Epic Action Still Rules
HIGH A final boss worth waiting the whole game for.
LOW Three of the Dragon levels are ridiculously difficult.
WTF “Earth Defense Force 7 Begins”
Sporting almost 150 missions, Earth Defense Force 6 isn’t just epic in scope, it’s one of the biggest action games ever made.
For two decades now, the developers have offered variations on the theme of ‘soldiers fighting giant monsters’, and every time their work grows more impressive. This isn’t a series that strives to completely reinvent itself — that’s left to spin-offs like Iron Rain or World Brothers. No, Earth Defense Force is built around cautious iteration. It’s the developers coming back every four years to day ‘okay, let’s do it a little better this time,’ and while that might not be ambitious enough for some, the results are undeniable.
Set three years after the end of Earth Defense Force 5 in which 90% of the Earth’s population had been destroyed by an alien invasion, EDF6 finds players locked in a brutal war of attrition against the last remnants of of dwindling, unsupplied enemy forces — the player sports tattered armor, and seeing 20-foot-tall frogmen walking around with sheets of corrugated metal crudely strapped to their body for protection is a great way to let the player know that all bets are off — things are going to get weird this time.
Large strides have been taken to ensure that the experience feels more accessible and modern. Players can now automatically clamber over the shattered environments, rather than having to rely on hilariously floaty jumps. The air raider — previously a support-focused class — now has drones and improved vehicles to increase its viability for single players. A new damage counter proves surprisingly helpful when testing loadouts, as the player can see just how much damage they’re doing with attacks, while also seeing how resilient their foes are.
Speaking of foes, EDF6 has the largest lineup of enemies the series has ever offered. There are multiple types of ants, spiders, and pillbugs as usual. The flying drones, frogmen and armored aliens also make return appearances, but the real standouts are the new-to-series squid-themed aliens. Coming in huge walking and flying varieties, these bizarre aliens have completely new techniques built around their multiple stretchy arms. While every other enemy has to reveal itself to attack the player, these things can duck behind obstacles and send their limbs out to do the shooting — and while those limbs can be blown off, they’ll be regenerated in just a few moments.
There’s a degree to which the best strategy in most EDF games is for the player to put as much space between themselves and the monsters as possible, constantly firing while backpeddling. The squids completely upend this with super-accurate weapons and the ability to block attacks with shields. The only viable strategy is to get in close and do huge damage before they can heal it. (Or use air strikes, but air strikes work in most situations.) This gets even more treacherous on higher difficulties, where their shields gain the power to reflect damage back at the player, forcing them to totally rethink their strategy yet again.
This transformation at the highest difficulty levels is one of the most impressive things EDF6 has to offer — where the first three difficulties simply increase enemies’ health points and damage output (along with the value of the random weapons they drop) the top two, “Hardest” and “Inferno” transform the layout, number, and types of enemies that appear, to the point that there are enemies that players will only see when playing the hardest settings. The result is a de facto remix version of every level for players who feel a need to challenge themselves.
Speaking of remixes, the developers have found a brilliant way of continuing the previous story without trapping players in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. After all, one of the key elements of EDF is blowing up buildings with rocket launchers, so a world where all the cities come pre-destroyed has little to offer. Just a few levels in, after the story has thoroughly established just how utterly ruined the world is, the villains’ plan is revealed — they’re not happy with how badly the war went for them, either, so they’re going to send troops back in time with knowledge of the humans’ defense plans to win more decisively.
The player is thrown back in time as well, their consciousness zapped back into the middle of Earth Defense Force 5, and what follows is a chance to replay classic missions from the previous iteration with entirely new enemy arrangements, including a beautiful moment in which a Kaiju’s iconic reveal is interrupted by the arrival of a fire-breathing dragon from the center of the earth. Things start strange and just get more bizarre from there, with enemies trying to alter the past over and over, and the player force to go back in time again and again, winning ever-more-dire battles against increasingly desperate foes. Earth Defense Force 5 had one of the best alien invasion narratives in videogames, with a series of radio broadcasts chronicling the collapse of human civilization — and while EDF6‘s time travel madness doesn’t quite compare, it’s hard not to love the zeal with which the developers embrace how unhinged time travel narratives can get.
While it might be going a bit far to say that this is the biggest action game ever made, some math might make the point more clearly. There are around 150 missions on offer, each coming with a remixed super-hard version. Each of the four soldier classes play so differently that they’re effectively a completely different experience. Consequently, it’s not a huge exaggeration to say that Earth Defense Force 6 has 1200 missions to enjoy — and that’s all before the DLC comes out. This might be the most gameplay ever, and such a huge amount of it is so flat-out great that it can be called one of the best games I’ve ever played.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by Sandlot and published by D3. It is currently available on PS4/5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 40 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. 10 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Intense Violence. This is some next-level violence on display. Just as in EDF5, a huge component of the strategy involves blasting the limbs off of enemies as they scream in pain and their blood fountains everywhere — and with squid-monsters present, it just means more limbs to sever. Maybe keep it away from younger players.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are no audio cues that will affect gameplay, and there are no nasty surprises because every enemy, ally, and airstrike is visible on a convenient map. The game is subtitled, but the subtitles cannot be customized. The game is fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.
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