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Ready or Not's Dark Waters DLC has some cracking maps and scarily intelligent AI suspects that managed to outsmart me at almost every turn




Ready or Not is an intense and realistic tactical FPS where mistakes usually have violent consequences. But the upcoming Dark Water DLC has upped the ante with complex new maps and a new AI that's way too intelligent for my liking...
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Ready or Not, LSPD Bundle, and the Home Invasion DLC now on sale!

[h3]If you’re looking to bring more officers into the fold or get into it yourself, Ready or Not (50% off), its LSPD Bundle, and the Home Invasion DLC are now at major discount for the Steam Winter Sale:[/h3]

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.


[h2]Messages from the VOID Team [/h2]

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.

[h3]Stack up and clear out.
VOID Interactive [/h3]

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!

[h2]AI:[/h2]
  • 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.


[h2]UI:[/h2]
  • 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.


[h2]Customization:[/h2]
  • 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.


[h2] Audio [/h2]
  • 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.


[h2]Level Specific:[/h2]
[h3]3 Letter Triad[/h3]
  • 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.

[h3]Mirage at Sea[/h3]
  • 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.

[h3]Leviathan[/h3]
  • 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.

[h3]Station[/h3]
  • 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.

[h3]Relapse[/h3]
  • Fixed shiny gore on low/medium shadow quality settings.
  • Fixed various visual issues.

[h3]Buy cheap, buy twice[/h3]
  • Fixed car price meshes and decals levitating when car windows are broken.
  • Fixed various visual issues.

[h3]Sins of the father[/h3]
  • Fixed various LOD issues.

[h3]Ides of March[/h3]
  • Fixed various visual issues.

[h3]Elephant[/h3]
  • Fixed various visual issues.
  • Fixed being able to get stuck between a rock and a wall.

[h3]Thank you, come again[/h3]
  • Fixed silent character.


[h2]Miscellaneous Fixes:[/h2]
  • 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.