SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle - Reception

SWAT 3 has received overall positive reviews, scoring 81% on Metacritic and 83.76% on GameRankings. Praise has been lavished on the graphics, along with the AI of enemies and civilians and team interaction.

PC Gamer UK gave the game a score of 91%, saying "All the best ideas from other squad based games, shoehorned into a police setting, perfectly."

GameSpot awarded the Close Quarters Battle version of game a rating of 8.3/10, commenting that "SWAT 3's most impressive feature has to be the amazing artificial intelligence employed by friend and foe alike" and praising the graphics and level design, but criticising the lack of multiplayer in the initial release, the tendency for some dialogue to repeat, the need to "radio in" every suspect or hostage secured, and the need to restart missions from scratch should the player be shot.

Reviewing Close Quarters Battle, Tal Blevins of IGN praised the graphics, level design and AI (although noting an occasional tendency for computer-controlled SWAT officers to walk into the player's line of fire, resulting in friendly fire incidents), but also praised the clean interface, dialogue recording and mission briefing screens and the feel of the weapons. However, the lack of multiplayer in CQB and deficiencies in the game's manual were singled out for criticism. A subsequent review of the Elite Edition version responded positively to the new multiplayer component and the new missions, but noted some bugs.

Martin Taylor of Eurogamer awarded the Elite Edition a score of 9/10, praising the graphics and level design, and particularly the new multiplayer component, citing efficient, low-lag networking code and singling out the co-operative multiplayer game mode for its effectiveness, although noting that the deathmatch game mode will often be dominated by one player with a fast connection camping in one area of the map, responding negatively to the WON.net multiplayer service and criticizing the ease with which the arrest-based gameplay can break down in a fierce firefight.

Along with its different released versions, SWAT3 also received a sequel; SWAT 4, developed by Irrational Games and published by Vivendi Universal in April 2005.