Giant Ready or Not update adds two extra missions, intense new difficulty modes

It's been a complicated couple of months for Ready or Not. To secure a release on consoles, developer Void Interactive has had to edit a variety of visual elements in its tactical FPS, softening some instances of gore and nudity. In response, Ready or Not players have launched a concerted Steam review bombing campaign, pulling the shooter's 'recent' rating down to 'mostly negative.' But despite the pushback, Ready or Not has now, finally, made it onto other platforms. With new players experiencing the spiritual successor to SWAT and Rainbow Six Vegas for the first time, a transformative new Ready or Not update introduces two extra missions and overhauls the game's difficulty settings.

Building on the existing roster of Ready or Not missions, Void has released 'Stolen Valor,' where you need to rescue a missing police officer from an apartment building, and 'Hunger Strike,' which throws you into the middle of a gang shootout at a fast food restaurant. Combined with the base game and all the DLC, that means Ready or Not now boasts 26 full missions. 'Greased Palms' is probably still the toughest, but as one of the best FPS game for hardcore tactics nears its fourth birthday, Void is conscious of its players' rising skill levels, and wants to make the experience more varied.

The new Ready or Not update totally revises the existing difficulty system. In the past, the best way to alter RoN's toughness level was with Ready or Not mods, which let you adjust the intelligence, accuracy, and general behavior of suspect's AI. Now, Void has created and launched three new difficulty presets. 'Casual' is the easiest, and designed for new players. 'Standard' will be the most familiar to RoN regulars, and 'Hard' is for people who feel like they've mastered each mission and want to push themselves. It requires coordinated tactics and a lot of strategy.

"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," Void says. "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."

On Standard and Hard modes, enemies might switch their weapons from full auto to semi auto in order to improve their accuracy at range. If you're playing on Casual, your AI companions are more likely to let you engage with suspects than shoot them themselves. On the contrary, if you make the jump to Hard, your SWAT compadres become more "combat effective," allowing you to coordinate complex assaults with greater efficiency.

Ready or Not's difficulty can be adjusted from mission to mission. There are also new achievements which can only be unlocked by finishing levels on some of the harder settings. On top of the extra missions, achievements, and difficulty modes, the full Ready or Not update also introduces four new weapons: the M32A1 rotary grenade launcher, the .50AE pistol, the TRPL less-lethal pepperball pistol, and the 590M magazine-fed pump-action shotgun. The update is out now, Tuesday July 15.

In regards to the backlash against changes made to Ready or Not to secure its release on consoles, Void Interactive has published a statement explaining why certain edits were necessary and showcasing precisely which parts of the game have been altered.

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