In a very unexpected announcement, Bandai Namco announced it is publishing a remaster of the PlayStation-published Vita classic Freedom Wars. Simply titled Freedom Wars Remastered, players can begin paying their million year prison sentence on January 10, 2025 for PS5 and PS4.
What are the new features in Freedom Wars Remastered?
Freedom Wars Remastered features the bells and whistles players expect from rereleases. Upgraded textures, 60 frames per second performance, and 4K resolution are all present for both PS4 and PS5 versions. Quality of life improvements including an overhauled weapon crafting system, game balance adjustments, and additional difficulty options are also added.
“In the distant future, humanity is in a struggle to survive. Pollution has devastated the planet, and the remnants of humanity are divided amongst city-sized prisons called Panopticons,” says the game’s official description. “So scarce are resources that living itself is a crime and those born are immediately given a million years of prison time. Dubbed ‘Sinners’ the only option other than awaiting death in prison is to fight for freedom with allies for resources, to rescue citizens from abduction by rival enemies, or take up arms against other enemy Sinners.”
The director of Freedom Wars Takashi Tsukamoto spoke with IGN about the remaster. He confirms that Dimps and Sony came to an agreement on the license, and partnered with Bandai Namco for the project.
“The opportunity never really presented itself until now,” says Tsukamoto. “We were able to come to an agreement with Sony regarding the license and they were able to partner up with Bandai Namco, and it just so happens that it’s about 10 years later that all of it started coming to fruition.”
Additionally, he discussed the possibility of a Freedom Wars sequel. While it may not be in the cards just yet, he hopes this remaster succeeds so they can take the next steps in continuing the series.
“What success would look like is for this game to do well, and well enough that we could take the next step into potentially releasing a sequel,” Tsukamoto says. “As much as we’d like to share it with you, we don’t know if there’s going to be a sequel yet of course, but if there is a sequel, we have tons of ideas we’d want to implement into said sequel.”
The PlayStation-published Freedom Wars originally launched in 2014 exclusively for PS Vita. Developed by Dimps, the action RPG received average reviews garnering a 73 score on Metacritic. Although it reached cult status here in the US, it was incredibly popular in Japan achieving the second highest opening sales of any PS Vita game.
In our review, Freedom Wars received a 6 out of 10. Heath Hindman wrote about the PlayStation-published game, “for every thing Freedom Wars does right, there’s some part of it that feels incomplete or another aspect that interferes with how good it could have been. It’s overall a good game, but not a strong recommendation.”