Ready or Not Shows Signs of Recovery After Censorship Controversy

Ready or Not has reached its highest player count on Steam since December 2024, hinting at a possible recovery. Ready or Not has faced massive backlash from the community in recent weeks, leading to a review-bomb campaign on Steam and even calls for a boycott.

Ready or Not's downfall began with the decision to cut some content. Ahead of the game's console launch, developer VOID Interactive announced that certain nudity and gore elements would be toned down due to home console regulations. This sparked massive backlash from Ready or Not's Steam community, affecting both the game's review score and player count.

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On July 15, Ready or Not released the Los Suenos Stories update, which implemented the controversial censorship. Surprisingly, shortly after the patch, the game's player count on Steam surged by about 120% compared to July 14's peak. For the record, the recent surge also surpassed Ready or Not's previous peak player record from December 2024 by around 20%. This could be seen as a subtle sign of recovery for the game, suggesting that the community may be starting to accept the inevitable changes.

Over 24,000 Players Logged Into Ready or Not On July 16

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Almost simultaneously with Ready or Not's console release and the deployment of the July 15 patch, the game amassed a record 24,870 players on Steam (via SteamDB Charts). While this is less than half of the game's all-time peak, it still marks the second-highest concurrent player count since 2021, when the game first became available. For those curious, Ready or Not achieved its highest concurrent player count of all time back in December 2023, when about 55,000 players joined the servers at once.

Date

Peak Player Count (Steam)

July 12

12,994

July 13

13,803

July 14

11,345

July 15

23,330

July 16

24,870

Of course, not all players are happy with the direction developer VOID Interactive is headed. A mod to revert Ready or Not's censorship was released just hours after the July 15 update and has already racked up around 7,000 downloads. However, it seems that the majority of the community has chosen to keep enjoying the SWAT simulator despite the recent controversies.

It remains to be seen whether the community making peace with the developer will also be reflected in Ready or Not's Steam reviews. The game's recent scores are down to "Mostly Negative," a remnant of the controversy between the devs and players. Still, if things continue on this path, there's a good chance Ready or Not could fully recover and once again rank among the highest-rated FPS games on Steam.