Freedom Wars: New Details on PS Vita’s Upcoming Action RPG

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Freedom Wars: New Details on PS Vita’s Upcoming Action RPG

It’s my distinct honor to bring you more information regarding one of the biggest PS Vita titles you’ll see this year – Freedom Wars! The futuristic action game launched last week in Japan, so we wanted to bring a few more details to our North American “Prisoners.”

Those who were able to visit the PlayStation booth at E3 might have had a chance to play our multiplayer co-operative demo – thanks to all who stopped by! I saw a lot of expert thorn-wielders soaring across the skies of the Panopticon, sawing Abductors apart and saving civilians to decrease their 1 million year sentence of penal servitude, and I must say, I was very impressed. However, the one recurring question I continue to hear from the community is – “How’s the story?” Well, let’s take a peek:

Freedom Wars promises intense co-op action with a captivating storyline. I’d like to leave you today with a message from our Japan Studio Producer, Junichi Yoshizawa. Yoshizawa-san has been tirelessly promoting Freedom Wars throughout Japan across the past few months, so I asked him to share a few words with the community:

Last week, we were finally able to release Freedom Wars in Japan. To celebrate the successful launch, I wanted to take a moment to write a message to our eager fans in North America.

Freedom Wars is a title I created to realize a dream of mine. My vision was to develop a PS Vita game that took advantage of the handheld system’s unique features, enabling gamers to come together via ad-hoc and Wi-Fi to overcome terrifying enemies. PlayStation has a storied legacy of creating innovative experiences and our collective goal was to create a Vita game that brought gamers together in a socially connected, location-based, co-op experience.

In order to do that, I gathered a number of well-known developers with an impressive pedigree for creating some of Japan’s most beloved titles – developers Shift and Dimps. These two developers both produce high-quality, interesting titles, but in this case I wanted to utilize both of their strengths, so I asked Shift to be in charge of game design, character design and story, while Dimps handled programming, graphics and direction.

Freedom Wars on PS Vita

Freedom Wars on PS VitaFreedom Wars on PS Vita

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The collaboration between these two developers has been wonderful and the “Freedom Wars” that they have helped create has three distinct strengths:

The first is the outrageous world and story, where prisoners are bound by 1 million years of penal servitude for the sin of “living” and need to fight for their freedom.

The second is a new game where the goal isn’t to just defeat your enemy, but to save people from your defeated enemies and create a multiplayer experience where you can clearly divide up responsibilities among your teammates.

The third is a ranked competition where players can contribute to the areas they actually live in and battle on behalf of their own “city state.”

With the coordination of each of these pillars, we created Freedom Wars – a testament to our collective vision of delivering a frenetic, co-op action game that we believe will please the Western community when it launches later this year.

Take care!

Junichi Yoshizawa

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315 Comments

129 Author Replies

  • I was hoping God Eater 2 would come to the States, but this is honestly the next best thing and in many cases looks even better!

    I would’ve loved an English dub even as terrible as they usually are, but I am happy that no dub will speed up the process to localizing!

    Day 1 buy from me! hopefully my God eater addicted friends will justify buying a vita after I show them this game in action!

    • You’re awesome jakx102! Thanks for the support and your understanding!

      Can’t wait to get online and take down some Abductors with you!

  • @50
    Because it shows they are lazy and are putting no effort at all.It seems to be a trend now to half ass to release a game only in sub.I speak english I want it in english.I was looking forward to this title now im going to skip it cause of it.Its pathetic.I guess the only people I can count on is NIS who actually put effort when they bring something over. How can SCEA of all people be so lazy.

  • Pre ordered a month ago. This would be my first MH game for the Vita that I bought. SS I got from the IGC.

    Considering that the team is composed of a few who have done God Eater. I can expect a good story and nice visuals.

    The story seems like a survival against superiors simliar to the Hunger Games or Death Race.

    Also hope there is cross hunter game content and some story DLC.

    • I hear you Kishnabe – thanks for your support!

      Glad you’re looking forward to the game, can’t wait to share more with you!

  • Man. Bunch of babies on here. We are getting a quality game so close to the Japanese release. I think it is time to open up and give it shot before just dismiss it because they do not have time or money to dub it. Grow up people

  • @54
    Thats what kills me more.I loved god eaters sotry mode and they have to go **** it up by being lazy and not dubbing it.

  • This is game and MHF are reasons why I bought Vita. Please, make Japanese voice-over pack available like you did for SS and SSD.

    • Hi Muha_ronin!

      We’re going for the Japanese audio as the default setting in the game, so I hope you enjoy it! (No need to download a voice-over pack!)

      Thanks for your support!

  • Day One. Thanks for bringing a great title to the Vita!

  • @59
    Yes. Cause reading is hard and translating thousands of lines of dialogue into english is very little effort.

  • I am very excited for this release. Thank you for bringing it to us. Hopefully this helps Vita sales so we can get more games like this.

  • @61

    Its not about reading.Im a very fast reader. I just want to hear this game in english since it is coming over to NA.It also lets developers be very lazy when they bring a game over.Its sad and cuts off people who wanted to play the game.Theres little to no effort at all put in bringing this game over now and they have to spend money on it.This shouldint be an issue SCEA to be so cheap.

  • @62

    Its going to drive away sales if anything when people here its only in japanese. Im going to be glad when it fails since lazy work doesint deserve a reward.

  • @62
    You are what is wrong with this industry. U don’t know jack about creating or localizing a game. Until you do. Keep your fail away from others that are excited for this release noob.

  • @66
    I am so glad people like you are the minority here. If more people like you show up then we would never get some great games made in Japan. Just more stupid Call of Duty and Halo games here in the states.

  • @65
    I know when something takes no effort and what they are doing takes little to no effort.The whole point is to be cheap and save money.Its not like this is some garage company no SCEA is supporting this and its half ass on their part to put such little effort.they dont deserve a reward for being lazy and like I said I cant wait for this to fail.

  • @67
    you must have bad taste in games then, i would love more halo esque games, thats why destiny is my most anticipated game of the year

  • @67
    No there are others who hate this crap as well.I still support other people who bring games over with actual effort put into it.NIS majority of the times gets my money cause they dub their games and out actual effort.I will be skipping tales of heart R as well since again little to no effort put in the game.Also I dont like COD.

  • @Nick Accoridno
    Ha ha ha I didn’t expect to get one more reply!

    You are great! Is there any way we can encourage SCEA to give you title of employee of the week? Gosh… bit sad that you are not working for SCEE! You are great guy!

    Sadly it is not as simple to ask SCEE… most of time on blog they are avoiding hard questions :/ and I don’t have twitter

    But anyway once again THANK YOU! And have a nice day!

    • Oh my pleasure! I’m sure you’ll get some details from them soon!

      Have a great day, and thanks for supporting Freedom Wars!

  • after reading some replies, Nick Accordino is confirmed a weaboo

  • @68
    Whatever man. I can’t argue with you anymore. Not worth the time.

  • While I do prefer games and movies in their original language, I can also sort of understand Freedom Wars issue in particular since a fair amount of the dialogue is not voice acted, but synthesised including all accessories and propa-kun, so they either keep parts of the game in english and others synthesized in japanese, or have part of the game in extremely awkward english depending on the voice engine support of fluent english.

    Regardless, they are still selling for cheaper than normal retail games maybe because of that.

  • I was so happy when they announced this game was coming over man.Now im beyond furious about this situation.This makes me think the other games announced will be sub only.

  • Any news/games on Vita, particularly full games, are welcome in my book.

    • Well I’m happy to oblige you honkayjeezus! (love the name!)

      Let me know what you think about Freedom Wars when you check it out!

  • relax.. if you dont want the game dont buy it.. simple as that.. why you making a big deal over reading.. usual the dubs aint that good anyways. plus the game is 30 bucks instead of the usual 40-45. I honestly would rather have a a game then no game at all… and im done.

  • something i dont get, soul sacrifice/ss delta and ragnarok odyssey/ro ace can get a dub but this and tales of hearts r cant?

  • i’m happy with the japanese. english would be nice but i think japanese fits what
    i’ve seen of the game the past few months.

  • @67 false, subbed lovers are the minority. It’s been proven by almost every anime released, and Japanese game that when Dubbed it does better. Look at Japanese games, subbed only ones don’t do as well as dubbed ones. Anime, shows become way more popular because of dubs. Dubs are the reason these games can afford to release in NA without only 3 sales.
    I’m glad I’m not the only one supporting this. I have no problem with subs, but my problem is people who like subs always wanna have something to say to people who APPRECIATE the language they speak smh.

  • @80
    Cause the Vita is not making enough money to justify the price to give it a full dub. It is the same reason 3rd party developers are abandoning the Wii U. Not enough console sales.

    I think that if I can get over it and listen to a crappy english dub so I can play a good game. I think you people can get over it and read. Otherwise what do you have to look forward to on the Vita. Some people though. Sad

  • How’s the Single PLayer? (I am mostly a single player kinda guy)

    • Single player’s great! That trailer in the post is actually all about the single player story, so please take a look!

      Thanks for your support!

  • @82
    Yeah. You may be right. But I think that amount of people that can do one or the other are out there. The one or the other people are annoying.

  • In every anime or game video we gotta deal with people saying dub is horrible subs is the way real fans watch etc. This is the crap we gotta deal with 24/7 from the immature niche anime crowd. This is coming from a person who’s watching anime every day and watched over 150 in the past 2 years and a half. I’m always commenting them back saying, “so why are you here, a dub doesn’t affect the ability to watch in the original language” or play if games the case. If you love the original so much, learn japanese and don’t try force those ideals on the world.

  • As much as I love RPGs, and instantly buy them for the Vita whenever one comes out, I can’t see any way I’d buy this considering the focus on online/co-op stuff.

    The game looks neat and I hope it does well for you, but RPGs are meant to be single player experiences and co-op/online kills the fun of that genre.

    If there’s a strong and pure single player component that is revealed later I may still check it out. I rarely use my Vita in locations that even have the internet…

    • Hey Boomstickbhg,

      The game’s story is actually one of my favorite parts! Sure there’s multiplayer components to it (and they’re a lot of fun!), but the story is deeply integrated into every piece of the game, and you’ll always be playing with teammates and companions by your side.

      I promise we’ll go a little bit deeper into the story and some of the supporting characters in a further blog post, so please look forward to it!

  • I meant people who prefer only english dubs or only Japanese voices are annoying. Can’t be happy with either of them.

  • @86
    I completely agree. I prefer subs on all the anime I watch. Which is almost every anime aired in the past two decades. But I would never dismiss one because of that. Especially games.

  • @83
    Well thankfully there are other devs who put actual effort when bringing the game over like NIS.So I still have something to look forward to.Seriously how can NIS afford it but not SCEA.Its freaking sad.

  • demo please!!!

  • @Souledge94
    I really doubt it have anything to do with being lazy.

    I see 2 reasons why this game won’t have an english dub.

    1st: They have a really limited budget and can’t afford dubbing that game.

    2nd: They want to release that game the fastest they can, since the vita is almost on artificial breath right now in the west, it would be wise to release that game earlier and not wait until Vita is on artificial breath…

  • I think myself and many (most?) others agree that it is way better to have these games come out here with subtitles rather than wanting dubbed and never getting it (I’m looking at YOU, God Eater 2!).

    It sounds like it already has a pretty great voicecast and we really appreciate bringing these games to the West, where nobody seems eager to create these great new IPs for the Vita like Japan is. This is a day-1 buy for me!

    • Thanks for the kind words Aoxodus – I really appreciate it!

      Look forward to playing with you online!

  • @souledge94
    i was just talking to him on twitter, he just wants to get the game out as quickly as possible

  • Huh… after all it seems we have been ignored by SCEE on our blog :/

    after 1 reply “Like your thinking” Ms. Florence Kum vanished…

    Mr. Nick that’s why we have one serious offer for you! We would like to clone you and make your clone work in SCEE… you will have to provide us sample of your hair… we need to scan your DNA and we will start building your perfect copy. Don’t worry we will treat your clone nicely! We will give him food 4 times a day! We will even give him nice suite with SUPER NICK emblem. So… what do you say? Will you let us clone you?

  • @90

    Comparing Nisa to Sony is incredibly stupid…
    All games i have played from Nisa( and i have played a lot) had a limited number of line that had voice in them, maybe 10% at best, so it cost almost nothing to dub that.
    I haven’t played Freedom War myself, but i would bet that it have much more voiced lines then most games Nisa have localized until now.

  • @96
    Can I have the twitter link.Also year crappy reason.

  • @99
    his twitter is @Nikoro

  • I’ve been watching quite a few livestreams of this after it came out in Japan and so far the game does not look bad at all, it’ll probably be hard given how hard abductors hit but I like a good challenge. I eagerly await the US release date.

  • @98
    Those hyperdimension games actually have alot of voice work.

  • Thanks for posting about the single player experience, my interest in the game is once again rising.

  • I don’t see that anyone asked but how much space will the game be?After taking a look, I might get it digitally.

    @Souledge94 Gravity Rush didn’t have a dub either, yet no one complained…

    • I’ll be sure to share that with you once we know! Probably somewhere in the 1~2GB space if I were to estimate!

  • @Souledge94
    One thing I’m wondering about if the game had been dubbed was how they would handle the vocaloid like companions who say whatever you write in, wouldn’t that take a lot of effort to replicate in English and take up a lot of room on the cart? I personally don’t have much issues with dub only releases as long as the text translation is solid.

  • Between Sword Art Online and this, Very Pleased with the possibilities of two more great titles worth buying digitally.
    May wait for a sale, with so many titles already, but who knows.

  • Well, I was on the fence, but Souledge94’s whining made me want to get it for sure.

  • I will insta buy the retail copy. I am very sad about Soul Sacrifice Delta because no retail version. SSD currently the best action RPG for VITA. I hope Freedom Wars will be nice to. Of course I will buy PS TV too :D

    • Thanks wishmylove! Really appreciate your enthusiasm!

      Look forward to adventuring in the Panopticon with you!

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