Freedom Wars, once thought destined to remain imprisoned as a PlayStation Vita exclusive, is reborn as Freedom Wars Remastered. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.

Freedom Wars Remastered Review Overview

What is Freedom Wars Remastered?

Freedom Wars Remastered is an updated version of the original Freedom Wars, a dystopian action RPG that debuted on the PS Vita in 2014. The game takes players to a bleak future, year 102014, where humanity is sequestered within large urban prison-states known as Panopticons as a consequence of an ecological collapse and a scarcity of resources. Players assume the role of a Sinner, a convict sentenced to one million years of imprisonment simply for existing. To reduce their sentence, Sinners must undertake hazardous missions to recover abducted civilians from colossal bioweapons referred to as Abductors.

Freedom Wars Remastered features:
　⚫︎　Fast-paced 3D combat
　⚫︎　Deep character customization and crafting system
　⚫︎　8-player co-op and versus options
　⚫︎　Includes all customization DLC from the original release

For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Freedom Wars Remastered’s gameplay and story.

Steam			PlayStation			Nintendo
Price		$39.99

Freedom Wars Remastered Pros & Cons

Pros	Cons
Intriguing Dystopian Concept Improved Controls and Addicting Gameplay Loop Seemingly Endless Customization Options Fun Co-Op Play—With and Against Others	Clichéd Characters and Underdeveloped Narrative Steep Learning Curve Extensive Grinding may Deter Some Players Sharp Difficulty Spikes

Freedom Wars Remastered Overall Score - 74/100

Freedom Wars Remastered is a faithful but imperfect revival of a cult classic PlayStation Vita game. While it retains the compelling dystopian premise and addictive combat that made the original standout back in 2014, it also carries over some of its shortcomings. The narrative brims with potential, yet falls short in its execution. The visual design is imaginative, but can’t break free of its Vita-era origins. For returning fans, it’s a nostalgic trip worth taking, with the same-old addictive gameplay and just enough improvements to feel fresh. For newcomers, it’s a more challenging sell; its dated structure and design may not resonate with players as strongly today. But in spite of its flaws, Freedom Wars Remastered is a welcome effort to keep its unique world alive, and it leaves hope for a future that will fully realize the potential of its setting.

Freedom Wars Remastered Story - 6/10

Freedom Wars constructs a harsh world where every action carries weight within the Panopticons, city-states designed for total surveillance. As a "Sinner" serving a million-year sentence, simple acts become luxuries, and minor transgressions can quickly add decades or centuries to your term. This grim premise, however, ultimately falls short of its full potential. Its initial set up promises an exploration of systemic oppression, but the narrative devolves into clichés and underdeveloped storytelling, relying mostly on "telling" rather than "showing." The game teases profound themes but lacks the follow-through to fully realize them, squandering its initial premise in the process.

Freedom Wars Remastered Gameplay - 9/10

A "hunting" game—whether it’s Monster Hunter, Wild Hearts, or the like—thrives on its core gameplay loop, and Freedom Wars Remastered delivers an experience compelling enough to push me through its many varied missions: battling colossal Abductors, escorting civilians, and competing against rival Panopticons for resources. Despite a steep learning curve and occasional clunky controls—both common in the genre, really—the game rewards patience. If you give it a chance, everything will eventually click, and you’ll find yourself zipping around arenas with your Thorn, a grappling hook that serves as both a traversal tool and weapon, shredding foes with ease.

Freedom Wars Remastered Visuals - 7/10

The visuals in Freedom Wars Remastered is a clear step up from its PlayStation Vita days, and the difference shines brightest on the PlayStation 5. The game runs buttery smooth, even amidst the chaos of battles filled with explosions and a flurry of on-screen effects. But while it’s a glow-up for sure, it’s not one that will turn heads. There’s also a noticeable disconnect between the visuals and the dystopian tone the game strives for. The anime-inspired character designs, while appealing in itself, only work to undermine the oppressive atmosphere the Panopticon strives for. And then there’s the lip-syncing—or rather the lack thereof. It’s a strange middle ground; the game looks good enough to appreciate the effort, but not good enough to forget its handheld origins.

Freedom Wars Remastered Audio - 7/10

The audio design of Freedom Wars Remastered doesn’t quite leave a lasting impression. There were a few tracks that had me nodding along—most notably the theme accompanying the Fueling Station—but the majority of the soundtrack just blends into the background, being entirely forgettable. The addition of English voice acting, which was absent from the original Vita release, is a welcome idea, but the execution falls short. While the Accessories—your robot companions—sound appropriately mechanical with their text-to-speech voices, their frequent mispronunciations are jarring and will often break immersion. What’s strange is that even if you run away to the Japanese dub, the Accessories will still speak in English. This is an especially odd choice, considering they originally spoke Japanese on the Vita.

Freedom Wars Remastered Value for Money - 8/10

For $40, Freedom Wars Remastered offers a substantial amount of content. As with most hunting games, the real meat lies beyond the main story—in the post-game grind and online co-op. The game offers a deep variety of customization options that keeps the experience fresh and rewarding even after dozens of hours. There is even a new "Deadly Sinner" difficulty mode that ramps up the challenge if you feel it’s not challenging enough. However, the repetitive nature of some late-game missions and the sometimes frustrating AI partners can detract from the overall experience and make the grind feel more tedious than rewarding at times. If you plan to see everything the game has to offer, I advise doing so online with other Sinners.

Freedom Wars Remastered Review: Still Serving a Million-Year Sentence

Monster Hunter was a cultural phenomenon that swept through many gamers then, especially during the late 2000s and early 2010s. For many of us who gamed on the PSP, it was a rite of passage. I vividly recall those clandestine hunts during school hours, crouched under our desks, PSPs in hand, desperately trying to vanquish the Rathalos without getting caught by the teacher.

But then, like a Rathalos inconveniently taking flight in the middle of you laying the smackdown, Monster Hunter migrated exclusively to Nintendo consoles, leaving a gaping void on Sony’s handhelds. Into this vacuum poured a wave of imitations, all seeking to capture even a fraction of Capcom’s monster-slaying magic and bring it onto the PlayStation Vita. Titles like Soul Sacrifice, Toukiden, and even Ragnarok faded into obscurity as quickly as they appeared. Some, like God Eater, were able to find a modicum of success and managed to carve out a fanbase. And amongst these contenders was Freedom Wars, a game that, even for all its promise, was never given the time or support it needed to truly thrive.

Penalties Upon Penalties Upon Penalties

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Freedom Wars brings players to a dystopian future, 100 millennia hence, where Earth’s resources have depleted and the remnants of humanity live under constant surveillance in prison city-states called Panopticons (named after an actual structure allowing for constant surveillance). These city-states are governed by oppressive regimes that enforce draconian laws. From the moment of birth, certain individuals are considered guilty with the crime of existing, burdened with a million-year sentence and the label of "Sinner." The only hope for these prisoners to escape their fate lies in combat, defending their Panopticon’s dwindling resources in a struggle for freedom, and earning Entitlement points.

The Panopticon is a relentless system that watches, judges, and penalizes your every move. Talk to someone without permission? Penalized. Move a little too far from your designated zone? Penalized. Standing idly because you as the player decided to grab a cup of coffee in the middle of the night? You guessed it—penalized. The suffocating nature of these restrictions exemplify the oppressive regime governing the Panopticon, making every action from existing, no matter how small, feel consequential. Frustration swells as you are punished for the most basic of things that you took for granted.

And yet, this is where the game’s brilliance lies. Progression feels especially rewarding as you triumph against a system designed to crush you. Whenever you chip away at your astronomical prison sentence, the oppressive walls of your cell start to transform, both literally and figuratively. You’re eventually able to trade your bleak, soulless confines for rooms that are marginally better—still prison-like, but with a hint of comfort that feels earned. Once you spend enough Entitlement points to unlock the ability to explore freely or chat with NPCs or so on and so forth without reprimand, you begin to feel freedom, in small, hard-won sips.

A World Full of Potential Left in the Background

However, for all its ingenious mechanics, Freedom Wars Remastered stumbles when it comes to its narrative. It leans heavily on well-worn anime tropes: the amnesiac protagonist, the jokester friend, the damsel in distress the hero is drawn to, a shadowy organization, and so on. While functional, I often wished the game’s setting played a bigger role in the story, or for the narrative to fully embrace the psychological toll of the Panopticon, forcing players to confront the dehumanizing effects head-on. Human greed and desperation are amplified in situations such as these, but all of it remains unexplored.

Were this a remake, this might have been an opportunity for the game to improve things. As a remaster however, Freedom Wars remains faithful to its Vita origins, and that means the story unfortunately remains unchanged, with its flaws ever-present. The opening hours are a slow, frustrating slog, with your Accessory (a robot companion) bombarding you with endless walls of menus and text. Rather than letting its dystopian world speak for itself through gameplay or environmental storytelling, the game opts to lecture you—quite literally so—by having NPCs monologue about how dangerous the world you live in is. Then on the other extreme, the game’s conclusion feels rushed and underwhelming. Instead of resolving the mysteries it teased, it piles on even more questions and leaves several unresolved plot threads, as if in anticipation for a sequel to provide answers.

Sure, a hunting game like Freedom Wars doesn’t need an Oscar-worthy plot to fuel its addictive gameplay, which is admittedly its strongest suit. Monster Hunter games get away with barebones stories after all. But it is especially disappointing in Freedom Wars because its world is genuinely fascinating. The Panopticon is brimming with potential for thought-provoking narratives. Yet, it often feels like the game brought this gripping world just to leave it in the background, barely fulfilling its role as set dressing when it should be an active participant.

The disconnect between gameplay and setting is particularly stark when the battles are contrasted with the world’s supposed desperation. The story emphasizes humanity’s severe lack of resources, yet this theme barely impacts gameplay. Gun ammo appears infinite and allies respawn freely at the press of a button, leading me to wonder if scarcity truly exists within this world.

Even the penalties that accentuated the tyrannical atmosphere felt inconsequential after some time. Despite spending hours reducing my sentence throughout the game, by the time the credits rolled, I still had hundreds of thousands of years left to serve. But the credits already rolled—even if there’s post-game content, the story is considered complete, which prompted me to ask, "What’s the point of it all?" I haven’t reduced my prison sentence to zero yet, but if the remaster's reward is anything like the original's, it doesn’t seem worth the effort.

The Art of Getting “Gud”

As I mentioned earlier, a hunting game doesn’t need a groundbreaking story to succeed—its true value lies in the gameplay, and Freedom Wars Remastered proves this in spades. It thrives on a gameplay loop that will sound familiar to those who have played similar games of this genre: accept a mission, complete the mission, and reap the hard-earned spoils from that mission. It’s somewhat of a well-worn structure, but what sets it apart from its contemporaries—the Monster Hunters and God Eaters of the time—is its vertical movement system, embodied in one of its core mechanics: the Thorns.

With the press of a button, these lasso-like tools will have you vaulting between buildings or slingshotting straight into the fray with the kind of acrobatic finesse that would make Attack on Titan’s Levi nod in approval. Beyond mobility, Thorns can also be used to lay traps, mend your allies’ wounds, or fortify their defenses. And against the towering Abductors, they’re invaluable for dragging them down to the ground to make them easy targets for you and your team.

This mechanic alone makes the game downright addictive and can easily pull you into its fast-paced, action-packed missions. Missions often involve Abductors, but these monsters are not the true objectives. More often than not, the true task at hand is rescuing the Citizens these Abductors have… well, abducted, and bringing them back to your base—a process that becomes more intense when these behemoths start rushing at you.

Where Freedom Wars is at its hardest, however, is when you’re fighting against rival Panopticons. In these missions, you'll compete with other factions for control of resources and Citizens in an area. While fighting Abductors is thrilling, they’re large enough to target with your long-range guns and Thorns, which makes them relatively manageable. Fighting humanoid enemies, on the other hand, can be frustrating. Their smaller size and rapid movements make it tricky to land consistent hits. It might be a classic case of "git gud," yes, but when you’re up against a cluster of enemies that interrupts your actions, the experience can quickly turn from challenging to annoying.

There’s Freedom in the Customization, Ironically

As frustrating as these fights may be, the rewards for completing missions in Freedom Wars Remastered make the grind worthwhile. Much like Monster Hunter, the spoils allow you to fully customize and upgrade your gear. Rather than leveling up your character directly, your progression is tied to your equipment through module enhancements. Want to enhance the elemental damage of your melee weapons? Go for it. Prefer fine-tuning your ranged weapon’s lock-on speed or boosting headshot damage? Those are options, too. Especially noteworthy for old-time fans is that the module system has been overhauled. Previously, using a module meant consuming it, whereas now, you can freely attach and detach modules without consuming them, which means players can experiment with different combinations as they’d like.

Customization doesn’t end with weapons, either; even accessories can be outfitted to complement various strategies. It’s ironic, then, that a game set in the oppressive confines of a prison offers such freedom of expression in battles.

Of course, achieving this level of customization will require a fair bit of grinding. For some, this might be a deterrent, but for those willing to stick with it, the payoff is immense. Mastering the Thorns and soaring through the air feels exhilarating. Zipping left and right, toppling Abductors, and chaining attacks with finesse was a blast, especially when coordinating with others in online co-op.

Sinners, Assemble!

Though I've only dipped my toes into the game's online co-op, teaming up with other players to take down Abductors was nothing short of fun. The fact that co-op ties directly into the game’s global rankings—where each Panopticon competes based on its members’ collective contributions—is a great touch. Every donated resource feels like a contribution to something larger: what they call in-game as "the Greater Good," though, more realistically, it’s in the pursuit of the number one spot in the leaderboards. At the time of writing, Tokyo holds that top position, but I have a modicum of faith that my chosen prefecture, Fukuoka, will one day take the lead.

For players less invested in the main story, missions can be tackled in groups. The combat dynamics change when you’re part of a squad, rather than a lone Sinner with an AI companion, as each member strives to bring their strengths to the fight. If you’re lucky, you might even encounter a well-equipped veteran in the lobbies so early in the game’s launch, helping newcomers breeze through early missions to get to the meat of the game’s content.

Is Freedom Wars Remastered Worth It?

Yes, For Now—Until Something Better Comes Along

I won’t sugarcoat it—Freedom Wars Remastered is a tough sell in today’s landscape. As expectations of players have evolved in the past 10 years, even with some notable tweaks, its once-fresh take of a dystopian future now looks and feels as though it’s stuck in the past. Many may just want to wait until the latest shiny toy comes out—Monster Hunter Wilds, anyone?

But even with all its flaws, this remaster undoubtedly delivers a fun experience. The fast-paced combat and deep customization are just as captivating as they were a decade ago. I found myself powering through the game’s lackluster story simply because the gameplay loop was so engaging.

And so I can’t help but root for Freedom Wars. Now freed from the limitations of the PS Vita—a console that never quite found its footing—this remaster has the potential to reach a broader audience. It’s given a chance to appeal to new players with the addictive gameplay that kept its original servers alive for an impressive seven years before their closure in 2021.

Director Takashi Tsukamoto has expressed interest in revisiting its world, and that glimmer of hope makes me optimistic. Perhaps one day, Freedom Wars will finally find its groove and deliver an experience more worthy of its potential. Until then, we can still take up arms in the Panopticon, fighting for the "Greater Good."

Steam			PlayStation			Nintendo
Price		$39.99

Freedom Wars Remastered FAQ

What Panopticons can you choose in Freedom Wars Remastered?

Currently, the game features 47 Panopticons based on Japanese prefectures. The original game had more international options, which may return in a future update.

What are Freedom Wars Remastered’s PC System Requirements?

Game8 Reviews

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Freedom Wars Remastered Product Information

Title	FREEDOM WARS REMASTERED
Release Date	January 9, 2025 (Japan) January 10, 2025 (Worldwide)
Developer	Dimps
Publisher	Bandai Namco Entertainment
Supported Platforms	PC (via Steam) PlayStation 5 PlayStation 4 Nintendo Switch
Genre	Action, RPG
Number of Players	1-8 Players (Online Co-Op and PvP)
ESRB Rating	ESRB Teen
Official Website	Official Website for Freedom Wars Remastered

L A R Opalec

Lloyd grew up bonding with his big brother over video games. While RPGs like Disco Elysium and Final Fantasy IX hold a special place in his heart, he's always up to try new genres.