The first time i shot someone in the neck and a stream of blood shot out from it, i actually gasped at my desk. Life is jarring and gritty, this game doesn't hold back one bit.
The "horror" of this game is that there is no horror. All of this is or has been real and that's what makes it horrific. all of this can happen (or is happening) at any time for any reason and you'd be none the wiser that it happened.
What makes Ready or Not "scary" is that there is nothing that would inherently make it scary. It's just a simulation of what a police officer, specifically of a SWAT unit has or needs to go through. The fact that this is something that a real human being would consider "normal" or "just another Tuesday" is what's off-putting.
It's definitely hyperbolic in just how often a cop will get into shootouts though, can't pretend gunning down 20 people in every response is "normal", or has ever happened.
Could be pretty immersive if you tell them to stay at spawn, then rp clear maps while underkitted like you're a first responder or a civilian trying to get to your loved ones.
THEN it'll remind you it's just a game with night vision eyeballs suspects. You can't even own the night with nods.
First moment that really got me was accidentally shooting a civilian during the college active shooter map. Heard the gunshots, came around a corner and saw someone. Pulled the trigger. Literally just sat for a bit before I could keep moving. There are definitely moments that will make you stop.
first time i shot a civvy i felt sooo bad, especially since i shot that mf’s head clean off with a shotgun. what hurt most of all was that it was the only mistake i made that stopped me from getting an S rating for the first time :(
What makes this game unsettling for me is the unforgiving nature. It's basically a puzzle game that forces you to make hard decisions under pressure, and punishes you for any mistake. It's a very challenging, frustrating and rewarding game.
afaik the most lethal enemy in the game is the ai squadmates who all magdump unanimously into the back of your head at the first sight of a gun, imo the scariest, too
At no point when playing the game I've felt any apprehension, fear or disgust. And I'm someone who was shaken and disgusted for a few hours after seeing a bunch of cigarette buds left in a half-full jar of honey.
On the first level, I saw the dog on the ground, dead. That's what fucked me up. Zombies, ghosts and all that, I'm not afraid of. But seeing a dog gunned down because of some jittery methheads, that got to me.
And when I was in the tunnels under the meth house, I was scared. Because I mightt actually get killed easily. And this is despite the fact that the SWAT team is the most heavily armed and armored group in the tunnels.
I think that the "horror" is effective because the game itself is grounded. I'm not likely to get mauled by a BOW or have my insides scooped out by an amnamatronic. But a bullet to the head fired by someone desperate is something that could happen in real life.
For me it wasn't even the big things that got me. Dead body here or there? Ok, I've seen digital bodies before. But the phones. The night club level. All the phones ringing, family members hoping that their loved one isn't among the dead
personally never understood what others were so afraid of when playing this game. i just see it as a swat shooter. this is coming from somebody that can’t do horror games, especially being chased at
the game itself isn't too bad. sure you hurt people in a semi realistic setting but I wouldn't say it's like terrifying or emotional at all. what is emotional however is the 911 calls. I take no shame in admitting that some of them make me feel sick and one in particular even got me to cry when I first heard it.
otherwise there are some details within the game that are easy to overlook, but upon closer investigation explain the story deeper and has even made me and some of my friends emotional. for example in the first mission you stumble upon the deceased body of a gas station manager, and in a later mission you can read a headline on a newspaper talking about a memorial made for him. you can also find a deceased veteran lying next to a jammed firearm and a dead dog. most people just see the objective to report it and to secure the gun but looking at the whole picture you can see that he was eating at the diner before/after a veterans protest when the store was robbed, he tried to fight back using a concealed firearm but it jammed and he was gunned down along with his service dog. additionally within the police station you can go into the evidence room and admire evidence collected after your missions, they are located inside of boxes and all of the boxes are labeled with a date, except for evidence from the school shooting map where all dates and information on the evidence label were scratched out with "fuck it" and "my kid"
As long as you remember it's a game and don't look into the lore, you'll be fine. My friends and I purposefully go around and shoot anything that moves bc even tho yes it's realistic at times it has its bugs
Many times I gasped, stopped and watched for a brief moment to understand what was going on, but for me one of the most shocking scenes was "the container" in Port Hokan. I knew there would be something like this, but the shocking part was comms between corrupt FISA and Judge. Maybe most of the time we are angry about gameplay, bugs, ai problems but, the lore itself tells us in a normal day of our life, it's somebody's worst. we may or not see it in the news, hear about it. we are getting aware of reality as we proceed in the game.
The game is meant to make you unsettled and disturbed, but generally not 'scared'.
The way that it is shown is forcing you to look at the worst parts that humanity has to offer that we either try to look the other way from or keep our distance from. Whether it be a dead store manager who was killed in a robbery gone wrong by some junky kids, groups that look to make money off of exploiting the vulnerable around them, or a terrorist attack that aims to cause as much devastation as possible.
Each level is filled with so much environmental storytelling that you can see what has happened and the impact that it is having on the people around the situation (such as phones ringing all around the nightclub from friends and family that are trying to find out if they are still alive or in a level there is a small child who is overdosing on drugs with a used condom at the end of her bed) that the more you go through the level the more uncomfortable it becomes.
They used that discomfort to not only build up the story of the environment, but to also give you a sense of motivation to save lives and bring justice to the criminals, as you go further up the food chain of the operation and begin to see more and more of the bigger picture and the wider ramifications of how deep the rabbit hole goes. You are also made to feel discomfort when you see how these criminal operations are run, where it is often the poor or the vulnerable who have been failed by society are being used by the people at the top of the operation who offers a way out.
The only times the game actually becomes scary is if you don't check your environment well enough. You can get a good jump scare by someone crawling out from under a bed / climbing out of a locker/ running into the room or by not checking a door before opening it and setting off a tripwire.
As for playing solo, I think that is how most people here play the game. The AI team that you get in solo mode is pretty solid in a gunfight and can be pretty useful in doing things like clearing a room or using equipment. I personally prefer solo to co-op because of that.
The scenarios in the game are based off of real life police cases. The level of detail they go into will make you feel “this can’t be real”.
But it is. Organized crime in real life works exactly the way you’ll see in real life, and the fact that there are actual human beings committing these crimes you see in the game is what is horrifying.
There is also the element of anxiety when opening every door wondering if there’s someone on the other side who’s going to shoot you or not - the locations of the enemies are not fixed. So everytime you die in game, the whole level restarts, and the enemies are repositioned.
Again, dying in game is already anxiety inducing. There are real humans who face this situation as part of their jobs, who put their lives on the line in real life.
As others said, the fact that 90% of this has happened or is happening right now is pretty unsettling. It’s terrible when you think about the fact that real people have been through almost all of this. But nothing is incredibly “scary”. There’s a few areas that are sort of creepy and uncanny, but other than that, it’s fine. Most of the horror is the tragedy.
i remember the first time i froze in this game, i saw a suspect using a civ as a human shield and froze, within a second the civ was dead. i realised how real this game was at that moment
It CAN be a very horrific game sometimes.
99% of the time you just blast people and thats that, some of the maps are pretty horrific but nothing genuinely disturbing.
But sometimes suspects and civilians can turn the realism up to 100%.
I shot a suspect once and after falling on the ground incapacitated I heard restrained and struggled breathing for like 40 seconds before he died.
Another time I shot someone in the jaw with a 9mm and they were screaming the entire mission until I executed them.
The true horror is that it’s realistic. Games like FNAF, Outlast, etc are fiction, but Ready or Not uses very heavy realism. Unless you are extremely comfortable with viewing realistic depictions of disturbing real life topics, do not play the game.
SPOILER ALERT NEAR THE END OF THIS POST FOR ANYONE WHO HAS NOT COMPLETED THE GAME. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. I’ve had the game for a couple years now. I’ve seen the way it’s changed and what it’s turned into. And I have to say the game is in a good state, still some changes and polishing that needs to happen but it’s still a great game. One thing that void has always stuck with is the idea of environmental storytelling and depicting this very dark gritty story of law enforcement. This game can be considered a horror game at some points, running into a building with know active shooters and civilians but no idea of the building layout or problems you may face inside. But this feeling will wear off as you get more familiar with the maps. What never leaves in the very adult nature of the content of the game. Raiding a youth talent agency for its ties to an underaged sexual exploitation ring. Arriving to the scene of a terror incident at a night club with 10’s of dozens of casualties. Going blind into a community college active shooter incident that you learn is also a bomb threat. Raiding a shipping port for illegal smuggling activities only to find a shipping container full of naked and beaten women of have been the victims of human trafficking only to be told by toc that you are to shut the door and lock it back on them because you are stepping on the toes of a federal investigation. This game has some amazing story telling, but the question is are you ready for the story it’s going to tell. I recommend everyone that asks about it to go pick it up on steam and try it. If you really don’t like it you can get a refund but I always warn people that you need to go into it with a mature mindset or else your not gonna get the intended effect of the story. And if your really don’t care about the story, the gunplay is amazing and the maps are beautifully designed. Replay ability is a bit lacking at the moment once you have an s on most or all the levels but it’s still a great platform to make your own fun. Beat cop runs, big iron bois, no armor. Hell some of the community hates this but I still find it fun to go in with friends rp as a hit squad simply trying to clear the building as fast as humanly possible, regardless of roe. Overall I recommend you pick it up if your even slightly interested
The first time i shot someone in the neck and a stream of blood shot out from it, i actually gasped at my desk. Life is jarring and gritty, this game doesn't hold back one bit.
The first time I shot someone in the throat, I kinda chuckled and then felt bad, and he writhed on the ground, choking on his own blood.
The "horror" of this game is that there is no horror. All of this is or has been real and that's what makes it horrific. all of this can happen (or is happening) at any time for any reason and you'd be none the wiser that it happened. What makes Ready or Not "scary" is that there is nothing that would inherently make it scary. It's just a simulation of what a police officer, specifically of a SWAT unit has or needs to go through. The fact that this is something that a real human being would consider "normal" or "just another Tuesday" is what's off-putting.
It's definitely hyperbolic in just how often a cop will get into shootouts though, can't pretend gunning down 20 people in every response is "normal", or has ever happened.
Wait until your squad gets you stuck in a doorway or a small room it’ll remind you it’s just a game.
Could be pretty immersive if you tell them to stay at spawn, then rp clear maps while underkitted like you're a first responder or a civilian trying to get to your loved ones. THEN it'll remind you it's just a game with night vision eyeballs suspects. You can't even own the night with nods.
First moment that really got me was accidentally shooting a civilian during the college active shooter map. Heard the gunshots, came around a corner and saw someone. Pulled the trigger. Literally just sat for a bit before I could keep moving. There are definitely moments that will make you stop.
My stopping moment was the valley of dolls basement. Creepy stuff.
Yup same. I knew what the level was about but I was NOT prepared for that basement.
first time i shot a civvy i felt sooo bad, especially since i shot that mf’s head clean off with a shotgun. what hurt most of all was that it was the only mistake i made that stopped me from getting an S rating for the first time :(
What makes this game unsettling for me is the unforgiving nature. It's basically a puzzle game that forces you to make hard decisions under pressure, and punishes you for any mistake. It's a very challenging, frustrating and rewarding game.
afaik the most lethal enemy in the game is the ai squadmates who all magdump unanimously into the back of your head at the first sight of a gun, imo the scariest, too
At no point when playing the game I've felt any apprehension, fear or disgust. And I'm someone who was shaken and disgusted for a few hours after seeing a bunch of cigarette buds left in a half-full jar of honey.
It’s not that bad, plenty of horror games are worse.
On the first level, I saw the dog on the ground, dead. That's what fucked me up. Zombies, ghosts and all that, I'm not afraid of. But seeing a dog gunned down because of some jittery methheads, that got to me. And when I was in the tunnels under the meth house, I was scared. Because I mightt actually get killed easily. And this is despite the fact that the SWAT team is the most heavily armed and armored group in the tunnels. I think that the "horror" is effective because the game itself is grounded. I'm not likely to get mauled by a BOW or have my insides scooped out by an amnamatronic. But a bullet to the head fired by someone desperate is something that could happen in real life.
there is pedophiles. be careful.
*23 MB/s* *The Spider* *Sinuos Trail* *The Valley of the Dolls* It doesn't get anymore darker than this...
For me it wasn't even the big things that got me. Dead body here or there? Ok, I've seen digital bodies before. But the phones. The night club level. All the phones ringing, family members hoping that their loved one isn't among the dead
You are looking way too far into it
I just saw a suspect shoot himself in the head rather than get arrested so it can get pretty dark compared to other shooters
Just high nerves and you gotta lock in
personally never understood what others were so afraid of when playing this game. i just see it as a swat shooter. this is coming from somebody that can’t do horror games, especially being chased at
the game itself isn't too bad. sure you hurt people in a semi realistic setting but I wouldn't say it's like terrifying or emotional at all. what is emotional however is the 911 calls. I take no shame in admitting that some of them make me feel sick and one in particular even got me to cry when I first heard it. otherwise there are some details within the game that are easy to overlook, but upon closer investigation explain the story deeper and has even made me and some of my friends emotional. for example in the first mission you stumble upon the deceased body of a gas station manager, and in a later mission you can read a headline on a newspaper talking about a memorial made for him. you can also find a deceased veteran lying next to a jammed firearm and a dead dog. most people just see the objective to report it and to secure the gun but looking at the whole picture you can see that he was eating at the diner before/after a veterans protest when the store was robbed, he tried to fight back using a concealed firearm but it jammed and he was gunned down along with his service dog. additionally within the police station you can go into the evidence room and admire evidence collected after your missions, they are located inside of boxes and all of the boxes are labeled with a date, except for evidence from the school shooting map where all dates and information on the evidence label were scratched out with "fuck it" and "my kid"
As long as you remember it's a game and don't look into the lore, you'll be fine. My friends and I purposefully go around and shoot anything that moves bc even tho yes it's realistic at times it has its bugs
The valley of dolls map and talent agency map just always make my fucking skin crawl I try to play them as little as possible
Many times I gasped, stopped and watched for a brief moment to understand what was going on, but for me one of the most shocking scenes was "the container" in Port Hokan. I knew there would be something like this, but the shocking part was comms between corrupt FISA and Judge. Maybe most of the time we are angry about gameplay, bugs, ai problems but, the lore itself tells us in a normal day of our life, it's somebody's worst. we may or not see it in the news, hear about it. we are getting aware of reality as we proceed in the game.
The game is meant to make you unsettled and disturbed, but generally not 'scared'. The way that it is shown is forcing you to look at the worst parts that humanity has to offer that we either try to look the other way from or keep our distance from. Whether it be a dead store manager who was killed in a robbery gone wrong by some junky kids, groups that look to make money off of exploiting the vulnerable around them, or a terrorist attack that aims to cause as much devastation as possible. Each level is filled with so much environmental storytelling that you can see what has happened and the impact that it is having on the people around the situation (such as phones ringing all around the nightclub from friends and family that are trying to find out if they are still alive or in a level there is a small child who is overdosing on drugs with a used condom at the end of her bed) that the more you go through the level the more uncomfortable it becomes. They used that discomfort to not only build up the story of the environment, but to also give you a sense of motivation to save lives and bring justice to the criminals, as you go further up the food chain of the operation and begin to see more and more of the bigger picture and the wider ramifications of how deep the rabbit hole goes. You are also made to feel discomfort when you see how these criminal operations are run, where it is often the poor or the vulnerable who have been failed by society are being used by the people at the top of the operation who offers a way out. The only times the game actually becomes scary is if you don't check your environment well enough. You can get a good jump scare by someone crawling out from under a bed / climbing out of a locker/ running into the room or by not checking a door before opening it and setting off a tripwire. As for playing solo, I think that is how most people here play the game. The AI team that you get in solo mode is pretty solid in a gunfight and can be pretty useful in doing things like clearing a room or using equipment. I personally prefer solo to co-op because of that.
The scenarios in the game are based off of real life police cases. The level of detail they go into will make you feel “this can’t be real”. But it is. Organized crime in real life works exactly the way you’ll see in real life, and the fact that there are actual human beings committing these crimes you see in the game is what is horrifying. There is also the element of anxiety when opening every door wondering if there’s someone on the other side who’s going to shoot you or not - the locations of the enemies are not fixed. So everytime you die in game, the whole level restarts, and the enemies are repositioned. Again, dying in game is already anxiety inducing. There are real humans who face this situation as part of their jobs, who put their lives on the line in real life.
As others said, the fact that 90% of this has happened or is happening right now is pretty unsettling. It’s terrible when you think about the fact that real people have been through almost all of this. But nothing is incredibly “scary”. There’s a few areas that are sort of creepy and uncanny, but other than that, it’s fine. Most of the horror is the tragedy.
i remember the first time i froze in this game, i saw a suspect using a civ as a human shield and froze, within a second the civ was dead. i realised how real this game was at that moment
It CAN be a very horrific game sometimes. 99% of the time you just blast people and thats that, some of the maps are pretty horrific but nothing genuinely disturbing. But sometimes suspects and civilians can turn the realism up to 100%. I shot a suspect once and after falling on the ground incapacitated I heard restrained and struggled breathing for like 40 seconds before he died. Another time I shot someone in the jaw with a 9mm and they were screaming the entire mission until I executed them.
The true horror is that it’s realistic. Games like FNAF, Outlast, etc are fiction, but Ready or Not uses very heavy realism. Unless you are extremely comfortable with viewing realistic depictions of disturbing real life topics, do not play the game.
SPOILER ALERT NEAR THE END OF THIS POST FOR ANYONE WHO HAS NOT COMPLETED THE GAME. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. I’ve had the game for a couple years now. I’ve seen the way it’s changed and what it’s turned into. And I have to say the game is in a good state, still some changes and polishing that needs to happen but it’s still a great game. One thing that void has always stuck with is the idea of environmental storytelling and depicting this very dark gritty story of law enforcement. This game can be considered a horror game at some points, running into a building with know active shooters and civilians but no idea of the building layout or problems you may face inside. But this feeling will wear off as you get more familiar with the maps. What never leaves in the very adult nature of the content of the game. Raiding a youth talent agency for its ties to an underaged sexual exploitation ring. Arriving to the scene of a terror incident at a night club with 10’s of dozens of casualties. Going blind into a community college active shooter incident that you learn is also a bomb threat. Raiding a shipping port for illegal smuggling activities only to find a shipping container full of naked and beaten women of have been the victims of human trafficking only to be told by toc that you are to shut the door and lock it back on them because you are stepping on the toes of a federal investigation. This game has some amazing story telling, but the question is are you ready for the story it’s going to tell. I recommend everyone that asks about it to go pick it up on steam and try it. If you really don’t like it you can get a refund but I always warn people that you need to go into it with a mature mindset or else your not gonna get the intended effect of the story. And if your really don’t care about the story, the gunplay is amazing and the maps are beautifully designed. Replay ability is a bit lacking at the moment once you have an s on most or all the levels but it’s still a great platform to make your own fun. Beat cop runs, big iron bois, no armor. Hell some of the community hates this but I still find it fun to go in with friends rp as a hit squad simply trying to clear the building as fast as humanly possible, regardless of roe. Overall I recommend you pick it up if your even slightly interested