Freedom Wars

Freedom Wars is one of the strangest games Sony ever released for the PlayStation Vita. The player is born into a world where existence itself is a crime: at the start you're already carrying a sentence of a million years, and every completed mission, every task, and every resource gathered shortens it. The absurd bureaucracy reaches down to the most banal details — without logged work hours the character isn't allowed to lie down, run, have privacy, or move away from their supervising android, and unlocking these basic freedoms is a full-fledged part of progressing through the game.

The action itself is a cooperative hunting game for up to eight players built around one key tool: the Thorn, an energy tether that lets the player pull themselves toward a giant machine, climb up its side, and cut away its armor or limbs. Movement through the arenas feels noticeably more nimble than in the competition because of it, and combat has a distinctly vertical dimension. Alongside melee and ranged weapons, players can rely on fellow prisoners and accompanying androids; rescuing civilians is also important, since they serve as both the main currency and motivation in the conflict between city-states. Objectives range from pure machine destruction through defending a position to stealing prisoners from an enemy city, and the player enters them with a squad of AI-controlled fellow prisoners whenever they aren't teamed up with others.

Technically it was a solid performer — large enemy machines, plenty of objects on screen, and acceptable smoothness — and the visual style mixes stark dystopia with Japanese pop-culture stylization, including the ability to customize your own character and their android in detail. It also includes a surprisingly extensive crafting and weapon-upgrade system. The music is energetic electronica with orchestral surges. Reviews at the time praised the original framing and the Thorn-based combat, less so the confusing menus and long-winded rule explanations. Today, Freedom Wars is most interesting precisely for its world: few action games have built their progression on the idea that the player is literally serving out a sentence for the right to exist.