Release date: 1 February 2018
Developer: KK Game Studio
Genre: Sandbox FPS/Strategy/RPG
From the day it first appeared, Mount & Blade has offered players a lasting sandbox world without a real alternative. It is also one of those rare games that has been modded endlessly, with some mods becoming more popular than the original and building fanbases of their own. So why am I opening a review of Guerrilla Warfare by talking about Mount & Blade? Because this game’s sandbox world works in almost exactly the same way. You could call it a modern-warfare version of Mount & Blade, where we go from an unbeatable warrior fighting on horseback with sword and shield in an earlier age to becoming a king. The map, the kinds of quests, party management—almost anything you can think of follows the same system.
I was very excited when I first noticed that resemblance. My long history with the original Mount & Blade, and all those hours I put into it, had a lot to do with that. As someone who loved Warband mods such as 1866 or World War more than the base game, the thought of that experience mixed with modern technology naturally gave me high expectations.
Unfortunately, Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare did not live up to those expectations. I congratulate the developers for trying to make a content-rich sandbox game that promises long hours of play at a time when online games are making all the noise. But it is disheartening that, even after a long period in early access and the release of the full version, so many things are still missing.
So, what is missing?
First of all, there is no main storyline to follow as there is in Mount & Blade. You deal only with townspeople, because you are the person who will organise them and free them from tyranny. Taking the slogan “there is no bloodless revolution” to heart, the game has no administrator or village-head quests. You can only do fetch quests for townspeople who are barely a step up from Mount & Blade’s villagers, along with tasks requested by your companions.
Battlefields are generally open areas with gentle slopes. We are using modern firearms, yet the cover system is extremely limited. You can crouch, go prone or lean out to either side of a tree using Q and E, but those movements do not seem to reduce the enemy’s chance of hitting you. Unless you find a tree to hide behind, a face-to-face encounter is won by whoever fires first. Your orders to party members are very limited. If you are fighting with firearms, there should at least be a few places on the battlefield where your companions can take cover. There aren’t. As a result, early on, when you have little money and few soldiers, anyone passing by can kill or capture you, dragging you from one place to another.
Even if you get hold of a decent, powerful 7.62 rifle early on, the scopes you can attach are limited and the zoom is useless. You are holding an effective rifle manufactured around the millennium, yet your zoom range feels like something from a Second World War Karabiner 98k.
The cheat console comes enabled. Press END to open its list, and if you feel the need, you can activate options such as invisibility, wealth, all companions or revealing all enemies.
Party management may leave you missing even the Mount & Blade released years ago. You have a fully armed unit equipped with everything from grenades and rifles to rocket launchers, yet your only orders are essentially “go here on the map” or “charge.” Sometimes your men even take up positions somewhere entirely unrelated to the spot you marked. Eventually you are forced to use “follow me” and trudge along practically arse-to-arse, because there is nothing else to do. Don’t expect much in the way of party management or tactical combat.
All in all, the idea is excellent. Players have made plenty of modern-weapons mods for the Mount & Blade series, and some of them are genuinely unforgettable. The developers saw that potential, but unfortunately they have not done enough work on it. Perhaps because of limited time or money, they released the game before it was ready. We should also remember that it supports modding, just like the game that inspired it. If it can build a loyal playerbase, mods might eventually bring entirely new scenarios and a version of the gameplay with its problems fixed. You may remember how modders used to conceal or repair many of the shortcomings in the original Mount & Blade through their mods. But first, people need to like the game, adopt it, and take an interest in making it their own through modding. In its current state, my score is 6/10.
Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare gameplay video