Freedom Wars Remastered is almost perfect on Steam Deck
Freedom Wars Remastered is easily one of the most surprising announcements in a while. When looking back at the PS Vita library, I expected a few other games to make the jump to modern platforms before even thinking of Sony's own titles like Freedom Wars or Soul Sacrifice. I also kept thinking (and hoping) we'd see the latter ported first, but developer Dimps and Bandai Namco Entertainment resurrected Freedom Wars for Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4 with it launching worldwide this week. I've been playing the Steam version and also revisiting the PS Vita release over the last few weeks to cover how it feels on Steam Deck.
In a lot of ways, playing Freedom Wars Remastered on Steam Deck reminded me of when I played God Eater Resurrection and God Eater 2: Rage Burst on PS4. You can tell the target platform roots, but the game looks crisper and runs better. Beyond that, I wasn't sure what was different until booting up the PS Vita release to play alongside the Steam version on both my handhelds. Freedom Wars Remastered is a few steps forward and one step back, but it also could've done with more. Right now, it just feels like a slightly improved version of a PS Vita classic, but doesn't do enough to stand out from the many hunting action games (let alone actual Monster Hunter games) we have on Steam. If you're more curious about the game itself and not the technical aspects of the PC port and differences, make sure to read James' full review here.
Freedom Wars Remastered PC port features
Freedom Wars Remastered on PC is capped to 4K and 60fps. You'd think it would at least support 120fps given the visuals, but as of this writing it is capped to 60fps. In fact, there is no in-game frame limiter at all. You can adjust screen mode (windowed, fullscreen, and borderless), toggle v-sync, adjust resolution (only 16:9 support despite having a 800p option), toggle anti-aliasing, enable texture filtering (off, 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x), and adjust shadow quality (low, medium, high, maximum).
Freedom Wars Remastered on PC also has support for keyboard and mouse controls. I didn't test these out much since I only played the Steam version on my Steam Deck and ROG Ally, but they are there with rebinding options. One thing I want to note is that while not officially included in-game, Steam Input can enhance Freedom Wars Remastered. If you, like me, enjoy using the trackpad to aim or even gyro, you should try experimenting with both of those. It really elevates the experience when using a ranged weapon, though you can rely on the lock on as well.
Freedom Wars Remastered Steam Deck performance
The reason I said Freedom Wars Remastered is almost perfect on Steam Deck, is that despite all the visual improvements and it feeling a lot better to play on Steam Deck with added input options through the paddles or gyro, the game has a few performance issues right now. When playing solo, it runs at 60fps with some poor frame pacing, and sometimes even dips into the mid to high 50s. This happened regardless of the settings I used on both my Steam Deck and ROG Ally. Yes, even the ROG Ally dipped below 60fps, and I feel like there is some issue with the game or engine rather than the hardware here, but I'm going to do more investigating.
Freedom Wars Remastered is an oddly demanding game in its power consumption, but it also seems to not run as well as it should despite using 25-30% CPU and GPU on Steam Deck. When playing in multiplayer, 720p/800p with the settings on the highest presets saw drops to the 40s on a few occasions.
One thing I noticed playing on the Steam Deck OLED is that 60fps in Freedom Wars Remastered doesn't feel smooth when running at 90hz. I recommend setting your Steam Deck screen to 60hz when playing Freedom Wars Remastered if you have an OLED model. With that done, the frame rate still doesn't hold a locked 60, and even if you set it to 55fps (at 55hz), it doesn't feel perfect. I hope a patch can address some of these minor issues, because even with the slightly unstable feeling experience that I notice, it is massively better than playing on PS Vita or at 30fps there.
Freedom Wars Remastered multiplayer on Steam Deck
Note that Freedom Wars Remastered uses a kernel level anti-cheat listed on the Steam Page (Easy Anti-Cheat) but it works fine on deck after the initial setup. In fact, I also managed testing Freedom Wars Remastered online over Wi-Fi and wired internet on my Steam Deck with a friend who was playing on PC. We had no connection issues or anything. It works well.
Freedom Wars Remastered Steam Deck recommended settings
So far there are no settings I could find to get a 100% perfect 60fps on Steam Deck in Freedom Wars Remastered. If you're ok with drops to the likes of 55fps, you can play with texture filtering set to 16x, anti-aliasing on, and shadows at medium. I usually keep shadows on low for better performance in most games, but I didn't notice much difference here with medium or low shadows. If you are playing online with others, you will see drops to the high 40s in some of the busier moments. If the game gets patched to address some of the performance oddities, I'll update this section.
Freedom Wars Remastered does correctly invoke the on-screen keyboard for text entry like when inputting the password and it properly displays appropriate button prompts with a good text size across the board. I imagine it will get Steam Deck Verified soon, but I hope some of the performance quirks can be resolved.
Freedom Wars Remastered ROG Ally performance
After spending about five hours playing Freedom Wars Remastered on my Steam Deck OLED and PS Vita side by side, I was curious to see if the performance issues would be present not only on more powerful hardware, but also when playing on Windows 11. After testing Freedom Wars Remastered on the ROG Ally (Z1 Extreme) at the 25W turbo mode for about five more, I saw similar dips below 60fps when running at 1080p. After turning everything down to low or off and running at 720p, the drops were still not completely gone. I want to reiterate that these are minor issues, but the fact that a PS Vita game running at higher resolution with no major visual upgrades has these issues on much more powerful hardware is concerning.
Revisiting Freedom Wars Remastered on new portable systems after experiencing the original back in 2014 has been great in many ways, but it just highlights how far we have come in the hunting action genre since then. Modern consoles and PC both have access to multiple mainline Monster Hunter games, the likes of the excellent Wild Hearts, older games like Toukiden, and also all three God Eater games. Freedom Wars Remastered does a commendable job at making the original more accessible and making it play better, but I wish Dimps had done more for this revival. I hope this leads to a potential Freedom Wars 2 though because there's a ton of potential here.