Classic PC shooter Medal of Honor: Allied Assault lands on PS Vita

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault has made its way to PlayStation Vita, giving Sony’s handheld a new version of one of the PC’s best-known Second World War shooters. It’s a curious pairing on paper. A game built for mouse and keyboard in 2002 is now running on a portable console from 2011, complete with analogue-stick controls, save games and the original single-player campaign. The Vita release comes through OpenMoHAA, an open-source recreation of the engine used by Allied Assault. For players, the important part is much simpler: the campaign works on Vita, it can be played with the handheld’s own controls, and you’ll need files from a legitimate PC copy of the game to get started. No streaming. No remote PC required. It runs on the Vita itself.

Allied Assault fits the Vita rather well

Allied Assault comes from a very different period of first-person shooter design. There’s no giant map packed with icons, no season pass, no loadout screen asking you to compare six versions of the same rifle. You pick a mission, receive your objectives and get moving. On Vita, such a structure makes plenty of sense.

The campaign is split into self-contained missions, so it lends itself to shorter sessions. Some stages push you through heavy firefights. Others involve infiltration, sniping, sabotage or moving through enemy-held areas without drawing too much attention.

Twin-stick controls replace the original mouse and keyboard setup, and the current Vita release includes save support plus options for aiming, the HUD and graphics. Performance changes from scene to scene, with quieter areas running more smoothly than busy firefights. This first release concentrates on the original Allied Assault campaign. Multiplayer isn’t part of the package, and neither are the Spearhead or Breakthrough expansions.

Before Call of Duty, there was Allied Assault

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault arrived on PC in January 2002, developed by 2015, Inc. and published by Electronic Arts. It took Medal of Honor away from its PlayStation roots and pushed the series into a style of cinematic PC shooter which soon became hugely influential.

Players control Lieutenant Mike Powell, an American soldier working with the OSS during the Second World War. His missions take him through North Africa and Europe, with objectives ranging from destroying military equipment to infiltrating bases and fighting through occupied towns. For many players, one mission remains inseparable from the game’s name: Omaha Beach.

The Normandy landing placed Powell among incoming gunfire, explosions, soldiers and defensive positions before sending him up the beach. In 2002, its scale and presentation made a serious impression. It became one of Allied Assault’s defining sequences and helped set expectations for the military shooters arriving over the next few years.

Several members of the development team later formed Infinity Ward, which went on to create Call of Duty. Allied Assault sits close to the start of a period when the military FPS shifted from traditional corridor shooting into heavily staged campaigns built around set pieces and scripted events.

It’s still unmistakably a 2002 PC shooter

Playing Allied Assault now means meeting a game with little interest in modern conveniences. Health doesn’t magically return after hiding behind a wall. Levels send you along carefully constructed routes. Objectives arrive one at a time. Weapons come from a familiar Second World War selection, including the M1 Garand, Thompson, MP40, sniper rifles, pistols and grenades.

Its pacing can change sharply. One mission can throw enemies at you from several directions, with the next asking for a slower approach through guarded territory. Allied Assault likes keeping its campaign moving, rarely leaving the player in one style of encounter for too long.

Some parts inevitably show their age. Enemy behaviour comes from another era, mission scripting can be rigid, and checkpoint expectations have changed enormously since 2002. None of this has been reworked into a modern remake. The Vita version is still Allied Assault, with its original campaign design intact.

What you need to play it

The Vita release doesn’t include Medal of Honor’s commercial game data. Players need files from their own PC copy of Allied Assault and must place them in the required folder on a modified PlayStation Vita. Once installed, the main campaign can be played directly from the handheld.

There are a few rough edges in this early release. Loading can take some time, and testing across every Vita model and setup remains limited. Saving regularly is a sensible habit, especially during longer missions. For now, the scope is clear. This is the original Medal of Honor: Allied Assault campaign running on PS Vita, adapted for portable controls and playable from beginning to end.

It’s an unexpected addition to the Vita catalogue, particularly in 2026. Yet the format suits Allied Assault better than its age might suggest. Its missions are compact, its objectives are direct, and it wastes little time getting players into the next firefight. Twenty-four years after its PC debut, Lieutenant Powell has a much smaller screen to work with. The beaches, bunkers and occupied towns are still waiting.