In a gaming landscape drowning in live service multiplayer games and battle passes, YBOGA is doing something refreshingly retro. Crimson Freedom is a genuine, honest-to-goodness real-time strategy game built around a single-player experience. No multiplayer leveling grinds, no seasonal battle passes, no cosmetic shop grinding. Just good old-fashioned RTS gameplay where your strategy and decision-making matter more than your daily login streak.
The indie team is building exactly the game they always wanted to play. Set on 22nd-century Mars, Crimson Freedom drops you into an ideological struggle between factions competing for control of the red planet’s future. Base building, army management, resource gathering, tactical warfare – all the classics you remember from the 90s and early 2000s, just with modern visuals and refined mechanics.
A Mars-Based Strategic Conflict
The setting is where Crimson Freedom immediately distinguishes itself. While most RTS games default to generic medieval fantasy or near-future Earth, YBOGA chose the harsh, alien landscape of 22nd-century Mars as their battleground. This isn’t just thematic window dressing either – the Martian setting influences everything from resource availability to the factions competing for control of the planet’s destiny.
The game’s narrative centers on ideological conflict. Different factions have competing visions for humanity’s future on Mars, and you’re not just fighting battles – you’re choosing which ideology you’ll fight for. This creates three distinct campaign perspectives, each telling the story from a different faction’s viewpoint and showing you the conflict from multiple angles.
Three Factions, Three Perspectives
YBOGA has built three mechanically distinct factions, each with their own playstyle and philosophical approach. Rather than just mirroring the same units with different skins, each faction offers genuinely different strategic choices. Whether you prefer overwhelming force, tactical subtlety, or balanced adaptation, there’s a faction that suits your playstyle.
This design philosophy means your choice of faction actually matters. You’re not just picking a color – you’re choosing how you want to approach every strategic decision the game throws at you. A player who loves aggressive early attacks will gravitate toward one faction, while a player who prefers slow builds and late-game scaling will naturally prefer another.
RTS Done Right, Not Gimmicked Out
This is the philosophy YBOGA keeps hammering home: no gimmicks, no unnecessary complications. The resource management is streamlined from the bloated systems that plague modern strategy games, but it’s not simplified into irrelevance. You’re gathering resources, managing your economy, and making real choices about what to prioritize and what to sacrifice.
What’s brilliant is that contested resources create dynamic gameplay without adding complexity. Resources aren’t just sitting there waiting to be clicked. Control over resource nodes becomes a strategic objective, meaning your military has a purpose beyond just amassing power. Do you defend your resource generators or push forward to capture the enemy’s supply lines? These decisions create emergent gameplay moments that feel organic rather than scripted.
Battles at Your Own Pace
YBOGA specifically designed Crimson Freedom to eliminate the frantic APM (actions per minute) requirements that gatekeep traditional RTS games for casual players. You can experience dynamic, challenging battles without needing to execute 10 commands per second just to stay competitive. The game respects your time and your reflexes.
This is a deliberate design choice. The developers want your failures to come from poor strategy, not from not being fast enough on your keyboard. This opens RTS gaming to a much broader audience without dumbing down the strategic depth. Casual strategy fans and hardcore players can both enjoy the game, just on different difficulty levels.
Campaign First, Everything Else Later
The YBOGA team is laser-focused on delivering an exceptional single-player experience at launch. The initial release includes two complete campaigns with a third campaign arriving a few months after launch. This isn’t a tactic to stretch out content – it’s the result of a small team prioritizing quality over quantity.
Each campaign tells a complete story with distinct objectives, unit rosters, and strategic challenges. Rather than throwing random skirmish matches at you, the campaigns guide you through escalating complexity while building a narrative around the ideological struggle on Mars. You’re not just learning the game mechanics – you’re experiencing a story of conflicting visions for humanity’s future.
The decision to delay multiplayer and focus exclusively on single-player at launch shows real confidence in the campaign content. YBOGA believes their single-player experience is good enough to carry the entire game, and they’re betting their launch success on that belief.
Modern Visuals on Classic Mechanics
Visually, Crimson Freedom walks the line between honoring classic RTS aesthetics and delivering modern graphical fidelity. The game doesn’t try to be photorealistic – that would undermine the clarity and readability necessary for strategy gaming. Instead, it’s clean, colorful, and immediately legible from a strategic perspective. You can instantly parse what’s happening on screen without getting lost in visual clutter.
The user interface is built around accessibility and clarity. Information is presented in a way that experienced RTS players will recognize immediately while remaining intuitive enough for newcomers. This is harder to achieve than it sounds – too much information and the interface becomes overwhelming, too little and players lack the data they need to make informed decisions.
What We Know So Far
Crimson Freedom is currently listed on Steam with a release date to be announced. The game is developed by YBOGA, a small independent team dedicated to bringing classic RTS sensibilities into the modern era. They’re not trying to compete with massive live service operations or follow industry trends – they’re building the game they want to play and hoping strategy fans want to play it too.
The team has been transparent about their development process and philosophy. They’re not interested in monetization shenanigans or keeping players engaged through psychological manipulation. This is a game you buy once and own forever, with campaign content that respects your time investment.
FAQs
When is Crimson Freedom releasing?
Crimson Freedom has not announced a specific release date yet. The game is listed on Steam with a “to be announced” status. YBOGA has indicated they’re focused on campaign quality rather than rushing to a specific launch window.
How many campaigns are included at launch?
Two complete campaigns are planned for launch, with a third campaign coming a few months after release. Each campaign can be played from a different faction’s perspective, telling the ideological conflict on Mars from multiple angles.
Will Crimson Freedom have multiplayer?
Multiplayer is not part of the initial launch. YBOGA is prioritizing single-player campaign content at launch. Future multiplayer support has not been officially confirmed or ruled out.
What platforms will Crimson Freedom be available on?
Crimson Freedom is coming to PC through Steam. No console versions have been announced. The game is designed to work on modern gaming PCs with reasonable hardware requirements.
How many factions are in Crimson Freedom?
Crimson Freedom features three mechanically distinct factions, each with unique units, structures, and gameplay approaches. Each faction offers a different strategic playstyle and perspective on the Martian conflict.
Is Crimson Freedom pay-to-win or have microtransactions?
No information has been released suggesting microtransactions or pay-to-win mechanics. YBOGA’s design philosophy emphasizes classic RTS gameplay without modern gimmicks or monetization tricks.
Does Crimson Freedom require high APM to play?
No, YBOGA specifically designed Crimson Freedom to not require extreme actions-per-minute to compete. The game emphasizes strategic decision-making over reflexive input speed, making it accessible to players who enjoy strategy but can’t maintain tournament-level APM.
Conclusion
Crimson Freedom represents something increasingly rare: a small team making an old-school RTS game because they genuinely believe in that style of gameplay. YBOGA isn’t chasing live service trends or seasonal content cycles. They’re building a campaign-focused experience that respects player time and prioritizes strategic depth over cosmetic monetization. The setting of 22nd-century Mars provides a fresh backdrop for traditional RTS mechanics, while the three distinct factions and relaxed-pace gameplay make the genre accessible without sacrificing complexity. For strategy fans tired of battle passes and daily login mechanics, Crimson Freedom offers a refreshing return to what makes RTS games special – the satisfaction of building an economy, commanding armies, and outsmarting your opponent through superior strategy and planning. Keep your eyes on Steam for this one.