Storm warning.
Ready or Not’s Home Invasion DLC feels like the expansion packs of old. There’s a wedge of new missions, a few new weapons, some cosmetics and a QOL update (free for all players) that eases a few of the game's pain points, refreshing its multiplayer lobbies while also beefing up AI and audio. Home Invasion also comes in at $9.99, making it a steal for those already invested in Void Interactive’s misanthropic cop-’em-up.
Home Invasion adds three new missions taking place after a once-in-a-century storm has burnt through the city of Los Sueños. This is the only thematic link between them, but it’s reinforced well—while each of the levels is different, flooded landscapes and scattered debris give them a cohesive visual identity.
The three new additions to the game’s arsenal feel inessential. Weapons in Ready or Not have always felt like they were there to fetishise rather than to provide meaningful gameplay options, and the DM4PDW assault rifle and 509 pistol both feel like decent, uninspiring choices in an armoury already full to the brim with very similar guns. I play Escape From Tarkov so I’m happy to get nerdy about firearms, but you could use most of the guns here interchangeably and never notice. The DM4PDW, for example, is slightly shorter than some of its compatriots so it’s technically easier to manoeuvre in close quarters, but then it also has a little more recoil—a trade-off, sure, but not a very impactful one
The Raider X P320 is a little more interesting at least. It’s a pistol carbine that provides a stable shooting platform. However, it’s essentially a pistol in a cute outfit, so it’s locked to semi-automatic and feels like you’re slinging Nerf darts at your enemies—not so much fun when they’re shooting back with shotgun shells and sprays of assault rifle fire. Still, I hope Ready or Not gets more weird weapons like this in later DLC drops.
The package is rounded off by a chunk of new cosmetics, although I was disappointed that they’re all simply given to you for free, whereas in the base game gear was handed out as you completed missions to a set standard, ensuring there was something to work for.
Among the three missions, the highlight is Lawmaker: a shoot-out in a sprawling mansion comprised of small rooms, occupied by heavily-armed home invaders. It's visually stunning, and Ready or Not’s excellent close-quarters fighting shines as you move between buildings, communicating frantically with your teammates as you try to keep track of a situation that’s going rapidly sideways.
The giant kitchens and dining rooms of the lower floors feel controllable until you head up one of the many sweeping staircases into a maze-like collection of bedrooms, walk-in wardrobes and even a room that has a giant golf game set up on a projector (because rich people are ridiculous). Here, gunfire can come from any angle, and I frequently found myself defending against enemies tumbling down stairs while also being pushed by opponents on the same floor. This sort of frenetic engagement is when Ready or Not is at its best.
Lawmaker is simultaneously eerie and brutal, like the best levels from Ready or Not's spiritual predecessor, SWAT 4. Void interactive has always demonstrated a talent for level design, both in creating compelling play spaces and in giving them the set dressing to feel like real places, and that’s been ramped up in Home Invasion.
This standard is maintained in the second level, Narcos, which sees you dispatched to bring order to chaos after an undercover officer is discovered and executed. It takes place in a sprawling chunk of suburbia, featuring squat, single-story houses, and alleyways crammed with well-armed gang soldiers. Clearing it is a tough prospect, but a unique experience that you can’t find anywhere else in Ready or Not. Our group of four was regularly lost amongst the identical looking buildings, and as soon as you lose focus you’re only seconds away from getting blown away by a criminal squirrelled away in a dark corner.
Finally there’s Dorms, a tonally jarring lowlight which tasks your SWAT team with clearing out a condemned building where homeless people are congregating to ride out the storm. Most of the enemies here are half-naked and holding knives. While some rooms do contain more lethal surprises, there’s a distinct sense that maybe you are the home invader here. It’s not Void Interactive's first brush with controversy: the base game had an active shooter situation set in a university that turned my stomach, and the whole game already has a sheen of misanthropy that distorts into something unpleasant and grim at times.
Obviously just the core idea of playing as militarised police is going to be too much for some, but I’ve always found Ready or Not okay to enjoy because you’re hoping not to kill anyone. Enemy encounters often have me yelling a warning or prepping a taser in the hope I won't have to pull the trigger on my rifle, and actually firing always feels like a failure. To get an S-rank on any level in the game, no one is allowed to die, either on your team or the enemy's.
This non-lethal route is nobler, but also much more difficult. Less-lethal weapons all have their own issues, from the limited capacity of the taser to the limited effect and chaotic friendly fire potential of the paintball-esque pepper ball gun. But, the “correct” way to play the game, as rewarded by the mechanics, is to cause minimal harm to anyone. It's a challenge offered by precious few other shooters, and I think it justifies the game's existence, however unsavoury its politics may be elsewhere.
But breaking up a gathering of homeless people sheltering from a storm? That’s pretty reprehensible
And for the most part, Ready or Not does try to keep its morality clear-cut. Most of the enemies in the base game are brutal home invaders, terrorists and child sex traffickers. But breaking up a gathering of homeless people sheltering from a storm? That’s pretty reprehensible, and while you could charitably suggest Void Interactive is doing something tongue-in-cheek, that isn’t the sense that I get in-game. It’s played straight, another reflection of the grim politics that sometimes seep into the game.
Ready or Not is disappointing in this way. Void Interactive has made a well-crafted and fun shooter, but it’s tone deaf, uninterested in examining the politics it weaves into the heart of its world. Home Invasion is more stellar content, but the package doesn’t sit well with me.
The role of police in modern society has come under increased scrutiny in the last few years, particularly in the US. It’s been something of a groundswell of change since the days of SWAT 4, and something that’s increasingly difficult to handle culturally after the last few years. I'm not convinced Void Interactive is up to the job of examining it, or even that it's interested in doing so. Regardless, it is doing a great job of making a shooter where violence feels like a last resort rather than something to revel in. That's a fun challenge for people like myself that have played shooters for years, and want that extra frisson of excitement as you approach each situation. You just might need to hold your nose to enjoy it sometimes.
