Yesterday, Ready or Not developer, Void Interactive, released statement regarding their tactical-shooter game being pulled from the Steam store. On Twitter, Void Interactive stated,” Attention Officers! As you may have noticed, Ready or Not is temporarily MIA from the Steam Store Page. We’re looking into this with Steam and will have an update for our players very soon!” Some have speculated that Ready or Not was taken off the Steam store because, only four days prior, Void Interactive released a nightclub shooting scenario for the game on the anniversary of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub mass shooting in Orlando, Florida.
However, today, a developer for Ready or Not, Kaminsky, pinned the following on the Steam store explaining why the game was unavailable to play and purchase:
We’d like to address the rumors surrounding the takedown of Ready or Not and its associated pages on Steam that occurred on Thursday, June 16th. A takedown request was issued via Steam concerning a suggested trademark infringement in our recent Night Club map that was shared as part of our most recent Steam update. We take IP concerns very seriously, and in a show of good faith, we have decided to remove the subject materials and any reference to them from Ready or Not and from any of our social media or other publications. Ready or Not will return to the Steam store once we complete the changes. We have also removed the AI update video from our Youtube channel and from our Steam Store page, and anticipate that these will be restored after an editing process is completed
So, the speculations appear to be incorrect as Ready or Not seems to be allowed back on the Steam store, including the nightclub shooting map, once Void Interactive developers fix the alleged copyright infringement. While the theory about the Pulse nightclub shooting anniversary looks incorrect; however, the speculations were justified. In December, Void Interactive announced they would no longer work with their publisher at the time, Team17, over adding a proposed school shooting scenario to the game. While never confirmed, just three days after a Ready or Not developer asserted, “You better believe it’s gonna” when asked if the game will have a school shooting mission, the end of the partnership was announced. When asked about the split, Void Interactive stated, “Unfortunately we cannot say much more about the split but we are confident that this move is the best for both parties and will allow us to continue to produce and update Ready or Not on Steam Early Access.”