Last Updated on Oct 29, 2025 @ 14:52:30 PM.
Ready or Not made the switch to consoles back in July, after having been incredibly popular on PC for the last few years. We reviewed it ourselves, as a matter of fact. It seemed like a divisive time for the title, with PC players annoyed that their versions were having to be changed due to the console policies, a perceived graphical downgrade, and more controversy involving a Community Manager’s comments recently.
We were lucky enough to speak to Chris Stone, the General Manager at VOID Interactive, about all things Ready or Not, including the differences in the versions, the future, and more.
| EDITOR’S NOTE |
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| Due to this being a written interview, some answers have been edited for clarity/brevity, without removing intent or context. |
Firstly, thank you so much for your time! For those who are unaware, could you please introduce yourself and describe your role?
I am Chris Stone, the General Manager at VOID Interactive. As GM, I oversee the day-to-day operations of Void Interactive, while collaborating with the executive team, establishing the vision for new projects, and creating short-term and long-term strategic goals. Furthermore, I manage the timelines for achieving commercial outcomes and prioritizing company projects, and assist in making strategic decisions to ensure the health of the studio.
What challenges popped up for yourselves when porting Ready or Not from PC across to consoles?
I’d say something that was a bit of a challenge was working through integrating the command system of Ready or Not for console controllers. We’ve given players a lot of granular control on how they manage their SWAT team and individual officers, so it was pretty tricky to translate that command system for gamepads while still maintaining a high level of player control. We wanted it to be intuitive and not clumsy in any way. This is something you see quite often when games try to transition from mouse and keyboard to a controller.
Our strategy was strong, though, launching gamepad support for PC audiences on Steam first, many months in advance. This allowed us to test out controller layouts as we worked on the console port in the background. This gave us critical information about layout preferences and how well the controller worked in our game environment. By the time we launched on consoles, we had a ton of confidence with our schemes, given that we already had player feedback on the design.
Is the game like-for-like compared to its PC brother, or have some features changed or been cut completely?
We’ve already shared a community newsletter on the topic, but honestly, it was really insignificant. It just came down to a VERY small subset of changes that were required for the console version of Ready or Not, per the requirements of first-party guidelines.
One mechanic that is seemingly universally considered great is the AI of the team, civilians, and enemies. What are you doing differently in that regard that other studios should be taking note of?
At the core, Ready or Not is about realism, which is obviously our focus across everything within the game. This is especially true with our AI, which needs to respond realistically depending on situations. Civilians, suspects, and other SWAT officers need to behave like you would expect to see in real life. The situations are unpredictable, horrific, and tense. If that’s not coming through, then we aren’t doing our job well.
We do all we can to make these experiences immersive and authentic. Just talking about our SWAT team, we consult with real-life officers to get the behaviour and tactics to look and feel as true to life as possible! Without this, we’d run the risk of having behaviours that may look or feel unbelievable, and honestly, it only takes one thing that’s not right to pull the player out of the experience. To us, that would be unacceptable. This same level of focus and authenticity is also paid to our suspects and civilians. Always ensuring that we are getting realistic and believable behaviours to match any particular situation.
Tactical shooters, SWAT-like TV series, and similar are big business right now, with the niche growing larger and larger in all media. How are you ensuring that Ready or Not continues to stand out against its competitors?
For the tactical shooter audience, I think one thing to consider is that there are already some great titles out there for audiences to engage with. It’s just a question of how TRUE and real that experience is? We consider ourselves a new “modern” version of a tactical FPS.
So, what does that mean?
By saying Ready or Not is a “modern” tactical FPS, we mean it sets itself apart by being TRULY tactical and set in an environment that captures and confronts the audience with some of the most uncomfortable parts of human nature, specifically those that involve SWAT officers and the weight of what they experience every day.
Like I said, there are some great FPS games out there, but we really do consider ourselves something a little different, dare I say a little more. Sure, we are a tactical FPS, but instead of glorifying the shooting and the combat and warfare, we are an experience that confronts audiences, makes them reflect, and maybe even resensitizes them towards violence and scenarios that we shouldn’t just view and consider “normal.”
It’s well known that Ready or Not was originally produced by a smallish team spread across the world. Has the studio changed at all in that regard since the PC release?
VOID Interactive is headquartered in Ireland, with our business activities and development team spread out globally. We aren’t limited to the constraints of a central location but instead focus on finding folks that have a passion for Ready or Not and are experts in their field, which has truly been an advantage for us as a team, and determining how we want to scale as a studio.
And for that matter, developer crunch is a big topic in the industry, being remote and spread out, how do you ensure your staff are getting the time away from work to relax and wind down?
Remote work offers a lot of freedom and flexibility to our development studio team, chief reason being that we allow individual colleagues to determine their own work hours, which gives full control to the individual. To avoid fatigue, or those missed spontaneous moments in the office, we also provide teams the flexibility and support to set up team events in their region. Relatedly, regional industry events, like Gamescom, are also supported and encouraged for team attendance. These initiatives are geared towards fostering team connections, community, and as a means to relax and step away from behind the screens.
Since the announcement of its console release, there have been many, MANY requests for Ready or Not to make it to PSVR2. To those fans begging for that, what do you say to them? Can we get that done?
We are always keen to explore options to scale and grow Ready or Not and make it the quintessential tactical shooter for decades to come. Ready or Not on VR is something we’ve heard interest in the past, and there is always a possibility that we’ll explore it in the future.
What was the thought process behind having two editions, one with and one without the DLC, for the console releases? I ask as there have been other games going either way that have released a single edition with everything included.
This follows the same parity we have with the PC version of the game, offering the base game or the deluxe version of the game with the associated DLC content for those who want it.
Talking of DLC, you released Dark Waters back in December 2024. Once Ready or Not has made it to consoles, will you be turning your attention to more DLC for the game?
With the reveal of the Ready or Not: Digital Deluxe Edition, we did drop a small hint towards the upcoming DLC3 set for 2026, which we are already hard at work on for this next content release. What comes after that? Well, I suppose that’s part of the fun and anticipation of the wait, which only makes the next reveal even more exciting.
Historically, the game has had its fair share of controversy, with a few different situations rearing their heads; from alleged ‘copaganda’ to publishing deals, delistings, and more. A game of this genre with this level of realism will always attract critics and naysayers, but how do you, on a personal level as a dev team, find and handle these situations? Do they affect you and your approach to new content in the game?
Every company has its own trials and growing pains. We’ve had a few stories of our own, certainly the ones that you’ve mentioned, and we’ll likely have more obstacles to overcome in the future. Despite being globally remote, we’re an exceptionally collaborative team, and we take time to determine the best course of action with a sense of unity across each of the teams for how we proceed.
The modding scene on PC for Ready or Not is more than active, to say the least. Will you be providing mod support for consoles?
Ready or Not has a great modding community; in fact, some of our development team got their start in the modding scene. So, of course, I am always looking forward to seeing what comes from our community and looking for opportunities to support collaborations.
How will the crossplay work between PC and consoles when PC players have mods enabled, if they’re not supported for consoles? Will they be restricted and unable to play together? Will the PC player have to use only visual mods? Or purely vanilla PC only?
Cross-play operates through build parity across each platform. Players can enable or disable cross-play at any point with a toggle option in the settings menu. Mods are allowed on PC, but not on console, which will prevent console players from joining a PC host that uses mods, even if cross-play is enabled.
A cursory look at Discord, Reddit, or any other social media would show you confusion from Ready or Not players as to what’s included in the upcoming update. More specifically, if there are any changes on the SWAT Team AI, as they perceive the radio silence from yourselves as indicating a lack of changes. So, in short, what should players expect from that update, both in general and regarding the SWAT AI difficulty levels that were promised?
Since launch, we’ve released hotfixes and a major patch update that have addressed over two hundred fixes across Ready or Not. Our plan is to continue to prioritize content development as well as more frequent patch updates in the future. As for the promised difficulty system, this actually went live with the console launch. Players can choose to play the game across Casual, Standard, or Hard difficulty modes. We believe the introduction of the difficulty settings has vastly expanded the enjoyment of the game for our audience. Now, if you want to get dominated by your enemies like the good ol’ days, you can. Or should you desire to ease into the experience with a bit less challenge, both are options for you to choose as you please.
There’s always been some conjecture as to who the ‘canon’ teammates are, with the community settling on King, Swan, Eli, and Prescott. Is it fair to say that’s right?
That would be fair to say. We have a lot of options for customizing and building out your team, but yeah, I’d agree that the canon team is indeed those officers.
A post on Reddit made a good point. There’s no prison riot mission, which is surprising. Considering the community reaction to this, both with ideas and agreement, it’s fair to say it’s a winner. Is there a reason we don’t have that yet? Is that something we can look forward to in a future DLC?
If there is a mission type that’s off the table for Ready or Not, we haven’t seen it yet. However, that said, the only content we would ever consider is that which is grounded in realism or that fits the narrative, which is so core to our game. So certainly, if the scenario is believable, then that’s something that would resonate with us. So if there is a believable narrative angle for a prison riot mission, perhaps there is an opportunity to see that developed in the future. I guess we’ll see…
What is one misconception or idea that people have of what you do, that couldn’t be further from the truth, and ultimately, really annoys you?
When talking about misconceptions, the first topic that comes to mind isn’t really an annoyance, but it’s definitely something I think maybe the community doesn’t understand. This is the size of our actual development team. I think a lot of people look at the scope/quality and offerings within Ready or Not and just assume that we are some large “Call of Duty” type studio, but in reality, we are only about 50 developers in a full team of around 70.
Historically, VOID Interactive has always been a very lean and efficient studio across all departments, which is really core to some of the things that make our development process unique. But it also, at times, limits how much we can do at one time, which we believe is ok! We want the additions to the game to feel great, grounded, and important.
We’d much rather have a smaller high-quality experience than a bunch of half-baked ideas. Of course, it sometimes takes us longer to resolve problems that arise because we are so small, but we hope our community understands we do the best we can, and that we constantly revise our plans based on the likes and dislikes of our audience.
For more Thumb Wars, check out Tim Willits’ surprising way of playing John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando, or his tease for a potential World War Z 2.
Luke Addison is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Thumb Wars. Having previously been a part of multiple outlets over the years, including building an entire gaming team from nothing to something, he thought it best to forge his own path and answer only to himself. As likely to be found playing the latest game as he is in the kitchen relaxing (by cooking), he always brings the same bold and brash attitude to everything he does, with a heavy leaning on sarcasm and dry wit!
