• New UMP-9 SMG
• New TLE-1911 Pistol
• New TPL Less Lethal Launcher
• New X2 Taser
• Overhauled 870MCS Breaching Shotgun
• Overhauled UMP-45 SMG
• Overhauled M45A1 Pistol
• Overhauled MPX SMG
• Added MK18 Training Version for Tutorial Level
• Added G19 Training Version for Tutorial Level

User Interface and Experience Upgrades

Ready or Not now feels like a new game to experience. It has a completely new main menu design with a new setting menu as well. Load-out screen customization and pause menu are also overhauled. Mod.io is changed to use a native explorer, giving more search options. Subtitles are also added throughout the game. Colorblind options are added for protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia-affected individuals. The one annoying thing in Ready or Not was finding items in these run-down buildings. To solve this issue for players who do not want to spend time searching, items can be highlighted to make it easier for players to find them across the map. New languages to support in-game texts are added, such as English, Chinese (simplified), German, Spanish, French, and New Zealand “Kiwi” Dialects.

New Maps and Enhancements

Following is a list of new maps, the type of missions, and a small description of the level.

• Elephant – An Active Shooter Mission – At a College Campus
• Rust Belt – Raid – Set on the border of Los Sueños and Tijuana
• Sins – A high-stakes hostage situation – In the upper floors of an old hotel
• Streamer – Hostage Situation – An Apartment Complex
• Beachfront – A warrant Service – A house near Los Sueños’ Coastline
• Training – An introductory space for players who are new to Ready or Not or who need a refresher course.

“Carriers of the Vine” and “Hide and Seek” have been completely recreated from the ground up. In Carriers of the Vine, players will get to raid a cultist compound and in Hide and Seek, players go against a large international criminal operation.

LSPD Police Station has been rebuilt completely. It is a well-designed, spacious office with an improved training area, a shooting range with actual working targets, and an evidence room. There are other rooms that players don’t have access to like the chief of police’s room, interview room, and a 911 dispatch room to name a few. There is also a hidden minigame in the Station that players must thoroughly search to find it. As players progress and complete commander mode missions, the station will progressively change as well.

Overall map improvements such as level design and fixing holes in walls have been added. Being shot from walls by AI was an issue that is fixed too. Navigation in some locations has been fixed so it is easier for players to progress through levels instead of being lost and roaming around aimlessly.

Further gameplay improvements are added such as spawn points, civilian and suspect AI, objectives, collision, performance, and visibility on levels listed below.

• Thank you, Come Again
• Twisted Nerve
• Relapse
• Neon Tomb
• Ides of March
• A Lethal Obsession
• Greased Palms
• Sinuous Trail
• The Spider
• Valley of the Dolls

Overall Improvements

Further improvements are listed below taken from Ready or Not 1.0 Update Steam Blog.

• If players are running mods, there will be a new “safe launch” option in case any existing mods are crashing the game.
• Overhauled all suspect and civilian AI: This has been done across all levels to make them feel unique to each situation. Many new details should allow the AI to appear more intelligent, as well as some unique tells that may give players insight into a situation before they spot any threats. Some of these include:
• Suspects make less noise upon hearing the player, opting to try and surprise players by repositioning in combat to take up unexpected angles or corners of rooms. Civilians surrender more easily and occasionally surrender when suspects are within sight (depending on the level). More sensible changes to decision-making when it comes to surrendering, fake surrendering, fleeing, or initiating combat.
• AI flinching reactions have been improved: AI can still return fire and move while lightly flinching and can move while heavy flinches are playing, but cannot return fire.
• Optimization Pass: Many levels have received a pass on their optimization, which should result in a solid FPS on most hardware. Other optimizations include:
• The game size has been slashed in half from almost 100 GB to ~60 GB.
• Improved settings efficacy: View distance will now cull objects correctly. This is still a work in progress, but there are some improvements made.
• Dynamic shadow improvements and reduction: Reduced the number of dynamic shadows on some levels, and where appropriate changed these to spotlights, which are generally ideal for performance.
• Visibility culling pass: Many levels have received a large visibility culling pass to improve FPS in areas that are dense with meshes.
• Note that optimization changes are ongoing and there are still many improvements to be made.
• Ammunition Overhaul: Ammunition has been updated for all weapons, and numerous bugs have been obliterated in the wake of this new set of changes:
• Slug rounds for shotguns will now penetrate most surfaces, as well as up to level 3 armor. They will also ricochet more.
• Buckshot and some other rounds will have a chance to severely dismember targets
• Players will not be able to arrest a suspect/civilian missing an arm or arms.
• Some rounds will now have a higher chance of causing arterial bleeds.
• Fixed an issue where some weapons had the wrong ammunition tag, causing it to use default penetration values.
• Re-balanced the damage and armor penetration for each ammunition type to make them more logically consistent and each round more uniquely purposed.
• Armor Improvements:
• Armor is now more consistent in gameplay. Incoming rounds will be blocked based on the direction the player is facing, not their 3d model.
• Ceramic now has higher durability but can still break and lose effectiveness with repeated impacts. Don’t get blasted by a shotgun.
• Penetration Overhaul: We have now made several significant improvements, including:
• Bullets will do less damage depending on the amount of energy left in the round (e.g. shooting through several sheets of plywood will reduce the bullet damage)
• Flesh is now less easy to penetrate so JHP rounds are more likely to function as intended.
• Shooting an enemy through two legs used to do the same amount of damage as the bullet made two different impacts on the same target. Now, it will do reduced damage on the second (and third) hit.
• Many bugs related to penetration have now been resolved, as well as several large oversights to do with materials that could not be penetrated.
• Overhauled Loadout Menu: The new loadout menu provides more insight into item selection, less nested menus, and a simpler way of navigating around different areas.
• Ready Up is now done by pressing “Y” by default.
• Players no longer need to stand in a specific area and can be anywhere in the station when readying up.
• A majority will start the countdown timer.
• If all players ready up, the timer will cut down to 10 seconds before starting.
• Chemical Agents Improvements: Rebalance, redesign, and refactor of the chemical-based weapons and tools in the game to be more fun and in-depth. Chemical Agents refer to all chemical-based weapons, tools, and grenades in the game: CS Gas, OC Balls, and Pepper spray.
• AI will attempt to flee areas that are affected by OC.
• AI will stumble and move away from OC when hit by it.
• Suspects that are pepper sprayed can still shoot you but are blinded.
• CS Gas will seep out of open doorways and around corners.
• Fine-tuning of “stress” system: allow for a positive feedback loop when playing using less-lethal weapons. Suspects (on levels where appropriate) will be more likely to hesitate at low-stress levels. Stress increases as more firefights and other loud noises occur.
• The use of Force Continuum (aka RoE in-game) has been made more lenient for hostile situations.

Bug Fixes

Apparently, hundreds of bug fixes have been resolved in the Ready or Not 1.0 Update which was too many to list and inform players. Other known issues are being looked into and are expected to be resolved in the upcoming hotfixes. Such as localisations for French, German, simplified Chinese, Czech, and Korean languages. Another issue of game restart required to change the language. The mission end upon death doesn’t allow players to spectate their SWAT AI teammates.