Ready or Not

Negative reviews criticize the suspect AI about as often as the squad. Reviewers describe suspects who see through foliage, curtains and finger-width gaps, track players through walls, react near-instantly, shoot accurately while sprinting, and absorb rounds that should drop them. "a shirtless crackhead will snipe you with a glock from the other side of the map, and will not flinch at 10 bullets to the leg." Reviewers connect it with Hard mode and missions like Greased Palms and A New America, and usually call it unfair rather than difficult: "You play by rules the enemy doesnt follow. that is not fun." A smaller group defends the suspect AI as challenging and unpredictable, and some say mods fix it.

Officers stand in doorways and ask the player to move, bounce grenades off the door frame or drop them at the team's feet, freeze or turn their backs while being shot, acknowledge orders and then ignore them, and try to secure evidence or make arrests mid-firefight. The same failures come up again and again. "Friendly AI is straight trash, from blocking your doorways to just standing in front of enemies letting them shoot and kill them without firing a single shot." This is why many reviewers say solo play falls short, and one review puts it this way: "Great game with friends, but solo players should know what they're buying." A minority find the squad fine on Standard difficulty and enjoy commanding it.

Bugs appear in 15% of negative reviews, and many of the ones described block progress or a good grade: weapons and evidence falling through the floor, civilians stuck in walls or under furniture, suspects who stop reacting, restraints that will not work, and missions that never register as complete. "You will have weapons you need to collect for your score fall through the floor." Other reports include lasers that switch off, scopes missing after joining a game, and achievements that never unlock.

Reviewers ask for small fixes: restarting a mission without walking back through the police station ("you have to reload back into the police station and THEN back to the mission"), skipping the long score screen, faster movement or a sprint ("LET ME SPRINT IF THE SUSPECTS CAN!!!"), a separate taser keybind, and simpler door and command controls. Some new players found the tutorial and keybinds confusing.

Reviewers object to AI-generated posters, paintings and screens in missions such as 23 Megabytes a Second and Carriers of the Vine, and to the lack of a disclosure on the store page. "Does not disclose use of AI in game despite having it on posters and other art assets in game." It is a minority topic. Some of these reviews raise it alongside bugs or the AI, and others are a single line about the art.

Crashes come up in about 6% of negative reviews, often at the worst moment, near the end of a long S-rank attempt or while hosting co-op. A smaller group lost their saves and unlocks after a crash, an update or a mod: "game kept crashing and the last time it did it wiped my saved game and i lost all my unlockables."

Co-op players report connection timeouts mid-mission, desync, high ping, failures to authenticate with Epic's services for crossplay, and the lack of a lobby browser. "Couldn't play with friends because I couldn't authenticate to Epic Servers." One reviewer counted that "Out of the 10 matches I played, 6 ended with either a Connection Timed Out or Host Closed the Lobby error while the match was already in progress."

Some reviewers describe missions ending in a search for one hidden civilian, suspect or bomb on a large map, which they find tedious and, combined with bugs, sometimes endless. Some ask for an indicator for the last target, and a few want evidence collection removed from SWAT duties entirely: "Please remove evidence securing from SWAT tasks."

Players who rely on mods say updates break them, sometimes leaving the game flagged as modded or crashing on start. "My only complaint; every time the game updates, even for a small patch, every single mod breaks." Some also wish mod.io mods worked as smoothly online as manually installed ones.

Players who queue with strangers describe silent lobbies, rushers and occasional teamkillers or kicks, and several advise playing with friends instead.

A handful of reviews ask for a PvP mode, AI teammates to fill empty co-op slots, Steam Family Sharing support, and the removed mission modes and map variants from early access.