Vol. 90 — Ready or Not Development Briefing

Attention Officers,

Welcome to the 90th installment of our Ready or Not development briefing, landing on Thursday, July 30th, 2026.

Today, we are thrilled to unveil the Mission Editor—a powerful new tool designed for granular control over gameplay parameters within existing operations, placing a heavy emphasis on non-playable character customization.

The Mission Editor will arrive completely free alongside essential bug fixes across all platforms in the upcoming v1.5 update for Ready or Not.

As this is the initial rollout of the Mission Editor, expect continuous refinements moving forward, paired with ongoing patches and fresh game content.

Please note: These developer insights are intended to keep you informed on our continuous support for Ready or Not, though they do not capture every single project currently in development. Features discussed remain works in progress and are subject to change prior to release.

Mission Editor Overview

The Mission Editor is a robust customization suite enabling you to tailor Suspects, Civilians, SWAT AI, player statistics, and various operational parameters for any given scenario. This feature drops in the coming weeks with the free v1.5 update.

Suspect AI Modifiers

Suspect adjustments form the cornerstone of the Mission Editor, granting deep control over enemy combat readiness and behavioral patterns. You can even borrow appearance presets and voice lines from entirely different maps, though mission-critical, named, or objective-bound characters will remain protected.

[Image below: Body of a paramilitary suspect spotted by the flashlight of a SWAT officer on Thank You, Come Again]

For players seeking more elusive engagements, assign the “cowardly” archetype, causing suspects to frequently conceal themselves behind or beneath environment props. Alternatively, build a highly coordinated threat by applying the “tactical” archetype.

When multiple archetypes populate a scenario’s pool, the game randomly assigns them to eligible AI units, always respecting mission-critical parameters. Civilian AI customization utilizes this exact same weighted pooling mechanic.

[Image below: Suspect from the Carriers of the Vine mission surrendering on Buy Cheap, Buy Twice]

Equip your suspects with primary loadouts ranging from heavy M249 light machine guns to bolt-action rifles, alongside custom secondary sidearms. If you are confident in maintaining a safe 21-foot buffer, strip away their primary weapons, hand them knives and suicide vests (with fully adjustable spawn counts), and apply the erratic archetype.

[Image below: Suspect from Sinuous Trail seen on the Leviathan mission with an M249 light machinegun and explosive vest]

Fancy running a solitary suspect on 23 Megabytes A Second? Done. Or perhaps you’d prefer an intense manhunt featuring maximum civilian density paired with a single, cowardly suspect wielding a concealed firearm? The power is yours.

SWAT AI Modifiers

While streamlined compared to the enemy toolset, SWAT AI modifiers let you govern the tactical performance of your AI squadmates. Key variables include visual stimulus reaction times, morale damage inflicted by squad actions, and scaling multipliers. Triggering factors for morale penalties include verbal compliance shouts, less-lethal deployments, door breaching, active gunfire, and utility ordinance use.

Civilian AI Modifiers

Civilians utilize a streamlined variation of the suspect modifier suite, prioritizing behavior over combat. These settings dictate compliance thresholds and distinct behavioral archetypes.

For instance, the “prisoner” archetype spawns civilians already restrained at mission start. This acts as a streamlined quality-of-life tweak for operators looking to minimize civilian management or simulate high-intensity hostage rescue operations.

Player Modifiers

Dial up the difficulty by directly tweaking player health pools and maximum bandage capacity. Capping health at 50HP means any round piercing your armor can prove instantly fatal, while a single bandage leaves zero room for error when managing severe hemorrhage.

Miscellaneous Modifiers

Fine-tune environmental pacing and structural complexity using an array of miscellaneous scenario tweaks.

Adjust bomb timer countdowns on threat maps, configure multi-state door trap probabilities, toggle default character spawn locations, dictate locked versus open door ratios, and alter the likelihood of suspect self-termination.

Increasing the percentage of open doors ramps up the difficulty by granting suspects sweeping sightlines across the environment. Conversely, maximizing locked doors can serve as a tactical time-saver, reducing the sheer volume of forced breaches required.

Short Patch Preview

A video showcasing a brief sneak peek at upcoming v1.5/1.5.1 bug fixes went live on our YouTube channel today. This footage highlights only a small fraction of the extensive changelog arriving soon:

Conclusion

The Mission Editor delivers unprecedented replayability and sandbox potential through its deep matrix of AI behaviors and environmental variables.

Whether you’re swapping map aesthetics, arming every suspect with brutal light machine guns, reshaping civilian dynamics, or plunging your own health down to a precarious 50HP, the possibilities are practically endless.

Prepare to build, save, and distribute your custom scenarios with your tactical squad and the wider community when the v1.5 update rolls out in the coming weeks.

Once again, this marks our initial introduction to the Mission Editor; keep your eyes peeled for future enhancements, ongoing hotfixes, and additional content drops.

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Stack up and clear out.
VOID Interactive