Save the Earth from Alien Insect Ruin in Earth Defense Force 6

Save the Earth from Alien Insect Ruin in Earth Defense Force 6

Sometimes, you want a game to be a little buggy. Or a big buggy, as the case may be.

Everything just keeps getting bigger and bigger in video games! Explosions. Enemy crabs. Level caps. Everything, that is, except insects.

That’s because insects in video games have already been as huge as you can imagine for more than 20 years, ever since a game called Earth Defense Force (or Monster Attack, or Chikyuu Boueigun) debuted on PlayStation 2 back in 2003. Making its first appearance as part of the Japan-only Simple 2000 series for PlayStation 2, Earth Defense Force was basically chaos incarnate. The kind of game that pushed the PS2 hardware well beyond its limits, with frame rates that chugged as the screen filled with action. When the first high-definition consoles arrived and developers enthused about how Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 finally made it possible for games to pit you against hundreds of enemies at once, they were complaining about the hardware limitations that Earth Defense Force pushed up against.

And this is not a criticism of the original Earth Defense Force. It ruled. The Simple 2000 line got its name because every game cost ¥2000—roughly 20 bucks. In other words, it was a budget line, designed for weird, interesting, experimental games. That often meant games felt a little unpolished, because no one really expects cutting-edge tech and triple-A shine from budget software. Besides, developer Sandlot leaned all the way into the low-cost nature of the Simple 2000 by delivering a game steeped in retro sci-fi tropes: Earth Defense Force played like a crossover between a ’60s kaiju flick and pulpy American black-and-white sci-fi matinee of the 1950s—specifically Them, the movie about giant ants. Except that the ants in Them grew to Brobdingnagian proportions as a result of nuclear radiation, while the ones in Earth Defense Force (as tipped off by the game’s title) came about their immense scale through otherworldly means.

Of course, the story didn’t really matter. The appeal of Earth Defense Force came from the sheer mayhem and carnage of gunning down hundreds and thousands of ants and lizards the size of a jumbo jet. All on screen at once, pouring from the earth, climbing over destructible skyscrapers, and falling into a pile of ichor-soaked critter bits as you fired indiscriminately into their ranks. Was it a masterpiece? Probably not by any serious critical metric. But damn was it fun.

Hell yeah.

Which brings us forward in time to the year 2026. Or is it 2024? Either way, we’re talking about the sixth mainline entry in the Earth Defense Force line, which showed up as a digital release two years ago under the title of (believe it or not) Earth Defense 6. And now, it’s a physical release from us. (Limited Run Games, in case that wasn’t clear.)

A lot has changed in the years since the original Earth Defense Force. But also, a lot remains the same. In terms of the new, well, there’s the fact that you can buy EDF6 in English for play on your American PlayStation consoles. That certainly didn’t happen with that first game. And unlike the original Earth Defense Force, EDF6 looks and plays a lot nicer. Not only do frame rates remain a lot more stable despite the more detailed visuals and increased volume of enemy swarms, the performance holds up even when you’re playing with another person... or even with three other people. See, Sandlot understands that a messy, chaotic shooter like this is the sort of experience to share with a friend. Or to share with an enemy in order to turn them into a friend. It’s big, dumb, chaotic, freewheeling fun. The best kind of fun, really.

Hell yeah!

EDF6 is the biggest and most manic entry in the series yet. Players can choose to take on the hordes of aliens, insects, and alien insects with multiple play styles, ranging from nimble airborne units equipped with jetpacks to slow, low-speed ground units capable of firing cannons that can shatter buildings. Why wait for the bad guys to wreck the architecture when you can do it yourself? We’re sure those skyscrapers’ insurance was all paid up. It’s probably fine.

The general game loop of EDF6 hasn’t really changed all that much from that of the original 2003 game. Giant monsters and mind-bendingly huge spaceships invade, you blow them up, you move along to the next mission. It’s just that now you can blow up so many more things in so many more missions (more than 150 of them!) while teaming up with friends and switching up your tactics. Try that on your PlayStation 2, suckers back in the year 2003.

HELL YEAH!!

Still, even if EDF6 represents a step or two forward for the series, there is an element of going backward in time here. Over and over again, in fact. EDF6 picks up a few years after the events of Earth Defense Force 5, and the aliens that the Defense Force drove away at the end of that game—the Primers—have decided not to take defeat lightly. Rather than simply slinking silently into the cosmos for a galactic sulk, the Primers have concocted an elaborate time-travel scheme, creating a close temporal loop in which they respond to each new failure by leaping back into the past once again and changing their tactics.

What this means for you, the hero known as Storm 1, is that you’ll have to fight your way through a succession of familiar scenarios... but you can’t get too comfortable about it. Each time you revisit a time loop, the aliens change up their tactics and take the ongoing conflict in entirely new and sometimes shocking directions. But that’s OK. You’re Storm 1. You’ve got this... assuming, that is, that you snag a copy of the game (available in Standard and Collector’s Editions for PlayStation 4 and 5) before preorders close on June 28.