Set in a dystopian Eastern Europe, Chains of Freedom is a science fiction turn-based tactics game. You control a team of Peacekeepers for a nationalistic regime called The Sovereignty sent to apprehend the rogue scientist Svetlov. Chains of Freedom adheres strongly to genre conventions, and while competent in many areas, it feels held back. Without a defining feature or strong narrative hook, Chains of Freedom reveals itself as a pale reflection of other tactics titles.

Searching for Svetlov

For a turn-based tactics title, Chains of Freedom has quite a strong focus on narrative. Svetlov is a danger. and it is your duty to serve and maintain peace–no matter the cost. Without the Sovereignty, the strange alien growths called EDEN that dot the landscape would have turned you all into dangerous mutants. In your pursuit of Svetlov you will contend with both the mutants and humans who live outside the watchful safety of The Sovereignty.

There is a kernel of a moral dilemma here. In one early scene, you engage a defenseless village to press forward on your mission, despite the unnecessary violence. But, frustratingly, the story is largely very predictable. From the start, you will likely call many of the twists and turns that lie ahead of you. While some elements may happen sooner than you think, the latter plot elements also reveal themselves far in advance.

“…even a far greater performance would struggle with such paper-thin characterisation.”

This problem is exacerbated by the characters. The voice acting is average overall, but even a far greater performance would struggle with such paper-thin characterisation. The game’s stylised motion comics in place of traditional cutscenes are visually effective but do nothing to flesh out or diversify the cast. Whether they be duty-bound soldiers, mad scientists, or scrappy smugglers, each character struggles to make any kind of noteworthy impression. Instead, each functions as a plot device to deliver exposition with almost invisible personalities. Even as circumstances change across the narrative, characters barely react beyond a few lines before returning to business as usual. As is, they feel frustratingly homogenous.

Crafting your approach

Mechanically, Chains of Freedom is split between light exploration and turn-based combat. Both are serviceable, but neither is particularly strong. Chains of Freedom is mostly linear, with a few small branching pathways or exploration areas. These sections serve as a chance to restock on ammo, craft consumables, or find new weapons or ‘biocrystals.’ Biocrystals, along with new weapons, serve as the primary method of progression during your playthrough. These augment specific aspects of your character and can hone particular playstyles for your expanding team.

While some are relatively straightforward statistical increases, other biocrystals also provide powerful active abilities that are far more interesting. My personal favourite made enemies provide action points when killed, creating a powerful synergy with my frontline shotgun-wielding team member.

Progression doesn’t help the aforementioned problem of character homogeneity. Narratively, they barely express anything unique, and the limited gameplay kits echo this. For example, one team member gains access to a grapple that allows them to cross the map quickly, but besides this, he is entirely interchangeable with the rest of the team. Everyone can use every weapon, consumable, or biocrystral. No one gets new abilities or an upgrade of their existing ones. Every character suffers from this, frustratingly limiting them in both narrative and mechanical expression.

“Progression doesn’t help the problem of character homogeneity.”

Before you initiate a battle, you sometimes have the option to approach stealthily. Some enemies can be entirely bypassed this way, while others let you position your team before bullets start flying. This diversifies the game somewhat, but you can never choose stealth. Instead, stealth is entirely contextual. If Chains of Freedom doesn’t decide this is a moment where stealth is an option, you can’t even attempt it. Because of this, I was baffled for a long portion of my playthrough where stealth seemingly vanished before it made a return to the gameplay loop hours later.

XCOM at home

Chains of Freedom’s combat is, in a word, okay. Developers Nordcurrent took clear inspiration from the modern XCOM titles. There are all the familiar elements: working with a grid with terrain providing either half or full cover and percent chances to hit when you take a shot.

In some instances, Chains of Freedom does differ from its contemporaries. In each turn, your characters work with several action points rather than only two. With this system, actions are much more granular; throwing a grenade costs six points, firing a pistol eight, or a sniper rifle twelve. While aiming is fully up to chance, when you do hit, the damage is either standard or a critical hit. You can also assign additional actions to a shot to raise your chance of success, which is a nice trade-off. The intent here seems to give players more options than simply move and shoot. However, the high action point cost often means wasted points at the end of a turn, especially on characters with limited pools.

A few key areas fundamentally hold back Chains of Freedom’s combat. Encounter and enemy design is weak, and the lack of meaningful progression also limits player freedom. Fights in Chains of Freedom are very similar throughout. Enemies lack distinct kits that force you to play in different ways, and with limited progression, your options as a player are stagnant. During my playtime, I felt most encounters progressively blend into one. One instance included a mounted gun that forced me to progressively reposition on approach, but besides this, I can’t remember specific fights. Including this, I could count on one hand the number of objectives that wasn’t ‘dispatch all enemy waves’.

Like most things in Chains of Freedom, the core mechanics are perfectly functional. But without an external push to mix up your tactics, or enough options to seduce you into attempting a different approach, the gameplay quickly becomes rote. Healing is also a big problem. Chains of Freedom does not have permanent death. You have three turns to revive any downed character before receiving a game over. Playing on the standard difficulty, it took me almost ten hours before I saw a failure state. My main concern wasn’t failure, but how long it would take me to persevere through reviving my team members.

Reviving team members costs nothing and takes them back to half health with all their actions available. The character that revives can’t perform another revive for three turns, but this was functionally a non-issue for me. By keeping my team in a solid formation, they were always able to pick the others up and keep going. Enemy healing was also extremely frustrating. In larger fights, combatants wrap themselves in bandages and needlessly drag out a battle that was already verging on frustrating ten minutes prior. Mercifully, enemies act quickly and do not get stuck in decision loops that often plague the tactics genre.

While you’re tackling these long-winded combats, don’t expect to be vibing to the soundtrack. Acoustic accompaniment is basically non-existent. It’s a shame as the visual presentation is one of Chains of Freedom’s strong points, and the lack of sufficiently punchy tunes serves to sterilise these spaces instead of empower them.

Speaking of visuals, the game looks great, especially from the isometric camera perspective. While the perspective never gets as close to the action as other games in the genre, the camera will shift to best frame the action in a satisfying way. When investigating scenes along your journey into Svetlov’s territory, you’ll be shown stylised comic slides that bring you closer than the distant perspective would allow. It is a shame that these moments and their accompanying narrator as such a highlight, given they are used sparingly. Lighting, in particular, was a highlight. Whether it was as simple as a spotlight piercing through slates on a broken fence or the otherworldly EDEN growths glowing a deep red, the care taken with lighting these spaces made them more present and realistic.

Despite other issues, Chains of Freedom was incredibly stable and I encountered no major bugs during my time playing the game. Although the lack of remappable controller inputs is disappointing, hopefully, this is something that can be fixed in a patch.

Chained Down

Most of this package, when broken down into individualised chunks, is functional. Some games are more than the sum of their parts, but Chains of Freedom lacks a breakthrough mechanical or narrative X factor. Instead, my feelings about it as a whole are the same as my feelings on most individualised elements. It is fine. If you love tactics games, this could be a good game to play through while you catch up on your favourite podcast. But if you’re not sure if tactics games are your thing? I might recommend picking up something else to dip your toes in the genre.

6

Decent

Positive:

Technical performance is solid across the board
Strong presentation, with good visual design and lighting

Negative:

Meta progression is almost non-existent
Main combat loop quickly becomes repetitive
Characterisation is poor for the major squad members
Narrative is predictable

The main problem with Chains of Freedom is that it never stakes its own claim. It doesn’t carve out territory that feels unique and often feels more like an imitator of other games than something with its own personality. While the core mechanics are largely serviceable, without a unique angle, there are far greater entries in the turn-based tactics genre to spend your time with. Ultimately, the predictable narrative delivered by dull characters and the repetitive combat make this a difficult recommendation for all but the most die-hard fans of the genre.