We’ve seen our share of post-apocalyptic games, but not many where you’re a prisoner with a million year prison sentence who must fight giant beasts to chip away at some of those years. Freedom Wars’ developers recently spoke to Famitsu magazine on how this whole idea of post-apocalyptic regional wars came about.

“It’s kind of a long story but… I’ve always had a dream of becoming someone who works in the entertainment business, who could create something that becomes a boom,” shares Sony Computer Entertainment World Wide Studios producer Junichi Yoshizawa.

“Again, our company has requested a task for us to create an original title that could also move consoles, so we were looking for people who could meet such standards.”

Creating some sort of boom sounds much easier than it actually is, so with that in mind, Famitsu asks what the first step the developers took was.

“First, we thought about what we needed to do in order to start a boom,” answers game designer Toshiyuki Yasui. “In the end, we decided that it’d be best to make a ‘festival’ that anyone can join.”

Yasui works at the game development company Shift, who are developing Freedom Wars. The studio is best known for their work on the God Eater series.

He continues, “There’s a wonderful saying that goes, ‘The dancers are fools, the watchers are fools. [Both are fools alike so, why not dance?]’ and just like the saying implies, it’s fun to dance and it’s even fun to just watch. With the idea of easily coming in to join the ‘festivities,’ we came up with the concept of having regional competitions.”

Yasui going on to explain that over time and more brainstorming sessions, these “regional competitions” became what’s known as the battles between “Panopticons,” metropolitan cities that represent various regions.

We’ve recently been introduced to two new Freedom Wars characters, in Uwe “Sakamoto” Cabrera and Aries. Famitsu asks the developers if they can share a little more information on them.

“We wanted to show off some of the story’s drama, so this time, we decided to show those two characters,” says Yoshizawa. “Uwe is a superior who will always lend a hand when you’re in trouble, and Aries will be there to guide the player when they’re lost. There are also many other unique characters.”

When asked if getting your prison sentence to zero, by teaming up with allies, is the game’s objective, Yasui responds by saying yes, but to look forward to future announcements for the rest.

Freedom Wars is slated for release in 2014 for PlayStation Vita.