Posted in: Games, Team17, Video Games | Tagged: Ready or Not, Team17, Void Interactive

Ready Or Not Loses Publisher Over School Shooting Level Comments

Published Sun, 26 Dec 2021 11:13:14 -0600

Developer Void Interactive is going to have to look for a new publisher for their game Ready Or Not after some poor choice in commentary. Team17 has officially pulled out of its agreement with the company and will no longer be publishing the game due to a comment made about school shootings. On the game's Reddit page, someone started a thread asking whether or not the game should have a school shooting mission in its main campaign. In a now-deleted comment, one of the developers chimed in and said "You better believe it's gonna". The comment prompted a ton of backlash within the thread over the comment, with replies ranging from calling it tasteless all the way to promoting violence in schools.

Team17 Partners With Void Interactive To Release Ready Or Not — Credit: Team17

Shortly after the comment went viral on social media, the company posted this announcement on their Twitter feed breaking the news about Team17 pulling out from being the game's publisher.

VOID Interactive and Team17 have mutually agreed that Team17 will no longer publish Ready or Not. We are confident that this is the right path for the future of Ready or Not, and we thank Team17 for their partnership and wish them great success with their spectrum of games!

— VOID Interactive (@VOIDInteractive) December 20, 2021

A few days later, Void Interactive released a longer statement on Twitter, not only affirming that they were making a level in Ready Or Not that would depict a SWAT team responding to a school shooting in the game, but essentially doubling down on the idea that they would move forward with that vision, even after losing their publisher. Here's the full statement.

Ready Or Not Loses Publisher Over School Shooting Comments — Credit: Void Interactive

It also appears, based on the above statement and several posts on social media, that the company will most likely be moving forward to self-publish the game rather than seek out a new publisher. Whether or not the game will find its way into online shops and retail after this is an entirely different question, which we probably won't see an answer to for several months as the game is still in development. Right now it can be played in Early Access on Steam, but the school level is not currently a part of that build.

As of the date we're writing this story, there have been 34 school shootings in the United States in 2021.

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