You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here
Void Interactive’s popular multiplayer SWAT simulator Ready or Not has been hit with a flood of negative user reviews following new censorship additions prior to the game’s console launch on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series machines.
Over the past two weeks, long-time players have complained about the watering down of mature content to appease console players platforms. The game’s censorship has removed in-game nudity from potential suspects, scrapped dismemberment and also removed assets in some areas involving minors.
Over the past two weeks, Ready or Not’s “recent reviews” on Steam have plummeted from “Very Positive” to “Mostly Negative”.
“Do not buy this game. Do not support a company like VOID Interactive. The game wasn’t perfect initially, but now they are choosing to censor it,” one player said in a Steam review. “They made their money from you—the PC players on Steam—and now, out of sheer greed, they’re appeasing console market regulators by censoring the game to meet their demands.”
Out of all of the reviews of the past 30 days, the majority are negative on Steam. Developer Void Interactive explained that the changes were only made “where absolutely required, and only to the letter of the regulations — no further”. The exact changes are the following:
- Twisted Nerve: The girl is now depicted as sleeping instead of convulsing.
- A Lethal Obsession: Nudity involving the ghillie suit suspect has been adjusted
- Hide and Seek: Female hostages now wear underwear
- Narcos: Police informant hostage now wears underwear
- 23 Megabytes a Second: ‘Photo of Minors’ objective model was revised, also to better connect narratively with the later ‘Sinuous Trail’ mission.
- Post-mortem dismemberment has been disabled (note: dismemberment for living characters remains unchanged.)
While the community has been in an uproar over the censorship found in the updated PC version of the game, the fact is that player counts are rising. Not including the upcoming console launch, Ready or Not player counts on Steam have seen a sizeable uptick over the past month.
At the time of writing, the SWAT simulator has seen a +22.29% increase in player count over the last 30 days, hitting a peak of 17,162 concurrent players, the highest number of players since January 2025. Thanks, Steam Charts.
Of course, this rise in player count does coincide with the ongoing Steam Summer Sale, but it does show that the censorship many are using to call for a boycott isn’t actually resulting in one.
Ready or Not is also one of the most pre-ordered titles on the PlayStation Store right now, showing that console demand for a mature SWAT simulator is actually higher in the console crowd than many PC gamers would like to believe. While the newfound censorship must be annoying for fans of the game’s older versions, Void Interactive’s release may prove more popular than ever.
About the Author
