Freedom Wars, the fan-favorite multiplayer action game frequently hailed as one of the PlayStation Vita’s best games, is officially coming back. Bandai Namco announced today that Freedom Wars will be getting a remastered version on modern platforms, bringing with it 4K resolution, 60fps support, and other enhancements.
First released on Vita back in 2014, Freedom Wars is a dystopian third-person multiplayer action game similar to Monster Hunter that supports up to eight players. It was originally developed by the now-defunct Japan Studio, which was merged into Team Asobi in 2021. Freedom Wars’ servers were turned off that same year. The remastered version is being developed by Dimps Corporation, which was able to gain permission from Sony to use the license.
Despite Freedom Wars’ status as a niche favorite, it was able to develop a cult following and earn a spot on our list of the 25 best Vita games.
“Freedom Wars’ emphasis on fighting, looting, and upgrading creates an addictive gameplay loop for Vita owners. It certainly isn’t the only Monster Hunter clone available on Vita, but it’s perhaps its most successful one,” we wrote at the time. “The staying power of its addictive fight-loot-upgrade cycle is enhanced by deep gameplay, customization options, and a really interesting online component made it one of our favorite portable releases of 2014.”
In addition to graphical enhancements, Freedom Wars Remastered will feature an overhauled weapon crafting system and additional difficulty settings, among other additions. Nevertheless, we wrote in our hands-on preview that it feels similar to how it was 10 years ago.
“Part of me sees Freedom Wars Remastered more as a novelty – a Vita classic that is now at least playable on modern platforms with its most important parts unsullied, for better or worse. It’s fundamentally the 2014 game with some quality-of-life necessities,” our previewer Michael Higham wrote. “It was a perfect fit for Sony’s last handheld, and a blast to sink hours into, competing with other Panopticons across your region and reducing your prison sentence in futility. I’m not sure if it’s going to take the same way it did 10 years ago, but I do believe this is a big win for preservation and making a cult classic much more accessible in a faithful form.
In the same preview, director Takashi Tsukamoto calls the remaster a neccessary first step on the path toward eventually make a sequel.
“We’ve been wanting to create something like this for a long time, but we really didn’t have the opportunity. As Dimps [the development team], we’ve been looking for opportunities to release something, maybe a sequel – something related to Freedom Wars. However, it was very difficult to set up a team and nothing was really lining up. At some point, we said maybe a remastered version of the original would be good.”
As for why it’s taken this long to revisit Freedom Wars, Tsukamoto said, “The opportunity never really presented itself until now. 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.”
Tsukamoto says he hopes the new remaster will be successful enough to “take the next step into potentially releasing a sequel,” adding, “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.”
Freedom Wars Remastered is set to release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Steam, and Nintendo Switch on January 10, 2025. In the meantime, check out our list of the best 2024 games so far.
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
