Time to throw a house-swarming party!
By Paul Hunter
75 hours into my Earth Defense Force 6 review, I suddenly realized that I'm having just as much fun now as I was during the first hour. The EDF series has among the best gameplay loops in all of gaming, and this latest iteration might just be the best one yet. The bombs and guns are most bombastic, there are more bugs and aliens to exterminate than ever before, it's the largest campaign yet with 147 missions, and the biggest surprise? It has an amazing story to boot. I know what you might be thinking and yes, I couldn't believe the story was this good either.
Earth Defense Force 6 takes place three years after the previous game, with humanity scoring a victory over the alien Primers, although remnants of the alien force still reside on Earth and those pesky bugs still have a few underground cave hives that need wiping out. And so, the EDF force continues the fight even after 90% of the population has been wiped out.
Things naturally go sideways for the Earth Defense Force as the Primers return with a new devious plan involving time travel that plunges the entire world back into war. I won't get into the finer details of the story, but it involves the Primers and humans repeating a time loop, each time with both sides trying to one-up their opposition and wipe them out for good. Despite the story being the usual over-the-top silly the series is famous for, there's a surprising amount of depth and nuance and kept me gripped all the way to the final climactic mission.
Developer Sandlot has been making EDF games for over 20 years now, and while the basic formula of killing endless swarms of aliens and bugs remains unchanged, EDF6 is bigger and bolder in every way. There are more alien and bug types, more weapons and gear, better animations and graphical fidelity, better sound design, and all-new missions to take on. The package as a whole feels like the culmination of Sandlot's vision to create the silliest, most engaging big battle alien warfare game out there.
Like in previous games, you've got four character classes to choose from, starting with the Ranger combat experts, plus the all-female jetpack Wing Divers, the tactical support Air Raiders, and the heavily armed Fencers. I chose Ranger as my starting class, beat the campaign on Normal and Hard, and now I'm working towards my Hardest and Inferno difficulty runs, which can be brutally challenging if you're not levelled up enough. And EDF fans will know, these games are all about levelling up.
Each class has an absurd amount of weapons that you naturally unlock as you play through the game. My Ranger has over 40 assault rifles, 30 shotguns, 25 sniper rifles, 35 rocket launchers, 25 missile launchers, 35 grenade launchers and 30 special weapons. There's a huge variety among each weapon type too, I've got an assault rifle that fires a powerful consistent laser beam, a giant grenade launcher that shoots 20 bouncy explosives, an acid spray gun, a sticky grenade that engulfs enemies in fire, and an 'air tortoise missile launcher that takes 9 seconds to lock onto a target but does a ridiculous insta-kill of 7,000 damage. These are just a few small examples of the huge arsenal you'll find in this game, which gives you weapons to outmaneuver literally every enemy type and control any combat situation.
Another way you level up in EDF6 is by collecting red Health boxes that explode from enemies upon defeating them, and each box permanently increases your class' health by a fraction of one point—and there's no health cap that I'm aware of. During a multiplayer session, I got paired with a player who obviously bought the Japanese version of the game that was released a couple of years ago and their Wing Diver had over five million HP, meanwhile, my Wing Diver had only 400. The basic gameplay loop is you choose a difficulty setting, be it Easy, Normal or Hard, and play through the campaign while acquiring weapons and health boxes, which should make you strong enough to tackle the campaign again at the next difficulty setting.
Playing through the campaign at higher difficulties will unlock more powerful gear and new weapon types, and that's really with the ridiculous fun begins. You'll begin with guns that dole out damage as low as 10HP per second, but by the time you play Hardest or Inferno, you'll find guns that deal 5,000 damage per second. There are tons of absurdly overpowered weapons, like a grenade launcher that tosses out 10 grenades per shot and inflicts 30,000 damage. Earth Defense Force 6 is the ultimate power fantasy where you can decimate an army of 50 giant ants, spiders or bees in seconds with explosive weapons so huge the entire screen fills up with orange and red destruction.
I've put in a few hours with the other three classes and they control very similar to how they do in the previous game. Wing Divers have a jetpack with a rechargeable energy gauge that lets them command the skies and escape from all the chaos happening below them. Air Raiders are a unique class that can call in airstrikes, which can blanket a huge section of the map with firepower. Meanwhile, Fencers are the 'tank' unit with heavy armour, protective shields, heavy weaponry and the ability to dash out of harm's way. Earth Defense Force 6 wants players to play through the entire campaign with all four classes, on all difficulties, which is required if you want to platinum trophy the game. You're looking at at least 300 hours of game time to fully undertake that challenge, and sure it's a huge time investment, but the time flies by so fast because the gameplay is just so darn good.
The sheer enemy variety in EDF6 is impressive. Every level or two during the campaign some new enemy gets introduced, whether it's a new bug type, a new alien type, an enemy you've seen before with new armour or new guns, or improved versions of previous enemies that are faster and stronger. Ants, for example, come in black, red, green and the dreaded gold, with each type having new attacks or modifications that require different strategies to deal with. Among my favourite new enemy types in this latest game are the Kruuls, which are giant octopuses with multiple shields and guns.
What's neat is when you play this game on the harder difficulties, the stronger enemies may appear earlier in the campaign versus the lower difficulties. A cave mission on Normal difficulty featuring relatively easy-to-destroy black ants may have extremely deadly gold ants when you play the same level on Inferno difficulty. Tougher silver spiders will also appear earlier, along with red droids and other powerful enemies that show up much earlier in the campaign.
Visually, Earth Defense Force 6 is a spectacle, especially when you go online and play four-player co-op (two-player couch co-op is also available). With four characters, each wielding crazy OP weapons, the battlefield is typically ablaze with bullets, bombs, lasers, drones, airstrikes and more. It's not unusual to occasionally get disoriented because so much chaos is around you, but that's all part of the fun.
Audio effects have also taken a leap forward in this latest iteration, with all the bombs and blasts harnessing serious punch. Don't be surprised if you sometimes need to turn your stereo or headphone volume down a notch because 30 bombs are exploding all around you with tremendous thuds. Enemies have nice squeals when they get shot and most enemies explode with a thunderous pop, which all again plays into the power fantasy this game loves to give you.
EDF6 has a great communication system when playing online as you have hundreds of different canned messages you can send other players, anything from a 'thank you' when they revive you to giving a 'gahhh!' when you die. Hilariously and famously, there are also around a dozen mini-songs you can sign in the middle of battle, each of which is meant to encourage your fellow teammates and lighten the mood during otherwise hectic fights.
Final Score: 9/10 - Amazing
Developer: Sandlot
Publisher: D3PUBLISHER
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
Modes: Single-player, Multiplayer
ESRB Rating: M (Mature)
A key was provided by the publisher.
By Paul Hunter
75 hours into my Earth Defense Force 6 review, I suddenly realized that I'm having just as much fun now as I was during the first hour. The EDF series has among the best gameplay loops in all of gaming, and this latest iteration might just be the best one yet. The bombs and guns are most bombastic, there are more bugs and aliens to exterminate than ever before, it's the largest campaign yet with 147 missions, and the biggest surprise? It has an amazing story to boot. I know what you might be thinking and yes, I couldn't believe the story was this good either.
Earth Defense Force 6 takes place three years after the previous game, with humanity scoring a victory over the alien Primers, although remnants of the alien force still reside on Earth and those pesky bugs still have a few underground cave hives that need wiping out. And so, the EDF force continues the fight even after 90% of the population has been wiped out.
Things naturally go sideways for the Earth Defense Force as the Primers return with a new devious plan involving time travel that plunges the entire world back into war. I won't get into the finer details of the story, but it involves the Primers and humans repeating a time loop, each time with both sides trying to one-up their opposition and wipe them out for good. Despite the story being the usual over-the-top silly the series is famous for, there's a surprising amount of depth and nuance and kept me gripped all the way to the final climactic mission.
Developer Sandlot has been making EDF games for over 20 years now, and while the basic formula of killing endless swarms of aliens and bugs remains unchanged, EDF6 is bigger and bolder in every way. There are more alien and bug types, more weapons and gear, better animations and graphical fidelity, better sound design, and all-new missions to take on. The package as a whole feels like the culmination of Sandlot's vision to create the silliest, most engaging big battle alien warfare game out there.
Like in previous games, you've got four character classes to choose from, starting with the Ranger combat experts, plus the all-female jetpack Wing Divers, the tactical support Air Raiders, and the heavily armed Fencers. I chose Ranger as my starting class, beat the campaign on Normal and Hard, and now I'm working towards my Hardest and Inferno difficulty runs, which can be brutally challenging if you're not levelled up enough. And EDF fans will know, these games are all about levelling up.
Each class has an absurd amount of weapons that you naturally unlock as you play through the game. My Ranger has over 40 assault rifles, 30 shotguns, 25 sniper rifles, 35 rocket launchers, 25 missile launchers, 35 grenade launchers and 30 special weapons. There's a huge variety among each weapon type too, I've got an assault rifle that fires a powerful consistent laser beam, a giant grenade launcher that shoots 20 bouncy explosives, an acid spray gun, a sticky grenade that engulfs enemies in fire, and an 'air tortoise missile launcher that takes 9 seconds to lock onto a target but does a ridiculous insta-kill of 7,000 damage. These are just a few small examples of the huge arsenal you'll find in this game, which gives you weapons to outmaneuver literally every enemy type and control any combat situation.
Another way you level up in EDF6 is by collecting red Health boxes that explode from enemies upon defeating them, and each box permanently increases your class' health by a fraction of one point—and there's no health cap that I'm aware of. During a multiplayer session, I got paired with a player who obviously bought the Japanese version of the game that was released a couple of years ago and their Wing Diver had over five million HP, meanwhile, my Wing Diver had only 400. The basic gameplay loop is you choose a difficulty setting, be it Easy, Normal or Hard, and play through the campaign while acquiring weapons and health boxes, which should make you strong enough to tackle the campaign again at the next difficulty setting.
Playing through the campaign at higher difficulties will unlock more powerful gear and new weapon types, and that's really with the ridiculous fun begins. You'll begin with guns that dole out damage as low as 10HP per second, but by the time you play Hardest or Inferno, you'll find guns that deal 5,000 damage per second. There are tons of absurdly overpowered weapons, like a grenade launcher that tosses out 10 grenades per shot and inflicts 30,000 damage. Earth Defense Force 6 is the ultimate power fantasy where you can decimate an army of 50 giant ants, spiders or bees in seconds with explosive weapons so huge the entire screen fills up with orange and red destruction.
I've put in a few hours with the other three classes and they control very similar to how they do in the previous game. Wing Divers have a jetpack with a rechargeable energy gauge that lets them command the skies and escape from all the chaos happening below them. Air Raiders are a unique class that can call in airstrikes, which can blanket a huge section of the map with firepower. Meanwhile, Fencers are the 'tank' unit with heavy armour, protective shields, heavy weaponry and the ability to dash out of harm's way. Earth Defense Force 6 wants players to play through the entire campaign with all four classes, on all difficulties, which is required if you want to platinum trophy the game. You're looking at at least 300 hours of game time to fully undertake that challenge, and sure it's a huge time investment, but the time flies by so fast because the gameplay is just so darn good.
The sheer enemy variety in EDF6 is impressive. Every level or two during the campaign some new enemy gets introduced, whether it's a new bug type, a new alien type, an enemy you've seen before with new armour or new guns, or improved versions of previous enemies that are faster and stronger. Ants, for example, come in black, red, green and the dreaded gold, with each type having new attacks or modifications that require different strategies to deal with. Among my favourite new enemy types in this latest game are the Kruuls, which are giant octopuses with multiple shields and guns.
What's neat is when you play this game on the harder difficulties, the stronger enemies may appear earlier in the campaign versus the lower difficulties. A cave mission on Normal difficulty featuring relatively easy-to-destroy black ants may have extremely deadly gold ants when you play the same level on Inferno difficulty. Tougher silver spiders will also appear earlier, along with red droids and other powerful enemies that show up much earlier in the campaign.
Visually, Earth Defense Force 6 is a spectacle, especially when you go online and play four-player co-op (two-player couch co-op is also available). With four characters, each wielding crazy OP weapons, the battlefield is typically ablaze with bullets, bombs, lasers, drones, airstrikes and more. It's not unusual to occasionally get disoriented because so much chaos is around you, but that's all part of the fun.
Audio effects have also taken a leap forward in this latest iteration, with all the bombs and blasts harnessing serious punch. Don't be surprised if you sometimes need to turn your stereo or headphone volume down a notch because 30 bombs are exploding all around you with tremendous thuds. Enemies have nice squeals when they get shot and most enemies explode with a thunderous pop, which all again plays into the power fantasy this game loves to give you.
EDF6 has a great communication system when playing online as you have hundreds of different canned messages you can send other players, anything from a 'thank you' when they revive you to giving a 'gahhh!' when you die. Hilariously and famously, there are also around a dozen mini-songs you can sign in the middle of battle, each of which is meant to encourage your fellow teammates and lighten the mood during otherwise hectic fights.
The Verdict
Earth Defense Force 6 provides near-endless excitement and fun. I'm having a total blast after 75+ hours already logged and not one ounce of fatigue has set in. With thousands of weapons to unlock across all classes, each of which can be upgraded multiple times too, this is a game where you'll constantly be unlocking newer, better gear that brings freshness to the next battle. This is my favourite entry in the series yet and I don't see myself putting this game down for a long, long time to come.Final Score: 9/10 - Amazing
Earth Defense Force 6 details
Platform: PS5, PS4, PCDeveloper: Sandlot
Publisher: D3PUBLISHER
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
Modes: Single-player, Multiplayer
ESRB Rating: M (Mature)
A key was provided by the publisher.