In an alternate world, Russians dropped the atomic bomb on Germany to end WW2 in Europe and over the next sixty years, the Communist Bloc extends their reach across all of Europe and into the Caribbean and Central America. But as the 2000s arrive, the USSR decides to take their conquests further... By taking over the United States.
Freedom Fighters is a game from the early 2000s that saw a re-release onto modern storefronts like Steam, GOG and EGS back in 2020. Originally coming off the backs of Hitman: Codename 47 and Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, IO Interactive took a mild depature from their earlier titles' stealth oriented gameplay to a much more action packed adventure as players liberate New York from Russian invaders.
Starting a new game, we're put into the world of plumbing brothers Chris and Troy Stone on their way to what should've been a routine job at the residence of an anti-Communist activist. But when Russian forces storm the apartment and abduct Troy, Chris finds himself saving the lives of people who would induct him into the New York rebellion of the invasion.
As part of his induction, Chris must free the very same activist he was employed by before the invasion. In doing so, this acts as the crux of the game's tutorial outside of the opening where you're taught how to move and shoot.
The charisma system is core to Freedom Fighters. Represented by a little orange "XP" bar under the player's health, this bar fills as the player finds wounded civilians and gives them a first aid kit or by blowing up a side objective. Charisma levels are key to having recruitment slots. Starting off with two in the tutorial and capping at twelve if you maximise every charisma gain you get, players can go up to NPC resistance fighters and recruit them into their squad, acting as bodyguards you can keep with you or give orders to. Orders can range from falling back towards the player, advancing towards a location/attacking a focused target or defending a position. This can be done on the 1, 2 and 3 keys respectively and function through taps for a single squad member to follow an order or a hold for all squad members to follow an order.
Each chapter will task the player with taking on a set of objectives in different sections of a map, all of which can be visited through the sewer network. Some areas will have bonus objectives that will impact other areas if destroyed. Say that one area is protected by an attack helicopter which can and will decimate you just for looking at it. Well it just so happens that in another area, there's a landing/refuelling pad for those attack helis. Grab some C4, blow that up and not only do you gain Charisma for it being a side objective... But now that attack helicopter guarding the objective you wanted to take over is now heli free. Doing actions in one area influence others and can help your NPC followers and yourself.
But going between areas comes at a cost. Any recruits you obtain will vanish coming back and all enemies will have respawned. So be sure to think ahead if you need to scavenge for some C4 and are told where the Russians store any munitions. You don't want to be halfway towards one objective, realize you don't have the means to toast it, only to get the tools and come back to half the Russian forces now alive again in front of you.
Towards the end of the game when I had between 10-12 NPC allies storming the final level, I did have a lot of fun just watching my squads crash into a room and start laying down more firepower than the invaders could ever dream and not having to fire a shot myself. Certainly saved on needing to self heal, unless someone on my squad got downed and needed one. It helps that sometimes enemies can get staggered when hit which causes them to stop firing and be subject to a potential loop of staggers before death.
If I were to be critical of Freedom Fighters however, i'd have to give a mild one, a major one and two that are a mix of column A and B.
My mild critique is the potential Charisma loss if players just storm the main objective of an area. Because clearing the main objective will just auto complete the bonus and not reward Charisma for doing so. And you can't ever go back to a cleared area. Hence the need to pre-plan and scavenge for any C4 before commiting to any main objective chases.
My major one? The weapons. The accuracy is BEYOND terrible no matter which weapon you use. Unless it's the sniper rifle or the RPG in which case those get perfect accuracy. But your pistol, revolver, rifles, SMGs, all inaccurate. You can put your crosshairs over an enemy and dump 3/4s of a magazine and only hit the other guy maybe three times. A saving grace when I had my cracked team of NPC followers is that they were mostly accurate.
I played Freedom Fighters on it's second hardest difficulty, as beating the game either on it or the absolute hardest unlocks a bonus level "retaking" Liberty Island. A... Rather unceremonius bonus level that just ends as you enter the head of the Statue of Liberty to face a black void with the words "The END" in little lights. No... Cutscene or anything. Just that. Walking into it boots you back to the main menu.
There's also a twist about 2/3rds of the way through the story with a particular character that kinda just goes unresolved by the end of the game and left me a little unsatisfied.
But overall, I enjoyed Freedom Fighters. It had a fun story and gameplay, plus it's a lesser known game made by IO Interactive that warrants a good looking at by fans of the developers.
