Ready or Not is a 2023 tactical first-person shooter video game developed and published by Ireland-based VOID Interactive and released for Microsoft Windows.

Ready or Not follows the operations of a police SWAT team in the fictional American city of Los Sueños in the midst of a violent crime wave.

[2] The game was well-received for its atmosphere and gameplay and has been considered a spiritual successor to the similar SWAT series by Sierra Entertainment.

Suspects have a variety of behaviors when encountered by the player such as faking their deaths when shot, pretending to surrender and then pulling out a weapon, and using bystanders as human shields.

[5] Civilians also have a variety of behaviors when encountered or issued a verbal command by the player such as resisting, reaching for their phone to take a picture (which can be mistaken for the drawing of a handgun), and running away.

Fire discipline becomes especially essential to completing missions, as players who shoot restrained suspects, civilians, or AI team members will be engaged by police as punishment for violating those rules and ethics within the universe of the game.

Mental state deterioration rate depends on a variety of factors, such as killing suspects instead of arresting them or if a fellow SWAT team member dies.

The player character, Commander David “Judge” Beaumont, is assigned to lead the Los Sueños Police Department's D Platoon, SWAT.

Police investigations connect Mindjot, an unscrupulous free speech absolutist data hosting service, to the child pornography scheme.

During the raid, SWAT discovers evidence seized from a secret basement that Voll uses adult pornography to launder his activities while engaging in child exploitation, murder, and incest.

Some time later, "The Hand", a radical Islamist terrorist group, commits a mass shooting at the Neon nightclub in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes against them in Yemen.

SWAT also stops a mass shooting at Watt Community College and defeats the "Carriers of the Vine", a pagan misandrist cult led by Elaine Raskin, who is revealed to be part of a psychological operation somehow involving Judge.

The second DLC, in addition to new marine-themed maps, contains updates to clothing, a new aerial thermal camera mechanic, new animations, new AI behaviors, and new weapons.

[15] The 1.0 release also addresses overhauls to the effectiveness of less-lethal equipment, mental health in law enforcement, inter-agency cooperation, and officer personality traits.

[16][10] Similar to SWAT 3, Ready Or Not 's 1.0 release will include sophisticated AI that performs actions such as restraining suspects and taking cover autonomously rather than relying on player input.

Speculation suggested that this was due to the developers teasing a school shooting level on Reddit one day prior,[23] although this was denied by VOID.

[24] On June 16, 2022, Ready or Not was delisted from Steam after a takedown request was issued against the game for trademark infringement relating to a level set in a nightclub.

[30][31] Ethan Gach, writing an early review for Kotaku, called Ready or Not a "tactical horror game", "an unsettling SWAT fantasy" and "edgy copganda", he criticized the game's realism as "effective enough to disturb but too shallow not to descend into farce, or worse, Blue Lives Matter cosplay with fascist overtones and alt-right dog whistles".

VOID responded to Gach's review, denying any connection to extremism, saying that the alleged dog whistles were coincidental, and stating they would remove the references in question.

[32] In its review of the Home Invasion DLC, PC Gamer praised the gameplay and weapon additions while criticizing alleged class bias surrounding the Dorms level, in which the player forcibly evicts homeless people taking shelter from a hurricane.