Attention Officers,
Welcome to our 80th Ready or Not Development briefing, November 22nd, 2024!
Hope you’re all doing well today, we have some in-depth info to share about game design philosophy around player flexibility and a few details around the upcoming DLC 2 launch, it being free for Supporter Edition owners, a future free content update for everyone next year, and our prototype merchandise line’s launch.
You can already grab our prototype first-release merch line on our official website here. We’ll have a more extensive and fleshed out second line of merch coming later.
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.
DLC 2 Free for Supporter Edition Owners
Our second DLC, Dark Waters, is in view with more info to be on feed shortly.
[Image below: "SWAT, this is Air Support on call, you have eyes in the sky."]
In Dark Waters, each mission takes place in a Maritime setting, where your team will take on an expansion of their responsibilities along the Los Suenos coastline in partnership with the California Offshore Air and Sea Team organization (C.O.A.S.T).
On launch, the Dark Waters DLC will be available for free by default to Supporter Edition owners in their Steam Library, similar to DLC 1.
Other than expressing our continued gratitude to these early supporters of Ready or Not, DLC 2 is being made free in part as a recognition of the DLC Weapon Packs that did not come to fruition—a result in part of how we decided to include new DLC-related weapons as free for everyone.
One thing to be aware of is that we will be concluding the otherwise unused Supporter Alpha playtesting Steam branch due to its outdated purposes and unintended issues it is causing for players still using it.
This playtesting Steam branch was first made as a good faith continuation of the pre-Steam Early Access Alpha testing perk for Supporter Edition owners. It offered brief periods of testing prior to updates since the Steam Early Access launch was in some way a transitionary Alpha/Beta stage. However, that style of playtesting perk is no longer supported after 1.0, long after our Alpha stage.
Also, it turns out a number of players still had their game set to that outdated branch, unaware of the fact that it was outdated and that it could interfere with their ability to match-make with players who are on the normal branch of the game. With all of this in mind, we are going to be officially making that outdated Alpha branch unavailable.
Philosophy towards Player Flexibility
As keen-eyed officers among you may have noticed, several of the features we’re going to be adding with the update surrounding Dark Waters (i.e. arrest canceling, multiple headgear equipped at once) and others that are planned for future updates follow a certain theme of somewhat increased player flexibility.
In recent months we deliberately made a slight shift in our game design philosophy focus, moving away from surface level balancing of loadouts and customization and instead focusing on enhancing player flexibility. Our goal with this is to empower players to make more meaningful choices and offer richer customization options, affecting weapons, quality of life features, and gear.
Part of supporting our game entails a certain degree of evolution, something that is benefited by increased development bandwidth that we have now compared to when we were implementing tons of other features in the past.
Weapon Flexibility
Quality gunplay has always been a key element of Ready or Not’s development with three key pillars being customization fantasy, gun utility, and feel. Where things don't feel realistic it is generally a design choice made because it doesn't feel 'right' or 'fun' for the game.
We realized it isn't very fun, engaging, or realistic to force players to make a decision between different attachments for balancing sake. This is a major part of why we’re planning on implementing multiple rail attachments to be used at once, i.e. a flashlight and IR sight equipped together. This is something we wanted to include in DLC 2 but were not able to properly fit it in.
Meanwhile, you can look forward to a few fresh up-caliber upgrades to your weaponry with Dark Waters.
Gear Flexibility
The changes in gear flexibility applies to the headgear changes showcased in the last dev briefing, Vol. 79. For example, forcing players to pick between whether to take NVGs or a gas mask ultimately seemed unnecessarily limiting more than fun or realistic, including the cosmetic benefits of the flexibility to customize your gear to that degree. It looks cool to wear the two together.
Quality of Life Flexibility
Our moreso quality of life focused flexibility changes, such as adding arrest canceling, are not intended to change the deliberate pacing of the gameplay in a major way but rather to reduce circumstances where the game might lock you into something you realistically no longer want to do. Although you can now cancel your arrest, you still have to quickly re-orient and decide how to deal with the immediate threat that may be facing you. Keeping your area safe and secure before going in for arrests is still the ideal option.
Future Free Content Update
Although many of our recent content updates have released next to a paid DLC, this is of course not the plan for all updates going forward. Our next content update is planned for next year and will be free for everyone. Expect more details regarding this update in the new year!
First Line of Prototype Merchandise
Once again, on our website you can find t-shirts, hats, and a hoodie with RoN branding and designs.
We have many other types of merch and designs that we're planning for our second line, however you can get your hands on this prototype first line now! By buying this line of merch you also help us gauge what sort of sizes and quantities we should plan to have readily available in the future.
[Image below: One of the t-shirts from our first-line merch]
Conclusion
Player flexibility is an area we’d like to continue to explore in the future, and something you can look forward to enjoying with our second DLC, Dark Waters. To our Supporter Edition owners, thank you again for your dedication to the early state of the game and we are happy to offer the Dark Waters DLC for free for those of you. We have no shortage of juicy info that is going to be put out in the coming weeks and in the free content update for everyone that's next year.
This concludes our 80th development briefing, thank you for joining us. Be sure to fall in next time for more development news!
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