The Free Ones

About

The Free Ones is a single player platformer game. It was developed by Farsky Interactive and was released on July 12, 2018. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

In The Free Ones, try to escape the island that holds you prisoner and unravel its mysteries along your journey.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

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76%

Audience ScoreBased on 303 reviews

story56 positive mentions

stability5 negative mentions

The grappling hook and movement mechanics are highly praised for being fun, smooth, and satisfying, delivering an exhilarating experience of speed and freedom.
The game offers visually appealing environments with good lighting and atmosphere, providing a relaxing and immersive parkour experience.
Despite its short length, the game provides challenging and creative level design with a decent difficulty curve, making it enjoyable especially for fans of first-person platformers.

The story is consistently criticized for being weak, confusing, poorly written, and unengaging, with bad voice acting and underdeveloped characters.
The level design becomes repetitive over time, particularly sections involving moving wooden crates, which are frustrating due to unpredictable physics and poor hitboxes.
Technical issues such as clunky controls, occasional glitches, poor optimization, and a cumbersome checkpoint or respawn system detract from the overall experience.

story
276 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20%
67%
13%
The story in this game is generally considered weak, clichéd, and poorly executed, with many reviewers finding it confusing, underdeveloped, or forgettable. While some appreciate the basic narrative and thematic elements, most agree the story lacks depth, strong characters, and effective voice acting, making it a minor aspect compared to the gameplay. Many players suggest choosing "A Story About My Uncle" instead for a more engaging story experience.
- “The developers created a beautiful world and story to explore.”
- “Narrative: the story of escaped slaves trying to make their way home is a compelling one, add in the threat of some kind of alien lifeform and you get a nice, tight story told through the dialogue of the two characters.”
- “The story is very intriguing and the whole experience will keep you hooked until the end.”
- “The story is heavily underworked, with way too many plot holes and things that don't make sense.”
- “The writing is abysmal; I would have rather had no story at all, only implied narrative from the surroundings without explanation.”
- “The story is practically non-existent and doesn't make much sense in any way whatsoever.”
gameplay
150 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
48%
9%
Gameplay centers on a grappling hook and gliding mechanics that provide a smooth, enjoyable, and occasionally challenging experience reminiscent of "A Story About My Uncle." While praised for fun traversal and clever level design, many critics note repetitiveness, occasional control and physics glitches, limited mechanics without upgrades, and some frustrating obstacles that diminish polish. Overall, the gameplay offers satisfying moments and freedom of movement but can feel short, uneven, and sometimes tedious.
- “The free ones can feel like it is becoming a bit plodding and one-note as the environments seem to be similar to the one preceding it; however, to its credit, any time I started to feel things becoming a bit mundane, the main gameplay mechanic would be presented in a new way to recontextualize the challenge.”
- “On one hand, the grappling gameplay feels really smooth and I appreciated how difficult it was compared to those previous games with some seriously tough moments that had me scratching my head for minutes on end.”
- “After multiple hours of gameplay, I can say it's an enjoyable experience, but it does feel repetitive after the first 2 to 3 hours.”
- “Repetitive, boring, boxes, trains, caves, mediocre graphics, stupid 'jumping puzzles', short but too long for the meager mechanics; play 'A Story About My Uncle' instead.”
- “It doesn't run well, has a fragmented and incomplete story, questionable mechanics, and about 3 textures and mechanics that the game continuously reuses.”
- “The gameplay is clunky and the controls are sometimes very unresponsive.”
graphics
56 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
38%
53%
9%
The graphics are generally described as serviceable but often mediocre, with simple visuals, limited art style, and some repetition or lack of variety in assets. Several users note occasional technical issues, unpolished textures, and less immersive character models, though a few highlight pleasant environments and moments of visual appeal. Overall, the graphics fulfill their functional role but rarely impress or stand out.
- “A beautiful game for sure! Lovely environments and art style; a ton of fun and at times extremely challenging.”
- “Beautiful graphics, great story, fluid controls, levels with great designs and variety.”
- “Incredible graphics make it slightly slow on my computer, but still an 11/10 game in my opinion.”
- “Repetitive, boring, boxes, trains, caves, mediocre graphics, stupid 'jumping puzzles', short but too long for the meagre mechanics, play a story about my uncle instead.”
- “The graphics are mediocre – there is not much asset variety and the texel resolution (as in pixel density on a model) is really unbalanced.”
- “[b]Graphics - [i]okay[/i][/b] - The graphics don’t jump out as amazing. You won’t play through the game and stop to admire environments other than a couple of cool looking places. The character textures and movement really break the atmosphere.”
music
27 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
59%
22%
19%
The game's music is widely praised for its fitting, immersive, and often thrilling soundtrack that enhances the swinging and exploration experience. While some find the soundtrack occasionally repetitive or underused, overall it contributes significantly to the game's unique atmosphere and enjoyment. However, audio mixing issues and weak voice acting sometimes detract from the overall sound experience.
- “Later you get something else; don't want to spoil too much. The story is not the great part of the game, the gameplay is, but even then it's not 100% polished. With that in mind, the music is great. It's a shame you can't buy the soundtrack anywhere; it's really great to create atmosphere when the characters are not talking and you grapple around while listening to the music.”
- “Soundtrack: music in this game was awesome and it fit into the theme. Sounds of you gliding through air and landing were also well made.”
- “The music is really amazing, the gameplay is smooth and addictive, and while the story lacks, it's not the worst thing I've experienced in a platformer.”
- “Voice acting is alright, but sound/music gets pretty boring.”
- “I personally found the default audio mixing bad, with music being far louder than it should be.”
- “The game also lacks in the music department; there's some ambient music but it really doesn't create as much of an atmosphere as you would expect.”
optimization
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
50%
25%
The game suffers from inconsistent and poor optimization, with performance fluctuating noticeably even on mid-to-high-end hardware, leading to frame rate drops that are unjustified by the visuals. While generally playable, the optimization issues detract from the overall experience, requiring improvements before it can be fully recommended.
- “The game is pretty, the voice acting (what little there was) was decent and the performance was solid.”
- “Performance is all over the place, on ultra with a GTX 1070 for most of the game I rarely dropped under 75fps at 1080p. Toward the end of the game, the performance seems to creep down, so far 39fps has been the lowest, and this is in what is technically a less demanding area of the game, simply by virtue of draw distance.”
- “It did have optimization issues though.”
- “Weak story, uninspired visuals, poorly optimized.”
- “Performance is all over the place. On ultra with a GTX 1070, for most of the game I rarely dropped under 75fps at 1080p. Toward the end of the game, the performance seems to creep down; so far 39fps has been the lowest, and this is in what is technically a less demanding area of the game, simply by virtue of draw distance.”
- “The game is also poorly optimized as its looks don’t justify the framerate.”
atmosphere
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
58%
17%
25%
The game's atmosphere is generally described as enjoyable and sometimes impressive, especially during moments like swinging through the sky with fitting music, creating a relaxing and immersive experience. However, frequent criticisms note inconsistencies due to poor voice acting, character animations, and occasional lack of cohesive music, which can detract from the overall ambiance. Despite these flaws, many find the atmosphere charming and a key positive aspect of the game.
- “But it does have well-designed levels with a nice atmosphere and matching amazing music.”
- “I really enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere and gameplay.”
- “This game is worth every penny, very atmospheric and amazing parkour.”
- “The atmosphere at times is awesome, like swinging through the sky with badass music while landing the last grapple on a train. But the terrible voice acting and badly animated characters ruined it.”
- “The game lacks in the music department. There's some ambient music but it really doesn't create as much atmosphere as you would expect.”
- “In my opinion, the music does not fit the game's atmosphere at all.”
emotional
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The emotional aspect of the game is largely criticized for its weak, melodramatic story and poor voice acting, which fail to create meaningful attachment to characters. While some players found the journey enjoyable and even touching at times, overall the narrative elements fall short of delivering a compelling or moving experience.
- “Made me cry.”
- “It was a blast, especially the fact that I finished them both in a row made me feel like I was on a really long and thrilling adventure.”
- “She gives you a glove that can stick to wood with a grapple, leading you through long corridors, caverns, levels with flying wooden boxes, riding trains, waterfalls with never-ending puzzles, where you have to leap like a frog from one lily pad to another without touching the water.”
stability
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
17%
83%
The game experiences some minor glitches and occasional bugs, including rare freezes and occasional terrain issues, but these do not significantly disrupt gameplay. Overall, stability is decent and does not detract from the fun.
- “I had some minor bugs where the game freezes, but I just waited for a second and was able to play again.”
- “Kinda buggy but it's still fun.”
- “A little buggy.”
grinding
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding in the game is generally acceptable but becomes tedious and frustrating due to repetitive tasks, frequent retries caused by minor mistakes, and poorly placed collectibles that rely on luck. Many players find the experience increasingly monotonous and patience-testing as they progress.
- “Throughout the whole game the character misses landings by a hair's breadth and then has to retry the whole tedious experience.”
- “Unfortunately, the mechanic did begin to feel tedious to me after an hour, and I don't think I have the patience to keep going until the end.”
- “It is actually good in most parts, but as you rinse and repeat the same things, just more complicated, it becomes tedious having to repeat a section because it triggered flying or did not.”
replayability
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
75%
The game's replayability is mixed; while some players find limited value in exploring extra items and achievements, others feel there is little incentive to replay once completed, resulting in generally low replay value.
- “Other than that it's a fun little romp, there's some replayability in it I imagine since there's a variety of extra things to get as well as a variety of ways to approach some of the platforming puzzles.”
- “If you are an item or achievement hunter, then this game will have replayability for you since there are quite a few items and achievements I did not collect.”
- “No real replay value.”
- “If you are an item or achievement hunter, this game might have some replayability for you since there are quite a few items and achievements not collected.”
- “It has no replay value and nothing to do after you finish.”
humor
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
Users generally find the humor ineffective, describing the voice acting as poorly executed rather than genuinely funny. Some players note a sense of predictability that adds an unintentional comedic element.