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Genre: Shooter, Simulator, Tactical, Indie

Ready or Not

Vol. 83 - Ready or Not Development Briefing

Attention Officers,



Welcome to our 83rd Ready or Not Development Briefing, February 28th, 2025!

After years we’ve homed in on the current state of difficulty for Ready or Not, meanwhile every player is subject to their own personal preference on how it could be. Now it’s ready for a refresh. Read on below to discover how we’re approaching the in-development new difficulty mode system, with ‘Casual’, ‘Standard’, and ‘Hard’; and how we’re taking in measurable player feedback to help inform future development.

We loved to see your reception to our last dev briefing where we dove deep into our design philosophy for the Home Invasion levels and Ready or Not as a whole. Especially from people in our modding community or pursuing game development! For those of you interested in our level design process—the second half of this dev briefing breaks down our “Leviathan” mission from Dark Waters with the help of one of our Level Designers, Tisa!

Note: These development briefings serve to keep you in the loop about parts of our ongoing support for Ready or Not, however the briefings do not encompass everything that we’re working on at a given moment. Please keep in mind that the content in our development briefings may still be a work in progress and subject to change.


New Difficulty Modes



Our game’s level of difficulty is now in a more mature state, with our playerbase growing and players' skill level ever increasing. We find ourselves in a spot where it suits us to refine the standard difficulty experience and offer options for officers to either ease themselves in or challenge themselves further.

Introducing our in-development new difficulty system with the modes of 'Casual', 'Standard', and 'Hard'.

This is a largely mission-by-mission fine-tuned process considering a vast range of values affecting Civilians, Suspects, and SWAT officers. The system is still evolving and preparing for our internal testing phase; therefore, some details may change and we will also not outline all of the potential values being considered.

More details will be provided when these modes eventually release with changelogs!

Note that in order to unlock certain achievements you may be required to play on a specific difficulty mode, for example meaning you may have to play ‘Standard’ or ‘Hard’ to unlock them.


  • ‘Casual’: Provides an ‘easier’ or ‘more casual’ introductory difficulty for players who are new to the game and less familiar with the genre
  • ‘Standard’: The standard experience for officers, aiming to offer a rewarding and diligent challenge. This mode will be a slightly refined version of the current game difficulty.
  • ‘Hard’: Provides a more challenging difficulty compared to ‘Standard’, heavily emphasizes coordinated team-play and masterful decision making.

In a general sense, the difficulty modes will modify values like reaction time, likelihood of surrender, accuracy while moving, accuracy at distance, and much more. For suspects specifically, changes to their threat level (stimulus tracking, reaction times, values that might affect the Suspect's "time to kill" the player) as well as a number of other modifiers to things like traps, stuns, rules of engagement, and squad behavior are all options.

Since these difficulty values are able to be set on a global as well as a mission-by-mission basis, it allows us to tailor the difficulty to the context of each mission.

For example, we have the ability to adjust the maximum suspects in a level, but we may avoid increasing the number for levels that require a specific number of suspects for level-specific story or gameplay reasons— shifting to other ways to modify the difficulty for that mission instead.

AI Community Sentiment Survey Completion



Thank you all for adding your thoughts to the recent AI sentiment survey, we received over 13,000 responses during the days that it was open! The data has been exported into internal documentation and shared across our relevant departments, accompanied by graphs and analysis commentaries for us to use as a valuable detailed resource going forward.

The survey data complements the existing feedback received across our other social platforms, such as in our Discord.

Improved Player Telemetry



We are adding metrics to help us better understand broad playerbase activity (telemetry), such as how many people are playing on a given DLC, what game version, and measuring player retention. This will help us measure the effectiveness of our development efforts.

In the process no personalized identifying information is collected, with all info anonymized and unable to be reverse-engineered— just as before this telemetry, we do not collect any personally identifiable info in the first place.

Level Design Deep-Dive on “Leviathan”



Continuing with our series of level design deep-dives, today we’re showing off behind the scenes on Leviathan. This breakdown is courtesy of our level design team member, Tisa!

Capturing the Experience



With the development of the “Leviathan“ mission, we wanted to offer a scenario that was a major departure from our usual missions while still centering Ready or Not gameplay DNA at the core. In particular, we wanted to immerse the player in a cold, wet, dark, steel-like environment, with giant ocean waves crashing in on them-- far away from the familiar safety of the coast.

Leviathan Narrative Background



Rig HeavyWell A-101 is the first rig granted permission to drill in the highly lucrative heavy oil reserve off the Los Suenos coast. The battle for drilling licenses, the construction of the rig, and its work have been contentious subjects in Los Suenos since the first applications were made.

The UPF, an eco-terrorism organization, has assaulted the rig and taken the workers hostage. They are aggressive and firing without hesitation. Some crew are injured, others are dead. Several groups of hostages have been corralled in various parts of the rig.

The LSPD SWAT has been called to the rig, which is under their jurisdiction, since an amendment to the Adjacent State Rule of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

Background Research



Once we knew what the level was going to be, we started doing research and gathering references from all sorts of off-shore oil rigs, from smallest to the biggest.

To ground the environment and the purpose of each room as much as possible, we researched the specific machinery and tools that would be utilized on offshore oil rigs.

(Images below: Examples of types of oil rig machinery)





The oil rig portrayed in Leviathan is not any specific oil rig layout but rather the combination of all interesting rooms we found on different oil rigs.

(Images below: Examples of styles of rooms in oil rigs that ended up being considered as inspiration for Leviathan)



Out of the different sizes of real world oil rigs, the one that became Leviathan is the smallest type, believe it or not!

(Images below: Sizes and construction apparatuses of offshore oil rigs, and an example of the size of oil rig used in RoN)



Level Layout



Since the Rig is constructed in a way that the main drill tower is located in the center, and we wanted to have at least 2 floors on the Rig, I decided the level layout should be a good old fashion ‘arena’ style layout.

With the main landmark being in the center I could construct all rooms and passages circling around that landmark which will automatically create all the desired loops for our AI to move, run and flank at their best possible capacity which will create the desired gameplay for this level.

The landmark in the center also helps our players have a guide and not get lost or disoriented.

With this being a multi floor level I wanted at least 3 staircases connecting the floors for gameplay variety and to avoid any potential bottle neck in gameplay.

We also knew we wanted to introduce our new helicopter system so having plenty of outside open space for helicopter to spot and report suspects was also one of the considerations we needed to accomodate.

(Images below: Rig top-down level design layout)



Player Starting Points



For this level we planned to have 3 different starting points on 3 different heights of the level, giving players a unique approach each time they want to play this mission.

The first starting point is the Helipad; even from the loading screen players will see they are riding in the helicopter which will blend nicely with where they start from.

At first glance the landing zone is quite exposed, but we took great care into crafting the level to ensure players will never be shot in the spawn zone. Players spawn in the North-East side on the level on the highest point having access to both upper and bottom floor.

(Image below: Helipad starting point, with the blockout version on one half)



The second starting point is the Bridge.

Players start on a heavily shaking bridge connecting the big rig to it’s small addon. From here players get spawned in the middle and have access to upper and bottom floor on the North-West side of the level.

(Image below: Bridge starting point, with a mini photo of the blockout version in the corner)


The third starting point is the Boat Landing.

In loading screen players can see they are arriving by boat that blends into this starting point. For this starting point we wanted to leave players with a quick horrifying scene of workers hanging from the lowest floor of the oil rig to quickly alarm the players that these suspects mean business. From this spawn point players have access to the South-West lower floors that has a left/right options to choose from.

(Images below: Boat Landing starting point, with one image containing a mini photo of the blockout version in the corner)



General Gameplay Intro



Gameplay on this map is very CQB oriented despite its size, with some areas of longer lines of sight. This is also the first time we introduced our Helicopter system which gives the players a camera view from the sky. The heli reports any suspects/civis it spots walking around outside on the level and shines a searchlight on them to aid in closing in on spotted locations.

Threats



Since the level is built as an Arena type threats in this level can be anywhere.

With this in mind, we took great care in making sure our main objective is a room filled with tied up civilians and a couple of suspects guarding them, making those rooms quite challenging to clear without harming any civilians.

(Image below: Before/after of one of the hostage rooms)


Aside from carefully planning entries and checking fire for civilians, the level is also filled with high pressure pipes that will obscure your line of sight when shot.

Other environmental considerations include the drops of rain on the player’s vision, and visual sway effects that intensify when the player is closer to the edges of the oil rig.

(Image below: A shot high-pressure pipe emitting vapor)


Mission Objectives



The objectives for this level are as follows:


  • Bring Order to Chaos.
  • Rescue all of the Civilians.
  • Stop the Livestream.
  • Shut down Rig Drill.

The main objective of the mission is to Terminate the UPF livestream, located somewhere on the Rig. Each playthrough the location of the main objective is randomly selected. The livestream area is also populated with tied up Rig workers that have been taken hostage.

A hidden objective is to prevent the main drill from overheating. Players can stumble upon this objective when in the drill room, which emits a loud yet (hopefully) not annoying siren throughout the level until he manages to shut the drill down.

Interactables



Interactables (in-level game elements that change in response to the player’s interactions) were important for breathing life into this level.

To start, we added a reportable dead body of a worker to each player spawn area. This is so players can see that unlike the home invasion in our Lawmaker mission where the UPF faction is present, the UPF in Leviathan has grown more extreme in their actions.

Furthermore, we added worker voice lines for inaccessible areas behind the barricaded staircase in the crew quarters. These workers react with a range of voicelines when they hear gunfire.

Meanwhile, In the control room we have a radio which players can use to communicate with COAST to inform them that Rig has been taken over by UPF terrorists, and LSPD SWAT is on board.

Last but not least, a hidden keycard that unlocks one of the computers in the fire control room suggests that there may have been an insider working with the UPF terrorists.

All of these interactable were designed to immerse the players into the story and give the level that “Ready or Not” environmental depth we all love.

Conclusion



New ways to challenge yourself are on the way in the future, and so is development better informed by your current feedback. Combined with improved telemetry, we are solidifying the foundation we have to continue supporting Ready or Not.

Now that you have a refreshed perspective on Leviathan, it’s a great time to dive back in (combined with the ongoing Steam sale on our DLC if you, or a lobby host, don’t have the Dark Waters DLC already!)

This concludes our 83rd development briefing, thank you for joining us. Be sure to fall in next time for more development news!

Follow Ready or Not on Steam here.
Our other links: Discord, X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Spotify.

Stack up and clear out.
VOID Interactive

Steam Weeklong Deal - 40% across the game/DLCs!

Attention Officers,



Ready or Not is now 40% off across the base game and DLC for the Steam Midweek Sale! Grab it while you can!

NPC AI Survey, Optimization; & DLC 1 Level Deep-dive

Attention Officers,



Welcome to the 82nd edition of our Ready or Not Development Briefing, January 31st, 2025.

Welcome to the first dev briefing of the new year! Today we’re highlighting the new NPC AI sentiment survey, discussing a newer approach we're taking to optimization, and offering a deep-dive breakdown to how we create RoN levels-- utilizing examples from the Home Invasion DLC.

We are re-gathering and doubling down our efforts to continue development on Ready or Not after returning back from our winter break about a month ago. Right now, we’re nearing the end of a flurry of careful planning and prototyping.

The breakdown of our level design process in this dev briefing will help contextualize just some of the work that goes into each content release of Ready or Not. Meanwhile, this comes in theme with our community mapping contest closing shortly (check our official Discord for more details)!

Speaking of which, much of our community will be happy to hear that some of the next upcoming yet-to-be-announced levels we're working on will be on the smaller-scale end. This will help balance out the grand scale of some of our more recent levels (i.e. large levels like Leviathan, 3 Letter Triad).

Note: These development briefings serve to keep you in the loop about parts of our ongoing support for Ready or Not, however the briefings do not encompass everything that we’re working on at a given moment. Please keep in mind that the content in our development briefings may still be a work in progress and subject to change.

NPC AI Sentiment Survey



As you may have already noticed, we just put out an NPC AI sentiment survey yesterday! Please fill it out here:
https://forms.gle/DsVQT2x76qEpvWvj8

We are grateful to see that we received an astonishing number of responses already, and we'd love for yours to be one of them-- every bit of feedback counts and helps us interpret your experiences!

If you are not sure what to put for a given question, chances are it is not a required question and you can skip it! If for some reason you fill out a question that was required but you did not have an answer to, please feel free to explain in the written response sections.

One of the ongoing goals we have for the game is the continued refinement of SWAT AI, Suspect AI, and Civilian AI. This survey will help us gather more concrete data on the current state of AI following Dark Waters' release, which included bug fixes and improvements across several areas of AI that we want to analyze the impact of and double-check for unintended issues.

One of the big focuses on this survey is breaking down the specific functions of AI that affect how the player perceives their level of difficulty, and how the AI behaviors can lead to frustration or satisfaction. Although gathering feedback from across our social platforms and feedback channels (like the one in our official Discord) are helpful, this allows us to target specific areas of the AI and gather that info in one place.

Optimization Efforts



We are now intertwining the system called "Unreal Insights" deeply into our ongoing performance optimization efforts to make the game run as smoothly as possible. This system shows the performance metrics of specific game events and processes, allowing us to pinpoint specific problem areas with greater efficiency.

Already we have seen noticeable early performance improvements by integrating this into our workflow, and as our technical artists and engineers continue to implement its use we expect the benefits to become even greater.

[Image below: General example of the Unreal Insights task graph analysis view-port, from the UE5 Developer Page]


Ready or Not Level Creation Deep-dive



The wonderful members of our level design team (namely Tisa for this one!) chronicled their efforts creating levels for Ready or Not and DLC 1 in specific.

The result is this piece that shares our philosophies and processes on how we go about creating levels for Ready or Not in general, using new BTS photos of Narcos development throughout the stage explanation and at the end using a full example of Lawmaker from DLC 1 in particular:

Creating a level in Ready or Not follows a multi-stage pass process from idea inception to final polish.

[Image below: The levels covered (Narcos and Lawmaker) are influenced by the feedback y'all gave in our Home Invasion map poll]


Stage 1 (Planning)

It all starts with production or deciding what level to make. At VOID every member gets a chance to pitch in an idea for what they find would be an exciting level to make, keeping in mind inspiration from community feedback.

Everybody involved writes their ideas in the form of a game design document (GDD) that gets added to the stack and from there, based on the target theme for the DLC and the fun + innovative factor, gets picked to be the level we’re gonna work on.

Our narrative designers and concept artists start to sketch out various ideas for the level and the lead level designer will create a Design brief that each level designer will receive to start the prototype pass.

[Image below: A sketch of the layout of Narcos, along with doorways and other key elements]


Stage 2 ( Prototype)

Level design gets into the first so-called ‘prototype pass.’ We quickly make several versions of the level to explore what’s fun about it and how we want to approach creating the alpha version. Since Ready or not is a realistic game with heavy themes, we like to ground our levels on real life as well.

That means we do extensive research, gather real life references, if we get the chance, go to real life locations, make sure the architecture fits the target level for this area etc. At this stage, it is not unheard off to scrap the level if we find it to be lacking in any way. Prototype passes are there for this particular reason, like sketches for artists, level designers do quick block-outs they can toss if it doesn’t meet the quality bar we hope to achieve for our levels.

[Image below: Layout of Narcos based on research of similar neighborhood development design, made to look like a GPS view]


Once each level designer has created what they wanted, they pass it on to be reviewed by our lead level designer. The lead level designer will then do a review on each prototype and together with the level designer for that level, decide which of these do they want to use for the Alpha pass.

Note that very often each prototype has something of value, so the Alpha may become the joined version of all these prototypes. The best parts of all if you will.

Stage 3 (Alpha)

After the best prototype has been chosen, we start to go more in detail with the blockouts, adding navigation, doors, AI, cover and making the level playable. Once we have the level in a pretty good shape we invite our combat designer who gets in and starts tweaking the AI to get the desired combat behavior. After they’re done our internal QA also starts doing runs on the level to flush out any important issues at this stage.

[Image below: Blockout version of Narcos]


When we have a strong Alpha candidate, each level designer writes a level handover document consisting of all the important information, screenshots, references and reasoning for each part of the level. That level and the handover document then gets passed on to the Environment artist assigned for that level. This is also the time the rest of the team starts working on the level to get all the features out, like audio team recording all the voicelines needed, character art team creating the suspects and civilians etc.

Throughout this time the level designer is in close contact to all teams working on the level in case anybody has any questions, and to make sure the design intent doesn’t get lost in the process of going through other departments.

Stage 4 (Beta)

After the Environment pass has been completed and the level gets its shine, level designers return to the level to do multiple passes.

  • Collision pass – The level designer will create blocking volumes around the entire level preventing players/AI from going in non playable places, optimizing movement.
  • Visibility pass – The level designer will add in visibility blocker to any cracks in geometry to prevent AI from shooting players in unfair ways.
  • Navigation pass ― Level designers will at this point polish up navigation and make sure there is no navigation in a non playable space. Our system relies heavily on navigation, spawns stack up, cover, clear, rooms and other points on the navigation itself so for optimization and to avoid any AI bugs this step is quite important.
  • Door pass – The level designer will make sure all doors and it’s features are working correctly for the player and the swat AI.
  • Cover pass – The level designer will make sure all cover points are generated and are in the right positions for AI to use them.
  • Interactable pass – The level designer will make sure all custom logic still works and is implemented correctly.
[Image below: Blockout of iinteractable related to the Informant on Narcos]

[Image below: Red blockout triangles in Narcos indicate the sightlines from one doorway to another. The goal is to allow the player to easily see each new doorway without exposing them to too much danger of being shot in the process]


Stage 5 (Content Complete)

In this stage level designer will communicate with all other teams to make sure all the features for this level have successfully been implemented and are working as intended. Throughout this process the level is heavily tested by QA, making sure it’s ready for public release.

DLC 1 Lawmaker Design Dev Commentary



Lawmaker Layout

For Lawmaker we wanted to create a mansion, big rooms and wide corridors.
Most mansions have really unique layouts and weird corners you won’t find in ordinary houses, and that is something we found extremely fun and unique in a sense that we don’t have many yet in Ready or Not.

Even though mansions do have multiple weird angles and unique layouts, they are very structurally accurate and if you look at it from the top down there is almost always a good architectural plan for the building.

The Lawmaker simplified plan was 2 rectangles intersecting with the third rectangle at 45 degree angle. This gave the building those nice connecting 45 degree corners and unique look we wanted for the rooms and corridors, making it look and feel quite satisfying when clearing out rooms.

[Image below: Lawmaker basic layout concept draft]


To make the mansion feel more manageable to clear we made the rooms a lot bigger than our usual RoN rooms and capitalized on all the affordances from that.


  • By making everything a bit wider we gave players and AI more maneuvering possibilities, preventing any bumping into players and getting stuck on small passages.
  • Even though the mansion does look huge, by making the rooms bigger the number of rooms is pretty much the same as in all our maps, removing the frustration of having too many doors to breach and staying in line with our Ready or Not formula.
  • And lastly, bigger rooms and hallways was something we wanted to target for this level as that is something that is unique and true to real life and we know our players enjoy realism and a good challenge.

[Image below: Lawmaker room sectioning]

Lawmaker Gameplay:

We also have to consider what kind of gameplay we want to have in these spaces before we even start creating anything. For Lawmaker we knew we had a home invasion\hostage situation and we wanted to develop systems for our AI to act in correspondence to that.

The invaders are a group of eco-terrorists, not necessarily the hardest group to fight. Other than the two boss characters the group doesn’t have much weapon training, and are quite surprised they actually managed to pull this off and enter this house. So behavior like hesitation, cowardice and running away is expected.

So how did we plan to make this group feel like a threat and make them harder to capture?
Aside from increased hostage taking where you really have to watch not to shoot the civilian, we implemented our zones system across multiple floors.

What that means is the suspects will fire at players if they spot them, and if given a chance they will either try to flank the players or retreat to another zone in hopes of surprising the player again.
In the case of Lawmaker, if they manage to get away from the player they will move up a floor, so if the players fail to catch them individually on the bottom floors, they will have groups of suspects to deal with on the top floor. Which also brings us to the next thing we wanted to add.

In real life suspects will likely move all civilians to the same room where they hold them hostage.
We wanted to add that to the mix as well, making it really important to know where SWAT officers land their shots if the room is full of suspects and civilians.

Knowing all this, we come back to the layout.
[Image below: Zone layout for Lawmaker]


We knew we wanted flanking behavior from our AI, and we wanted to restrain most of the fighting to the house itself and very little to the outside areas. So beside bigger looping paths, we implemented lots of mini loops in the house which the AI can use to do just that. This gives a lot of value to players who wedge the door behind them or watch their back.

Since Lawmaker is a 3 story mansion we also had to consider flanking and AI zone retreating between multiple floors. For that reason we made sure each wing and the center has a staircase connecting the floors.

All these decisions also increase replayability as each playthrough players can choose a different path to take based on the active situation. To increase replayability even more we gave players 3 unique player starts they can use to approach the house. Each with its own challenges.

  • Main entrance is the safest to approach the building but places players in the center of the map, needing to decide which side to clear first.
  • Side entrance gives players the option to enter through the center or the back of the west wing, but players are exposed to windows on the west wing while approaching.
  • Back entrance is giving the players most possibilities of entering, center, west or east wing, but it is the most open as players are exposed to windows from all of these.

Narrative \ Interactables

Following the narrative for Lawmaker we wanted to create objectives and interactables to tell the story and help players connect it.

Once the eco-terrorists entered the mansion owned by Sven Anderson Lincoln, owner of the oil company they were protesting about, they started destroying the property, throwing oil and paint on priceless paintings, shooting sculptures, beating and rounding up staff that were in the house, taking them hostage etc. Sven’s wife and children were in the upper floors and managed to get to a hidden panic room, while Sven was caught somewhere in the house.

So we knew we wanted “Locate the family in the panic room” to be one of our objectives. We created the logic for that event making sure we tackle a few issues:

  • The children must not be harmed in any way in gameplay
  • Multiple locations for the panic rooms must be set so that each playthrough it’s different
  • We were a bit limited to what SWAT voicelines were available to say, so had to take that into considerations
  • Active panic room needs to catch the players attention when they find it

First we placed the wife and two children inside the panic room, and they would never come out as it is likely SWAT would prefer them to be safe until the team has cleared the entire property.
We then created a LIVE camera feed in the security room that also shows other cameras around the property. Some have been spray painted over and destroyed, making the one from the active panic room the only LIVE feed.

To ensure players do get the right picture we added an interact button they can press which switches all the security monitors to the panic room feed and its location in the house. To draw players' attention to the security desk and that interactive button we placed flashing red lights on the active monitors. That made sure we tackled the first issue.

For the second issue we placed two locations for the panic rooms that get randomly selected when the players start the match. That also gets connected to our security room interactable so players can always see which panic room is active even before they reach it.

We solved the third issue by simply having the mother do all the talking once players interact with the panic room. Lastly, we placed red blinking lights outside of the panic room to indicate to players that this panic room is active. We also made sure these lights can be seen from hallways so that players don’t miss them, removing frustration in searching for them.

Another objective we wanted is to locate Sven, the owner of the house that is somewhere inside the house. For that one, similar to our panic room logic, we made sure Sven is in 5 different locations at the start of the map. It’s also worth noting that as an AI he can also flee on his own, making the search for him unique every time we play.


Conclusion



Please make sure you fill out what you can in the NPC AI sentiment survey, it is very helpful in contextualizing future considerations to our AI systems! Last but not least, here's a final closing remark on our level creation process:

With every map we create we want to make sure we bring something new and interesting to the table, new kind of layouts, new kind of mood, new kind of gameplay, new challenges etc. Creating these is really something every level designer at VOID enjoys and puts their heart into, and we LOVE watching how our players tackle each new challenge we present them.

It is worth noting even though our maps are playtested by our QA team we take feedback from watching our players tackle each area in the level and if we feel certain parts need adjusting we are not strangers to addressing these issues in the updates. Our final goal is to create a unique and enjoyable experience for our players.

This concludes our 82nd development briefing, thank you for joining us. Be sure to fall in next time for more development news!



Follow Ready or Not on Steam here.
Our other links: Discord, X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Spotify.


Stack up and clear out.
VOID Interactive






Ready or Not NPC AI Sentiment Survey

Attention Officers,



Please fill out our NPC AI Sentiment Survey below! For this survey we are seeking your detailed feedback dedicated to many areas of Ready or Not's SWAT, Suspect, and Civilian AI: https://forms.gle/DsVQT2x76qEpvWvj8


Besides the normal sifting through feedback throughout our feedback channels and socials, we want to have some focused questions and answers regarding AI behavior topics for the game's current state, so thank you for insights you can offer through this survey!

Stack up and clear out,
VOID Interactive

Community Content Exhibit Vol. 15
Since this is part two of our previous newsletter, we'll just hop right into it!

Following a message from our COO Stirling on the development of Ready or Not and the different modes that used to be present on the maps, we'll talk some more data from the survey, and field some of the more popular questions from our Newsletter comments.

A word on Modes and Maps



Ready or Not released into early access with a lot of experimental content — some of you may remember grey maps with no art at all, some that were partially completed, and some that after significant time with users, were cut completely (I’m looking at you Fast Food).

The road to releasing Ready or Not into early access was not an easy one, but once we finally had something fun we wanted to make sure there was enough content to keep players coming back while we worked on new things. That’s how this came about, as it was a pretty easy way of giving you guys more stuff to play without the request for entirely new maps. However, like many things back then it was added without a consideration for how it would affect development of future content. While some maps did have a number of modes available, many of the new ones had only one extra (Valley of the Dolls for example only had Raid if I recall), which usually only changed the rules of engagement. It didn’t do much else.

As our team grew and the desire to make brand new content increased from both internally and externally, it became very apparent that developing these modes alongside the maps would not be tenable with a small development team, alongside all of the testing required for these maps to work. Some even used different parts of the level, essentially meaning that not only did we need design to stay focused on each mode, but art would have to get involved to ensure each mode was fully ready for presentation.

So, you can imagine on release having 19ish missions, each having 5 modes, and some of those inconsistently having different “levels” within them, and also having to make completely different briefings for each mode variety, we had shot ourselves in the foot with this experimental, early access feature.

It pains me to see stuff like this disappear and I understand the community sentiment about its removal, but I also feel as if there’s a bit of rose-tinting going on. Many of the missions were just not there, they didn’t add too much variety and our analytics showed that most people barely touched some modes (eg. Bomb threat on Dealer). Could we have hunkered down, hired 20 designers and split them up into each map? No, not really. Money == An efficient workforce, it actually means you need to manage that many people and scale up all other aspects of development to match.

Scaling up the team was done, but in a way that allowed to progress forwards with new content and a more sensible pairing of narrative and gameplay (eg. Kids robbing a gas station aren’t placing C4 all over the building). We’re still finding our way but many of the steps taken last year have paved the way for the ability to actually create more content that aligns with this, without worrying about missing deadlines or running out of time.

With that out of the way, I hope with some extra clarity, I do want to note that I’ve made it my business to go through many posts identical to this and many more quite similar, to ensure that we release a feature that allows for players to curate experiences. I’m not sure when something like that will appear, but I do want it to be in a reasonable amount of time.

This should also signal that there isn’t a plan to stop working on RoN and giving it more love, more content, and additional features.


Next up, some stats from our Sentiment Survey.


  • Average Playtime: 183 hrs
  • Top 3 favorite maps [minus Gas]:

    1. 23 Megabytes A Second - Streamer
    2. A Lethal Obsession - Ridgeline
    3. Sins of the Father - Penthouse

  • Most commonly requested weapons: More DMR-type rifles [which I think we fulfilled in Dark Waters], AK-type rifles, Bolt Action rifles.
    Note: There was also a large spread of maker-specific AR parts, but as they're functionally identical, I didn't include them in the list.


The DLC wish list question was also so varied that it wouldn't be possible to make a 'Top X' list within reasonable amount of space, but there was quite a few bits that even we didn't think of adding in there. Though there was also quite a bit that we already have coming down the pipeline as of now, so please be sure to keep a close eye on what we have coming.

Common Questions



Q. Why don't you talk more about [AI, performance, optimization, etc.]

A. In the past it frustrated me as a wee gamer to only see a company beat the same drum over and over again, so I try not to address the same thing too often since there are only so many ways you can say 'We're aware and working on it' before it starts to get old and/or hollow.

Q. Where's Steam Workshop/Why Mod.io

A. We went with mod.io because it offered some features that the workshop didn't specifically with Unreal Engine. Workshop still may appear in the future as we continue to develop Ready or Not, as Stirling said in his message above.

Q. PvP When?

A. We're not ready to speak on this topic yet, as PvE coop continues to remain our core focus for this project but we certainly have not forgotten about it.

Q. Why don't you Fix [X] instead of releasing DLC?

A. Our team consists of, now, a significant amount of people of a lot of different disciplines. Our mappers, artists, and modelers are hard at work producing new content for the upcoming free content drop and DLCs while our programmers, designers, and even some of our affiliate studios are tearing out a non-zero amount of hair tweaking and fixing Ready or Not.

—
In our next newsletter, you can look forward to even more information about the previous year and some previews of some things we got coming next year!

Outside of our drops, you can find more of this wonderful content here:
https://discord.gg/TjyfbXTU28 or https://www.nexusmods.com/readyornot/

Follow Ready or Not on Steam here.
Our other links: Spotify, Discord, X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook.

Keep your feet on the ground.
VOID Interactive

Ready or Not Steam Midweek Sale, 40% off!

Community Content Exhibit Vol. 14
Attention Officers new and old!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you.

As the first community letter of the year we'll be covering quite a bit, so we'll be chopping it into two pieces. One where we deliver some more hopeful and thankful messages from our team, talk about the killer mods of last year, and talk a little bit about the data we'd gleamed from the Survey.

To start, some messages from our Level team:

From the Team



To everybody who managed to try out our new DLC, thank you so much for your continued support!
Watching you guys play the levels we've spent so long on gives us incredible pleasure.
As level designers we spend much time on every corner of the level, creating sections that you might find fun, challenging, and sometimes hard. And it's simply a blast to watch you guys navigate through these challenges in your own specific ways.

Big props also go to all the RoN custom mappers out there and your patience and persistence in updating your levels when needed! Every RoN fan out there applauds you!
And finally Merry Christmas to all of you!!!
I can't wait till you see what we have planned for you next year!
- Tisa - Environmental Artist

Hey Officers!
As the new year begins, I wanted to take a moment to say we all hope you’ve been enjoying our latest DLC! We level designers spent a lot of time and effort into making this one so seeing your reactions through feedback or shared videos—be it playthroughs, tactics, or hilarious moments—makes all the effort incredibly rewarding!

Every suggestion, critique, and shout-out helps make Ready or Not even better. Thank you for the continued support, for being part of this amazing community, and for making this journey so rewarding. Here’s to another exciting year filled with updates, mods, and surprises yet to come
Stay safe, and Merry Christmas!
- Katarina - Junior Level Designer


Survey Data Preview



In total we had a whopping Sixteen Thousand replies to our survey with the significant portion of the replies coming from Steam itself. Obviously there is some data we cannot share for marketing and privacy reasons but there are some bits we can, such as the game mode spread.



We had mentioned around the release of Home Invasion that we were surprised how passionate our player base was about Commander Mode, but a 1:2 ratio of Commander players was certainly a surprise. We kept that in mind with Dark Waters and ensured that the new maps were playable on release.

We did also collect hardware data instead of relying on the Steam Hardware Survey alone, but it seems that was unnecessary as they seem to align quite well with one another. For those curious, you can check it here!

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam


Killer Mods



Surprising no-one, the king of mods in 2024 was the Venerable Gunfighter Gameplay Improvement Mod!



Jerrys taste in shooters as well as the plethora of options resonate with a significant amount of our player base to the tune of one hundred forty five thousand downloads as a sort of New Game+ experience. We'd actually did a mini-interview of Jerry, you can find it here!

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1144200/announcements/detail/6903544142289348012
—
In our next newsletter, you can look forward to even more information about the previous year and some previews of some things we got coming next year!

Outside of our drops, you can find more of this wonderful content here:
https://discord.gg/TjyfbXTU28 or https://www.nexusmods.com/readyornot/

Follow Ready or Not on Steam here.
Our other links: Spotify, Discord, X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook.

Keep your feet on the ground.
VOID Interactive

Ready or Not, LSPD Bundle, and the Home Invasion DLC now on sale!

Vol. 81 - Ready or Not Development Briefing

Attention Officers,



Welcome to our 81st Ready or Not Development briefing, December 20th, 2024!

To start off, we’ll see you all again with more development briefings in 2025! With our studio going on holiday over the next weeks, we wanted to do a special development ‘debrief’ in the form of messages to you— our community— from across the team here at VOID Interactive.

We’re immensely grateful for the support you have shown Ready or Not since our 1.0 launch in December 2023, and for your reception to the Home Invasion and Dark Waters releases that have happened since then. It’s remarkable to leave things off on a high note and to work towards an even better future for Ready or Not and our community next year!

Note: These development briefings serve to keep you in the loop about parts of our ongoing support for Ready or Not, however the briefings do not encompass everything that we’re working on at a given moment. Please keep in mind that the content in our development briefings may still be a work in progress and subject to change.


Messages from the VOID Team



Our team strove to learn as much as we could from our 1.0 and Home Invasion releases and to put those into practice in delivering the Dark Waters Release. Communication, coordination, and iteration across the board pulled together to a new degree, spanning quality assurance, narrative, engineering, animation, game design, playtesters, level design, audio, art, production, operations, our partnerships, marketing, and more.

We’ve also been paying attention to countless community posts and reviews, tracking feedback/bugs in the process and ensuring that your voices from all angles are able to be heard in the development cycle.

Without further ado, here’s some of our teams’ messages to all of you in our community heading into the new year:


As the Art Director on Ready or Not, it always fills me with such joy and motivation knowing we have an incredible, passionate, and supporting player base. Really, it’s the fans of our game that are our biggest inspiration for what we do, and I am personally very grateful for the opportunity to wake up each morning and keep making content for you all.

For all those who have been with us on this long journey to where we are now, in all our triumphs and struggles - I want to personally give a huge heartfelt thank you for the continued love of RoN. We wouldn’t be here without you all, and I personally can’t wait to keep growing the game in all kinds of fun directions.

Thank you again fellow LSPD officers, I salute you all and I hope to see you in the game.

Best,
― Mark, Art Director



From all of us in the audio team - sending season's greetings to new and veteran players. We're delighted with the response to the Dark Waters DLC and are very excited for next year. Keep your ear to the ground... put em on safe and let em hang!

― Zack Bower, Sound Director / Composer



Among many things, I would like to acknowledge all the fantastic work that our Engineering department has accomplished this year.

From our internal VOID Interactive developers, to our development partners, they have all put in a massive effort to get this update over the line and work on the game over the year. Each of them have helped to deliver a fantastic end product all within the timeframe we set out to deliver in.

Their ability to work multi-disciplinarily with teams such as Design and QA departments have been inspiring; all while facing and overcoming some of the challenges of working fully remote across multiple different time zones.

In recognition of our team's work, VOID as a whole, and our community, I believe that there is wonderful space to grow as we continue to improve RoN into the future!

― Kobe Taylor, Programming Team Lead



Being a part of this amazing community has made the experience one of the best I’ve ever had. Thank you all for contributing to such a positive and inspiring environment! Wishing everyone a fantastic end of the year, and I look forward to seeing you all in multiplayer lobbies!

― Alan Keune, Lead Technical Artist



Hey, it's Dan, VOID’s SWAT Technical Advisor. It's been a great year working with the team here to bring some really cool content out for Ready or Not. Since the beginning of the project, the goal for me has always been to bring authenticity to the game while still working within the artistic and creative visions that have made RoN so much fun to play.

There's certainly more work to be done, with some reworks and tweaks from my list on the technical accuracy side of production, and a future with still more content, but boy how far we've come!

It's always satisfying to lurk on the internet and find fan comments that hit on suggestions I've made knowing that the team is working on something, sometimes entire systems to address them while keeping RoN's unique gameplay and style. 2025, here we come!

― Dan, SWAT Technical Advisor



I’m very appreciative and incredibly lucky to be able to work among such talented and passionate people, and I can’t wait for what 2025 will bring :)

― Sam Beaman, Associate Lead 2D Artist



As the team behind Ready or Not, we're blown away by your fearless dive into the intense and raw reality of Los Sueños. Your bold engagement and feedback challenge us daily, pushing us to grow and inspiring us to enhance and evolve this wild ride we are on together. Keep on bringing order to chaos and keep your feedback coming: we are here for it. On behalf of the entire team, thank you for your incredible support this year.

― Behrad, Marketing and Brand Lead



Wow, what a year! I’d like to extend my deepest gratitude to our incredible team for their diligence and hard work throughout 2024. Following a monumental year like 2023 was no easy feat, but I’m fortunate to work alongside such talented folks who got us there. Also a huge thanks to our community; your attention, feedback, and support make all the difference. The critique, praise, suggestions, modding, and thousands of hours of content online is what makes RoN something truly special.

This year began with a clear focus: improving the 1.0 release content, introducing new features, and kickstarting work on our DLCs.

As the year progressed, our team expanded. With growth came the need for better processes, and while those presented challenges, it also laid the groundwork for long-term improvement. Growth can be tough, but it brings subtle, foundational shifts that strengthen the team. We came out the other end stronger.

2024 was a year of continuous improvement—for the game, our team, and how we release updates. Thanks to this mindset, each release this year saw fewer issues, greater attention to QA testing, and stronger production practices. This culminated in the successful launch of DLC 2, Dark Waters, a testament to our evolution as a company and as individuals.

Looking back to the Steam Early Access period, where we often worked right up to deadlines, cramming content without adequate internal QA or enforced timelines, the difference is night and day. While that period allowed for a free environment to experiment and add more content quickly, it came at the cost of content quality and team quality of life, often resulting in late nights patching and amending builds, attempting to quell issues highlighted by dissatisfied players.

Today, I’m incredibly proud of how far we’ve come. I’m personally very grateful that our workflow has been improved to a point where after a release we can close the Jira boards, log off Slack, and touch some grass.

Thank you all for an amazing 2024. We have exciting plans ahead for Ready or Not and VOID Interactive. This journey is far from over. We’re just getting started.

― Stirling Rank, Game Director



Conclusion



Ready or Not would not be where it is today without each one of you, and once again for that we are unendingly grateful.

Next year will be an eventful process of improving the game in concert with continuing to grow our small but mighty team. We’ll see you in 2025 and wish you all a restful period accompanied by friends, family, and fun.

If you’re looking to bring more officers into the fold or get into it yourself, Ready or Not and its LSPD Bundle are now on a major discount for the Steam Winter Sale:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1144200/Ready_or_Not/
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/48378/Ready_or_Not_LSPD_Bundle/

You can also now find our merch on 20% off for the Winter Sale period too!: https://merch.voidinteractive.net/



This concludes our 81st development briefing, thank you for joining us. Be sure to fall in next time for more development news!



Follow Ready or Not on Steam here.
Our other links: Discord, X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Spotify.

Stack up and clear out.
VOID Interactive

Dark Waters Patch 1 Changelog

Dark Waters Release Patch 1 Changelog



Here are new fixes and changes in Patch 1 for the Dark Waters Release!

AI:



  • Fixed civilians sometimes failing to seek out the player once Bring order to chaos has been achieved
  • Fixed final suspect sometimes failing to seek out the player.
  • Adjusted comply animations to ensure the suspects' weapons do not point at the player.
  • Increased speed of compliance animations.
  • Fixed SWAT AI not responding to a breach command when one of them is in the middle of a blocking activity (restraining suspects/civilians, for example).
  • Fixed suspects being unable to surrender during CS gas stuns.
  • Fixed civilians exiting surrender while within line of sight of SWAT.
  • Fixed suspects sometimes not picking up weapons or failing to draw a gun after exiting surrender with no line of sight on SWAT.
  • Fixed SWAT AI being unable to breach into a room with suspects playing dead directly in front of the door.
  • Fixed pre-arrested civilians not giving the correct score if collected by trailers before the player can report them.
  • Fixed trailers standing still when tasked with clearing collected evidence.
  • Fixed surrendered suspects/civilians constantly standing back up while in CS gas.
  • Fixed suspects sometimes not being able to shoot after CS gas stun ends.
  • Fixed CS gas grenades sometimes not affecting AI when deployed via the gas grenade launcher.


UI:



  • Fixed unresponsive confirmation button when deleting loadout presets.
  • Fixed SWAT AI Officer loadouts resetting to the currently used preset when entering the loadout menu.
  • Fixed variants of customization items disappearing when hovering over other customization items.
  • Fixed wrong variants displaying for locked items when the list is scrolled quickly.
  • Fixed missing highlight from profile button in mods menu.
  • Fixed missing HUD icon for canted sights on gamepad.
  • Fixed soft complete vote counter displaying the incorrect number of votes needed to end the mission.
  • Fixed lobby manager not updating while open.
  • Fixed various titles and descriptions in the gamepad settings.


Customization:



  • Fixed arm slightly clipping through the Atlas Pro shirt while holding certain guns.
  • Fixed Judge’s big head clipping through the Eli-Tec helmet.
  • Fixed being unable to unequip the headphones when using no helmet.


Audio



  • Fixed interactables on Mirage at Sea and Leviathan sometimes causing all VO to drop until level restart.
  • Fixed incorrect VO when ordering SWAT to deploy shield.


Level Specific:


Three Letter Triad



  • Fixed light in one of the large rooms disappearing at a distance.
  • Fixed various visual issues.
  • Adjusted door collision to allow all doors to be pushed open by walking into them after peeking them.
  • Fixed missing puddle footstep audio.
  • Fixed certain doors not generating audio.
  • Fixed heads intersecting with hats on certain suspects.
  • Fixed suspects' chest rigs sometimes clipping into their body armor.
  • Fixed music sometimes not beginning as intended.

Mirage at Sea



  • Fixed scuffed interior lightmap.
  • Fixed various visual issues.
  • Fixed only being able to perform orders from one side on a certain doorway.
  • Fixed bullets being unable to penetrate double stacked breakable glass.
  • Fixed missing facial animation from civilian.
  • Fixed various small floor gaps.
  • Fixed missing audio when shooting aquarium.
  • Fixed TV on boat playing Home Invasion audio.
  • Fixed music sometimes not beginning as intended.

Leviathan



  • Fixed various visual issues.
  • Fixed suspects being able to engage players in two of the levels' spawn points.
  • Made dead guy less happy.
  • Made radio effect more prominent during on of the interactable audios.
  • Fixed SWAT using wrong voice lines when shutting down the drill.
  • Fixed missing reaction volumes.
  • Fixed suspect LOD issue.
  • Fixed music logic, which caused combat sections to be skipped.
  • Fixed rig worker VO sometimes not firing for clients in multiplayer.

Station



  • Fixed certain characters' shadows appearing incorrectly on Epic shadow quality.
  • Fixed LOD issue on one of the evidence boards.
  • Fixed various visual issues.
  • Fixed missing face on one of the characters in certain station commander mode sublevels.
  • Rearranged certain character voices.
  • Fixed one of the conversations triggering outside of the intended room.

Relapse



  • Fixed shiny gore on low/medium shadow quality settings.
  • Fixed various visual issues.

Buy cheap, buy twice



  • Fixed car price meshes and decals levitating when car windows are broken.
  • Fixed various visual issues.

Sins of the father



  • Fixed various LOD issues.

Ides of March



  • Fixed various visual issues.

Elephant



  • Fixed various visual issues.
  • Fixed being able to get stuck between a rock and a wall.

Thank you, come again



  • Fixed silent character.


Miscellaneous Fixes:



  • Fixed various AI, UI and Audio related crashes.
  • Fixed crash caused by picking up door jams.
  • Fixed rare crash on Rig.
  • Fixed helicopter tracking arrested targets.
  • Fixed being able to freelean through certain level geometry.
  • Fixed lobbies sometimes incorrectly appearing as not joinable in the main menu.
  • Fixed incorrect naming scheme on certain customization item unlock requirements.
  • Fixed typos/grammar issues in various briefings.
  • Fixed not having access to Command Wheel on gamepad during a specific section of the Training.
  • Fixed carried bodies being rotated incorrectly.
  • Fixed freelean not working on gamepad.
  • Fixed minor animation issue during one of the conversations in Station.
  • Smoothed helicopter movement for clients in multiplayer.
  • Improved hand poses during surrender animations.
  • Fixed an unintentional way of being able to obtain the “Big Shell Specialist” achievement with arrested suspects.
  • Fixed evidence models in Station being overly shiny and dark.
  • Fixed head attachments offsetting while using the multitool on doors.
  • Fixed white phosphor NVG overlay not working for clients in multiplayer.
  • Fixed teamcam appearing during the score screen, if opened prior to reaching the score screen.
  • Fixed helicopter sometimes being too quiet on spawn.
  • Fixed going back in Command Wheel making player lean on gamepad.
  • Fixed camera placement of boat loading screen.
  • Fixed visual issues during boat loading screen on lower graphics settings.
  • Fixed animation issues with Zenit grip.
  • Fixed certain suspects having floating magazines.
  • Fixed various animation issues of pistol wielding suspects.
  • Fixed modio failing to uninstall mods after unsubscribing.
  • Fixed Phoenix Flight Suit having incorrect unlock requirements.
  • Fixed flashlight appearing overly bright for one frame when activated for the first time in a level.
  • Fixed special characters being displayed incorrectly in the credits.
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