Freedom Wars Remastered review – cult classic Vita gem is still a multiplayer diamond in the rough

One of the PlayStation Vita's most underrated exclusives gets a much-appreciated visual update, even if it can't quite shed its handheld skin.

Bandai Namco assumes publishing duties for this remastered version of Freedom Wars, complete with improved textures, framerate and resolution more suited for the modern console era.

Of all the obscure first-party titles featured in the PlayStation Vita catalogue, I’d never have guessed Freedom Wars would receive reappraisal before, say, Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Yet here we are, in the year 2025, and Nathan Drake’s ambitious handheld spin-off is still unplayable on any other platform, while Bandai Namco has stepped in to take over publisher duties from Sony to try and give one of the console’s more obscure exclusives a second chance at life. The result is the return of a dystopian action RPG, now with slightly improved graphics and a silkier framerate that instantly renders Freedom Wars Remastered the definitive way to play. It’s clunky and shows its age in places (both mechanically and visually) but it is still great fun overall, providing you can get past the generic plot and relatively repetitive mission design.

For the uninitiated, Freedom Wars takes place in a far-off future dystopia where, rather than going about their daily lives freely, citizens of the world are taken away from society, placed into walled-off locations called Panopticons, and forced to work off a 1-million-year prison sentence. The primary way these ‘sinners’ do so is by fighting representatives of other Panopticons for resources, rescuing high-value targets from danger, and battling it out against menacing machine monsters known as Abductors to survive. It’s not the most original premise for a sci-fi setting, I’ll admit, but back in 2014, it was the perfect means to have players undertake countless bite-sized combat missions in a portable manner – the same is very much true now, 10 years later.

What sets Freedom Wars apart from other cooperative action RPG greats such as Monster Hunter, however, is its combat. Instead of simply letting you progressively unlock newer, better weapons for your customisable sinner and call it a day, they also come equipped with what’s called a Thorn that helps bring an additional level of verticality to proceedings. Specialising in either attack, healing, or defence, all three different Thorn types can be used to zip up and grapple to either the monster themselves or the battlefield’s surrounding environment, granting you the chance to approach targets from pretty much any desired angle. Locking onto a specific component, zipping up to it, and then endlessly mashing B to saw it off is still an incredibly satisfying feat, one still laced with risk due to each Abductor’s nature to lash about and fight back.

Thorns combine with a generous suite of both melee and ranged weapon types that span everything from rocket launchers, oversized katanas, and giant hammers to make bouts in Freedom Wars Remastered truly customisable to your liking – now even more so thanks to the totally revamped Module system, which makes developing and then attaching upgrade modifiers to your loadout a breeze. Even when played solo as part of the main 20-or-so-hour campaign, there’s a sense of camaraderie that is ever present thanks to the ability to take your fellow AI sinners in with you. Take these into account with each’s babysitter companion, known in-universe as Accessories, and it’s not uncommon to have eight of you leaping around stages in the hopes of dragging down an Abductor using your Thorns and then finishing it off. It’s thrilling fun on a surprisingly epic scale, despite the game’s handheld origins.

Fight the future

Where Freedom Wars Remastered sadly lets itself down is in how repetitive these missions can gradually become over time. After all, there’s only so many ways a game can make ‘take down the big monster’ feel fresh, and it’s when trying to whittle down those 1 million years during the endgame that monotony can sometimes set in. Credit it where credit is due, the additional spice of fighting enemy forces in addition to Abductors, capturing specific points, or needing to rescue a civilian from an Abductor’s pod can add some variety to proceedings, but it’s not helped by repeatedly visiting the same generic locations such as deserts, abandoned cities, bland prison cells, and so on.

Then there’s the way the game actually looks. Because, while the increased resolution, solid 60fps framerate (on every platform other than Nintendo Switch), and improved environmental textures make Freedom Wars Remastered look better than ever, said glow-ups collectively aren’t enough to mistakenly fool players that this is a modern release. Aside from buildings and other environmental assets, I couldn’t help but be constantly reminded by the otherwise barren battlefields and relatively bland hub areas that what I was playing started out as a handheld game. The vertical action works fine when shrunken down to a small screen, such as on the Steam Deck where I spent the bulk of my time playing for this review. When blown up on a full-size TV or monitor, however, there’s only so much Bandai Namco’s light touch-ups can do.

That said, despite the unmistakably limited nature of visual assets and annoying busywork that fills out much of the story between battles, there’s no denying the generous suite of content Freedom Wars Remastered offers once credits roll. From full-on PvP that sees teams of Panopticon sinners pitted against each other to missions geared towards four-player online co-op support, the hope always was with Freedom Wars that this is a multiplayer experience those who really love it will want to come back to repeatedly. Why else would such an unfathomable prison sentence constantly be lorded above your character’s head? Providing you don’t mind grinding for resources to improve your loadout and shave off those years, there’s plenty to keep you busy.

In the end, even over a decade on, Freedom Wars Remastered is still the same unique dystopian take on bite-sized co-op multiplayer it always was. Yet while the smoother framerate and upped resolution present it in its best ever light, I can’t help but feel like Freedom Wars needed the full remake treatment, or even a spiritual sequel, to help give it a proper chance at finding its place in the current era of live-service multiplayer. Thankfully, what is here is mightily fun in the moment to play either alone or with friends, and some appreciated systemic changes have been sprinkled in. Even still, it’s hard to see it holding its own in the modern landscape against something like the upcoming Monster Hunter Wilds. Freedom Wars continues to be a relative oddity in just about every sense, then, albeit one now made playable by the wider audience it always deserved.