Ready or Not is one of the few tactical shooters I will happily play entirely solo, and every time I say that someone replies that the AI is useless and the game is only good with friends, which is wrong, and usually it is because they are playing the AI squad like dead weight instead of leading it. This game does not hand you a team to babysit, it hands you a team to command, and once you learn to do that, solo Ready or Not goes from frustrating to genuinely brilliant, which is the whole playbook that follows.
You are the team leader, not a lone wolf
Pick Single-player at the mission screen and the game gives you a full five-officer squad of AI, and that squad is not a consolation prize, because it is the intended way to play solo, and every level is balanced around you running it. The mental shift that changes everything is to stop thinking like a lone operator who happens to have bots trailing behind, and start thinking like the element leader of a SWAT team, where your job is to read the situation and point your people, and their job is to execute. Once that clicks, the whole game opens up, and the rest of the commands are just the language for a job you have already understood.
The command wheel, before the first door
The single most important skill in solo Ready or Not is fluency with the command wheel, because you hold the command key and you can direct the whole squad, or split them into a Red and Blue element for proper two-pronged entries. The menu is context aware, which is the clever bit, since you look at a door and you get breaching options, you look at a suspect and you get restrain, and you look at an open space and you get Move To, Cover, Hold, Search Room, Fall In and Deploy. Do not wait until a firefight to learn this, and spend your first mission deliberately drilling it, send the team here, stack them there, hold this angle, because the players who say the AI is bad are almost always the players who never learned to talk to it. Get the wheel into muscle memory and your squad starts to feel like an extension of your own hands, which is the moment solo stops feeling like a handicap.
Stacking, and the breach that matches the room
Doors are where Ready or Not is won or lost, and your AI team is built to take them properly, so use Stack Up to set the squad on a door before you push, choosing left, right, or Auto to let the elements fill the gaps. Then pick your entry, because you can have them mirror under the door first, pick the lock quietly, or breach hard with a ram, a shotgun or C2, and you can pair that with a flashbang or CS gas thrown in before the team flows in to clear. The trick is matching the breach to the room, a quiet lock-pick and a slow clear for a room you think holds civilians, and a loud breach and a bang for a room you know holds armed suspects. Reading that, and ordering accordingly, is the actual skill ceiling of this game, and it is far more satisfying than any twitch aim.
The mirror, on every closed door
Mirror under the door before you open it, and I will say that as loudly as the new players at the back need to hear it, because the Optiwand shows you what is waiting, suspects, civilians and tripwires, before you commit your stack. Walking a four-person element into an unmirrored door is how you eat a shotgun blast or set off a bomb that ends the run, and it costs you a couple of seconds and it saves entire missions, so make it a reflex rather than a flourish you remember after the casualty.
Less-lethal, if you want the score to agree with you
The bit that separates a cleared level from a good one is that Ready or Not rewards arrests over kills and punishes civilian harm hard, so your score lives and dies on restraint. Build your loadout with less-lethal in mind, the Taser, pepper spray and the beanbag shotgun, because all of them force compliance without a body, and a complied suspect you cuff is worth far more than a dead one. Order the team to restrain downed and surrendered targets, secure every civilian, and report and collect the evidence, which feels counterintuitive when your instinct is to shoot first, though the whole point of this game is that you are police, not a death squad. Lean into it, because the runs where I talk a room into surrendering and walk out with zero casualties are the ones that actually feel like winning.
Post them where the building can still hurt you
One habit that quietly carries solo runs is to use your AI as anchors, so after you clear a room, post officers on the doorways and chokepoints behind you and nothing flanks back into ground you have already taken. The AI is excellent at holding a cleared angle and lighting up anything that wanders into it, and clearing a building is not just moving forward, it is making sure the space behind you stays clean, which is the job your team is the tool for. Move deliberately, hold what you take, and never get ahead of your own security, because the flank you forgot is the one that ends an otherwise clean score.
The patience the score is actually grading
Ready or Not is not a run-and-gun shooter and it will never reward you for treating it like one, because it rewards patience, communication and a plan, and solo, you provide all three, while your AI team turns them into action. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast, so you assess, stack, mirror, breach, clear, and only ever move on once the space is genuinely secure. If you are still deciding whether it is for you, my full verdict is in is Ready or Not worth it in 2026, and for the newest content there is my breakdown of the Boiling Point DLC. If you want to see how it stacks up against a very different kind of tactical shooter, I compared it in Ready or Not vs Ghost Recon Breakpoint, and the whole run lives on the Ready or Not hub, so go and lead your team properly once the wheel is in your hands.
FAQ
Can you play Ready or Not solo?
Yes, fully, because you pick Single-player at the mission select and the game gives you a complete five-officer squad of AI teammates, and every mission is designed to be beaten solo with that AI team, so you are not missing content or playing some lesser mode. You are the team leader, and the AI does the legwork on your orders, which is the job the mode was built for.
Are the Ready or Not AI teammates any good?
Better than people give them credit for, as long as you actually command them, because left to their own devices they will still clear rooms and cover angles, but the useful part is directing them, stacking on doors, choosing the breach, and posting them on chokepoints. Treat them as tools you point rather than mates who read your mind, and they become genuinely reliable.
How do you give orders to your team in Ready or Not?
Through the command wheel, where you hold the command key and order the whole squad or split them into Red and Blue elements, then issue context-aware commands like Stack Up, Breach and Clear, Search Room, Move To, Cover, Hold and Deploy. Looking at a door gives you breaching options, looking at a suspect gives you restrain, and the wheel changes with whatever you are actually staring at.
What is the Optiwand for?
The Optiwand, or mirror gun, lets you peek under a door before you open it, and you should use it on every closed door you can, because it shows you suspects, civilians and tripwires before you commit. That peek is the difference between a clean entry and walking your whole stack into a shotgun or a bomb, and it is the most underused tool by new players and the one that saves the most runs.
How do you get a good score or S rank in Ready or Not?
Arrest rather than kill wherever possible, and keep civilians safe, because your score rewards compliance and restraint, so carry less-lethal tools like the Taser, pepper spray and beanbag shotgun to subdue suspects instead of shooting them. Report downed and arrested targets, and secure all evidence and civilians, since going in guns blazing might clear the level but it will wreck your rating.
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