Chains of Freedom is a tense and highly intriguing tactical RPG that is well worth your time

Where once the squad-based tactical shooter was a rarity, I feel that these days I’ve been inundated with them. This is a good problem to have as long as new entries to the genre, such as Chains of Freedom, pass the simple “is it as good as X-Com” test. In Chains of Freedom, the answer is more-or-less a “yes” but with the fair observation that this is obviously a much lower budget experience with a tight story and a more compact scale.

In short, Chains of Freedom takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in which humanity initially fell foul to a spaceborn virus that either zombifies or mutates people (and animals) into mindless killing machines. Thankfully due to the efforts of an organisation known as The Sovereign, some semblance of order has been restored, and people are now able to rebuild their communities either within or outside The Sovereign’s reach. 

It begins with a small squad of Sovereign soldiers sent on a mission to deal with a certain Doctor Svetlov. We later discover that Svetlov was previously a top scientist within the Sovereign organisation, and as is made abundantly clear from the very start, the Sovereign isn’t as perfect as it may portray itself. Chains of Freedom deliberately uses this as a vehicle to drive ethical debate throughout its fairly tight and well-scripted narrative, and whilst I didn’t think it did much to be unique, it is a solid and compelling experience.

As is so often the case, things don’t go according to plan and our small squad rapidly finds itself in deeper and deeper trouble. Chains of Freedom rapidly deploys a wide range of enemies against us, and these come from both different factions and with multiple classes that often occupy the same battlefield. Manipulating zealots to fight raiders and later on to help deal with significant, extra-terrestrial threats can be both critical to your success and also a lot of fun.

On that note, Chains of Freedom can be quite difficult — especially on the highest of the three difficulty levels. I spent most of my time playing on the medium (default) setting, and whilst I managed to work through most of the early fights without trouble, later battles certainly slowed me down and took two or three attempts to get through on occasion. The chosen difficulty level also affects things like how much ammo and healing items will be lying around, and whilst I would say these are hardly abundant on the default difficulty level, you’re unlikely to run out too often. 

Inventory management and crafting are also key in Chains of Freedom, with new recipes being added to the players arsenal whenever a new item is discovered. Ammo, healing items and throwable weapons all feature, and there’s a range of both common and fairly rare crafting components to collect. One thing I really liked about Chains of Freedom was that medkits give the character who uses them both immediate (and full) healing as well as a permanent health boost – meaning that you’ll want to reserve the valuable chemicals that are used to craft them at all costs. This is just one example, and “making do” without some of the more easily craftable items whilst you save up ingredients for the better ones is a fun sub-game here.

Even more (and perhaps most) interestingly about Chains of Freedom is its shard system. In game, shards are depicted as a byproduct of the EDEN infestation that originally arrived with the meteor that brought devastation to mankind. Made immune to EDEN’s harmful effects by Sovereign scientists (like Svetlov), our team can use these shards to add both passive and active effects that have massive impacts on battle. What really makes these interesting is the combinations you can create, with options (as you advance through the game and locate more shards) to build characters who specialise in anything from melee tanking to high action-point, very fragile glass cannons.

Between the items, inventory, crafting and shard systems, Chains of Freedom has some really good fundamentals that sit behind the story. These things do come together nicely, but none of them would be worth persevering with if the actual combat missed the mark. Thankfully it doesn’t, with Chains of Freedom doing most of the basics well and adding a few subtle mechanics that elevate it above much of the competition.

Chains of Freedom is fairly linear in between battles, with the player controlling their party as a group and in real time, moving to a turn-based battle system that will be very familiar to anyone who has played X-Com or similar. The exploration between battles reminds me of games like Mutant Year Zero, and the player has the option of separating their group to position them strategically prior to the battle starting. This is good fun and worth doing, but the penalty for getting it wrong is stiff — because opponents will get the first turn if you’re spotted.

Combat uses a similar cover system to every game in this genre, with either half or full cover available and flanking a critical feature of the game. Chains of Freedom shows how effective cover will be before you move to it, and also draws lines of sight to enemies and shootable objects like barrels  as you navigate the environment. Elevated positions are much better than low ones, and the maps are generally laid out in a way that makes enemies tough to assault directly, but with the chance to shift momentum in your favour if you can position your team well.

Every character uses a fixed amount of action points (AP) to move, shoot, use items and similar, and in general you’re going to get one move and an attack, or two attacks off per turn. Where this can change is with the shard builds, which can (for example) convey extra AP for characters who don’t move (allowing for three shots) or AP regain upon making a kill which can grant you a critical additional action such as healing or chucking a molotov.

AP can also be spent on making shots more certain. If your character is in cover and you’ve no intention of moving them, then instead of taking that 80% shot for 12AP, you could take a 90 or 100 percent shot for just a few AP more. It’s something so simple that I’m surprised it’s not a feature in every game like this, but having said that, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it implemented quite so cleanly before.

With regard to battles, this is something that Chains of Freedom does particularly well over and above the basic mechanics. As I’ve already said, some missions use multiple different sides to create a bit of tactical interest, and over and above that, the enemy variety is quite high. AI seems to be good, with armoured, tankier enemies moving in close to use melee weapons or shotguns, and certain other enemies either keeping at a distance to snipe and call for reinforcements or even to throw grenades if your team stays grouped up. There are even some memorable battles that feature unique terrain features or enemy weapons, and I certainly appreciated the variety.

Overall then, Chains of Freedom is a very solid tactical shooter that feels (and is) fairly linear in both its story and its mechanics, but which does everything well and rarely mis-steps. Some of the battles spike in difficulty a bit, but losing 2-3 times and having to reload isn’t the end of the world for a game like this. I really enjoyed the accessible, straightforward mechanics of the shards and crafting system, and especially the powerful rewards that you can access via both. The story is solid, with good voice acting and a decent script, and over the course of just under 20 hours, I felt that Chains of Freedom offered exceptional value. 

Chains of Freedom is out now on on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5.