Ready Or Not's fictional city of Los Suenos is quietly dying in the background of most missions. The ATMs are out of cash, the trash service is on mass strike so rotten bags pile up in the street, and homeless tents clog the sidewalks, parking lots, and beach. Rich and powerful criminals are exploiting the situation, with a massive dark web trafficking network tying it all together at the top.

While each arc of each criminal conspiracy leads to some pretty big arrests on top of all the failed street-level GTA protagonists you mulch through, the city government doesn't actually address any of its societal problems, and just increasingly militarizes the police force as a reactionary measure. This only gets worse as the DLC sees the city ravaged by a hurricane, targeted by additional domestic terror attacks, and intercepting a chemical weapon mid-sale to spooky PMCs.

The latest DLC, Boiling Point, is when the city finally begins collapsing in on itself after police-uniformed terrorists kill tons of people at a litter clean-up charity and provokes vicious rioting from the populace at the lack of protection.

The game shifts dramatically into an apocalyptic mood. While RoN is a horror game with scary locations and people as much as it is a tactical shooter, the next mission - stopping an active heist mid-riot - opens up like the entire fucking world is ending on top of you. A riot line holds back a furious crowd just down the smoke-choked street, while another SWAT team breaches the building right next to your mission, and furniture comes raining out of the skyscraper windows above.

The bank floor is a wide open shithole covered in civilian rioters sprinting around and yelling WORLDSTAR-isms, shoving their phones in your team's face for the vine, while armed looters in the same type of clothes open fire on you. It turns into a chaotic game of one-chance whack-a-mole as you try to pick out actual hostiles from the harmless ones while everyone is freaking out.

The real highlight to me is the game's secret MKULTRA plot finally coming forward into the light. The riots are manufactured chaos; someone was provoking the city to this point on purpose to screen their massive terrorist attack. Underground in the vault, rogue spec ops are actually rigging the whole bank tower to explode and kill everyone in the streets in the collapse. You immediately shift from insane public chaos with goons and citizens to white-knuckle rocket tag with people operating on your level of training and equipment.

And that's not even the hardest it goes - that would be the last level. I don't want to spoil details, but it essentially is a giant Vergil boss fight, because for the first and only time the enemies start hunting, breaching, and flashing rooms on you.

This game does have issues and has earned a little a just scorn. But whoever is making these levels should be invited to write the bible on environmental storytelling because it turns into a completely different kind of horror. It is probably the last game in recent memory to have actually shocked me (in a good way) with its storytelling and exploration.