Sometimes you want a shooter with an expansive lore, remarkable characters, and a thrilling
story, but sometimes you just want to shoot giant bugs with lasers while singing marching
hymns with your friends.
For fans of the latter, there’s Earth Defense Force, the bug-splattering, UFO-shooting arcade-like
cheese-fest with a dedicated following in Japan and finding audiences in the West as
well.
And now with the upcoming releases of Earth Defense Force 6 the announcement of the voxel
spinoff World Brothers, it may be time to give the series a try.
Here are 5 things you need to know about Earth Defense Force.
When you think about it, a series where a bunch of futuristic soldiers with laser weapons
fight giant bugs is strangely familiar.
The often misunderstood film Star-Ship Troopers features a similar premise.
But according to Earth Defense Force series producer Nobuyuki Okajima, that story had
no influence on the initial development of Earth Defense Force.
And although he does admit that it influenced the marketing of the game, the initial creative
inspirations were more American indie sci-fi and classic anime like Fist of the North Star
and Gundam.
In the late 90s, D3 Publisher produced a series of simple, cheap games for the PlayStation,
consisting of games like billiards, shogi, mahjong, chess, and other games.
This series was known as the Simple series, and consisted of two sub-series, Simple 2000
and Simple 1500, named based on their price.
As time went on developers began to experiment with different concepts, resulting in games
like The Demolition Girl, a game that involves finding the breast measurements for 50-foot
girl in a bikini.
It also resulted in the slightly less strange Earth Defense Force, which started out as
a budget 2000 yen title, but eventually became a series with actual full-priced $60 games.
Most American fans became familiar with the series thanks to Earth Defense Force 2017
on the Xbox 360.
This was actually the third game in the EDF series, and according to series producer Nobuyuki
Okajima, this was due to quote "heavy regulation from the hardware maker", even though the
earlier games got a European release.
Fortunately, 2017 makes for a perfect entrance point, detailing a story where Earth receives
first contact from a race of space aliens and starts planning for the worst-case scenario.
Japan is where Earth Defense Force made its name, but starting with the simultaneous global
release of Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain in 2019, D3 has been trying to grow its appeal
overseas.
Iron Rain in particular is geared towards Western audiences, borrowing design ideas
from American shooters, while also being set in America itself.
This desperate push for a wider audience is also where Earth Defense Force: World Brothers
comes from.
It's described as a game for the whole family by keeping the feel of the arcade action shooter
and the enormous bugs while also introducing this blocky, voxel makeover.
The things fans like about Earth Defense Force aren’t things a you’d typically see celebrated
in reviews.
The physics are bizarre, players will clip through buildings, the story is nonsense,
and the dialogue is sometimes unbearably cheesy.
But fans keep coming back and not necessarily in spite of this.
Therefore, when the developers release a new iteration, they have to be careful about what
they’re really improving.
In interviews for EDF 5 and Iron Rain Okajima stated that the team listens very carefully
to what fans have said about the previous games, and try to keep all the parts that
people love about this bizarre series while introducing new elements.
And let’s be honest, would EDF without bizarre physics still be EDF?