Ready or Not is Being Censored – Even if You Already Bought It
A video game company is screwing over its customers again. This time, it’s VOID Interactive, and the game is Ready or Not. If you’ve never played it, or even heard of it, Ready or Not is a tactical first-person shooter rooted in realism in which you play a member of a SWAT team who goes on various missions to stop all different kinds of criminals, all the way up to terrorists. You can use weapons ranging from pepper spray to assault rifles and are encouraged to apprehend criminals alive when possible and fill them full of lead when not (so to speak; I imagine they suggest conserving ammo). As the game sells itself on realism, there’s plenty of violence, blood, gore (including dismemberment), and some nudity. You can see a gameplay trailer below:
It looks cool, which, of course, means the perpetually offended wokesters must destroy it. In 2002, Kotaku (who else?) published an article criticizing Ready or Not for being right-wing, including “fascist overtones and alt-right dog whistles” (because stopping innocent people from being murdered by criminals is fascism), the occasional politically-charged term like “red pill” and “Noggin Joggers” (which is apparently a racial epithet that I never heard of, or a stand-in for one), and some puns like “Whore Foods” and “Bonor Health,” which also make them very uncomfortable. (Can you imagine having to hang out with these people?) Kotaku also seems to have disliked a moment where a SWAT officer rescues a child and says she’s ready for “evac;” I don’t know why this is a problem, but whatever. At any rate, after defending itself by saying they included some of these elements to “reflect harsh realities” and that others had other meanings than the ones Kotaku suggested or were intended to reference movies like The Matrix, VOID Interactive removed a bunch of the things that made Kotaku cry, claiming they were only placeholders anyway. They also said that Kotaku lies, which is pretty funny:
— VOID Interactive (@VOIDInteractive) January 7, 2022
But you know how these stories go: if you give in once, you’ll be giving in forever, and that inevitability is playing out right now. Ready or Not was initially released for PC only, and it was popular enough (something else that Kotaku article laments) that it is now coming to consoles, with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions set for release on July 15, 2025. But this won’t be the same Ready or Not PC gamers are used to; it will lose some of the blood, gore, and nudity. VOID Interactive says this is to comply with “console certification standards.” The problem is that they aren’t just censoring content for the console releases; VOID is also changing it in the PC version of the game, including the ones many gamers have already bought. So, if you paid for the unaltered version of Ready or Not, your copy is being censored as well. Vara Dark has an informative video on the topic:
Vara also has a video talking about how VOID is trying to shut down customer pushback on their decision to censor Ready or Not. And pushback is heavy, with many customers demanding their money back, which I sincerely doubt they’ll get. Vara also correctly points out that this is a slippery slope, which VOID’s further censorship after the Kotaku dust-up only proves. This is very scummy and yet another example of entertainment companies caring more about the feelings of people who hate their product than those of people who love it and support it. I mean, they said Kotaku misrepresented them in that initial post, and they’re still kowtowing to them while silencing their customers. This is a big mistake for VOID; as far as I can tell by perusing their website, Ready or Not is their only game right now. Do you think gamers are going to take a chance on their next project after they altered games that had already been bought? I doubt it. I hope it was worth it to make a bunch of whiny games journalists who hate your game take a five-minute break, though.
Let us know what you think of VOID Interactive censoring Ready or Not in the comments!
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