Earth Defense Force 6

Earth Defense Force 6 (地球防衛軍６ Chikyū Bōeigun 6) is the sixth main entry in the Earth Defense Force series and the eleventh overall counting the spinoff games.

The game is currently available in Japan on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. A worldwide release has been announced for July 25 2024 for both the two PlayStation systems and Windows PC, with the latter to be featured on both the Steam and Epic Game Store platforms. It has broken sales records for the series, selling over 300,000 copies in its opening week alone.

Plot[]

EDF 6 is a direct sequel to Earth Defense Force 5, picking up three years after that game left off, in 2025.

After the Nameless was defeated, the remaining motherships collected its body and retreated back into space, abandoning the remaining on the ground. The EDF spends the next 3 years eliminating the remaining alien forces and trying to rebuild society. A tough feat considering the Aliens had manage to kill 90% of the Earths population.

3 years later however, they returned.

The story starts with Storm 1 being relocated to Base 251 where he assists the local soldiers in clearing out what is left of the monsters. However, A giant ring-like spaceship with an octahedron floating at its center appeared from the sky and seemed to have created a portal from which it was presumed that the aliens had simply evacuated the last of their soldiers. However, the next morning, the entire world was covered in flower like terraforming structures and was swarming with android machines. However this all seemed natural to all but 2 characters. Storm 1 and a weapon researcher named The Professor.

The 2 along with the rest of the soldiers launch an assault on the Ring and managed to damage it, causing it to malfunction. However, afterwards, Storm 1 suddenly finds himself back in the past, his first mission as part of EDF (EDF 5 Mission 13, which is also EDF 6 Mission 13). However from this point, things start to change. The first thing Storm 1 hears is the Major communicating with the Intelligence Division on how they have already lost 30% of their forces (20% in EDF 5) afterwards, the teleportation ships start deploying Aggressive Alien Species γ, a creature that wasn't deployed this early in the invasion in the previous iteration. The Intelligence Division also states that suddenly a whole new 20 ships of a completely different make suddenly appeared in the world at the same time that Storm 1 returned to the past.

From that point on more changes start to occur. The more elite units are being deployed much sooner, more bases are destroyed during the initial attack and new units are being deployed.

The Alaska base, that housed the 3 submarine carriers from EDF 5, was immediately bombed during the start of the invasion, preventing the carriers from being deployed with all their weapons. At the first mission in Europe, where the colonists were first deployed in EDF5, also saw the immediate deployment of the type 2 drones and the android monsters that were first seen in the future and from this point on, the teleportation ships no longer stay in one place in order to prevent from being shot down. During the second mission in which colonists were deployed, Armored colonists from EDF 5 DLC 1 also appear. In addition, later on scarred old Colonists from the future that Storm 1 fought appear from the sky through time portals and seem to act confused, leading to speculation amongst them the EDF about the Primers having a ranged transporter. These old Colonist soldiers eventually go rogue and become deserters from the Primers, and take over a hot spring village resort for themselves to find a place to live, but are forced to defend themselves from the EDF and are killed.

Eventually, The Professor manages to contact Storm 1 and tells him that he also retained his memories from the future and has sent him some weapons from the future in order to deal with the growing Alien threat. These new weapons prove to counter most but not all of the increase in the Alien's ability to commit war. To resolve this, The Professor approaches the Chief Commander with all his knowledge of the future but was promptly dismissed as a lunatic and sent to a hospital to rest. Meanwhile the Nameless, with his subordinates giving him knowledge from the future, hides mothership 11 on the far side of the moon and sends more units after Storm team. Resulting in the death of all but Storm 1. Afterwards the war continues as a hard fought battle.

3 years later (EDF 5 mission 1-110 takes places over a 2 year time period), The Professor and Storm 1 Reunite at Base 251. But before they could talk, Base 251 is attacked by android monsters. Storm 1 defeats them and the next day the group is being let outside the base, right where they see the Ring descending. More alien ships go into the portal and back into the past. The next day, Storm 1 and the Professor wake up in an abandoned underground mall, with the aliens having now fully over run the earth. They go above ground and find the earth swarmed by a new species of aliens called the Kruuls (Kulullu in the original Japanese), named after the mythological monster. They are giant octopus with guns and shields. The Professor requests Storm 1 to accompany him to the Ring again. He reasons that what the two did by attacking the Ring was a random accident, but if they both can do so again in the exact same place at the exact same time as before, they can recreate the same random accident and turn back time again while allowing the two of them to keep their memories. The duo once again make toward the Ring and cause another incident.

The went back in time and landed in the exact same spot (EDF 5 mission 13). Only this time, the casualties are already at 40% compared to 20% and the aliens had managed to send back over a hundred ships compared to 20. The Professor once again makes contact and sends him a new package of weapons to Storm 1. Now being in possession of weapons a full 10 years ahead in research, Storm 1 starts being hailed as a hero by most of the EDF and rally behind him. With him leading the charge at every major engagement and the rest of EDF mindlessly charging in behind him, they were able to counter most but not all of the alien's ability to commit war. This time The Professor tries to get some credibility by pre-emptively releasing all the weaknesses of the aliens he had encountered in the future but had not yet been deployed in the past. The information was well received and The Professor once again approaches the Chief Commander but his claims are once again dismissed as nonsense and told to get back to work.

The EDF continues to win most of the major engagements but the extra manpower allows the aliens to grind the EDF down and eventually kill all of storm team except for storm 1. This forces the EDF on the back foot for the next 3 years but the remaining soldiers continue to give a stiff resistance.

3 years later and the duo once again meet in Base 251. But they are once again attacked by aliens in the base. They repel them once more and once more they see the Ring descending. But this time however, he reveals some information. He had done some experiments and it has been revealed that the aliens had already used the time travel device 5 times before he and Storm 1 did. He also says that it explain the attack on the Base 228 in EDF5. The aliens had no way of knowing where all of humanity kept all their nuclear silos but still managed to destroy most of them in a single hit. His answer was simple, after each attempt to take over the planet, successful or not, they send someone back with all the intel on how the previous war went and then they adjust the strategy accordingly until they have achieved a perfect victory. The first war with them likely a nuclear one, so the aliens sent information back that let them preemptively destroy them.

However, he then immediately comforts Storm 1, saying that they can pull the exact same trick. Since their attack destroys the Ring and turns back time, the aliens in the past will have no way of knowing the attack happened at all, as the aliens can't know of something that hasn't happened yet. However, as the duo approach the Ring, The Professor is immediately proven wrong. This time the Ring activated and after the time ships go into the portal, giant metallic tentacles with cannons appear out of it. Storm 1 manages to destroy them and attack the Ring again, and both he and The Professor return to the past regardless.

This time however, they arrive at EDF mission 5, 5 months earlier than usual. Storm 1 immediately uses his knowledge from the future to prevent a squad of tanks from being crushed by the first teleportation anchor, destroy the main gun of a mothership and destroy the first teleportation ship right from the beginning. This in turn causes the war to turn into the EDF's favor even more so than EDF 5. To counter this, the Aliens spend all their time on introducing just 1 unit, the Scylla. Unlike all other enemies, the aliens deployed them directly into the ocean and use them to attack the EDF's navy, submarines, and coastal cities. At this point in time, the war remains even.

However, this time around, the aliens had the EDF's strategy fully memorized. Firstly, it allowed them to intercept the railgun reinforcements from EDF 5 mission 40 and in turn make that battle a win for the aliens. After several more battles like this, The Professor reaches out to the Intelligence Division but is once again dismissed as a delusional and told to take some rest. But, this time however, the information is picked up by Storm 1's Communication Officer (The egg shaped ship lunatic from EDF 5) and she decides to take it seriously. She reads the file and finds an alien attack planned for tomorrow and sends Storm 1 to intercept. And as the information was proven to be true, the intelligence division was forced to take The Professor seriously.

The next problem became the Siren, a dragon monster first introduced in the second loop. This monster however has the ability to deploy the Scylla. To this, the intelligence division orchestrates a plan to kill the monster. They had managed to figure out that Siren needs to hibernate after every battle to heal its wounds. So they plan send a division to attack Siren while its recovering, injury it until it can't move, then hit Siren with an orbital laser the moment it holds still, to the objection of The Professor. The Intelligence Division ignored this however and went through with the plan, forcing Siren to the brink of death. This in turn caused Siren's body to change in a new form to survive by overloading itself at the cost of its lifespan, setting itself on fire by constantly outputting vast amounts of heat in a new super-powered burning form, which is codenamed Glaukos (Glaucus in the original Japanese). Although more powerful than ever, Glaukos, who was already near-uncontrollable to the Primers, has become unstable due to growing beyond its limits, and ends up attacking and instantly killing Archelus despite the giant monsters normally being non-hostile to each other.

The Professor states that the only thing capable of killing Glaukos are Depth Charges that can only be fired by one of the Submarine Carriers and, due to him predicting both the alien attacks and Siren turning into Glaukos, the Intelligence division listens to The Professor. The Professor convinces the Intelligence Division to let you escort the missiles to the dock where one of the Submarine Carriers, Pandora, is undergoing repairs from a Scylla attack, only for a mothership to be waiting for them. The Professor claims that in previous loops, the mothership would destroy the Pandora, but they have a chance to change fate and save it, as well as get a chance to defeat Glaukos. Storm 1 manages to destroy the mothership while the repairs are completed and the missiles are loaded onto the Submarine Carrier. The Pandora joins a group assault by with Storm 1 against Glaukos, who fights off interfering monsters and wounds Glaukos until it can't move, allowing the Pandora to launch the Depth Charges. Although initially surviving, each barrage lowers Glaukos' body temperature as it burns off the power it gained against the orbital laser, until the charges manage to de-transform Glaukos back into Siren, which allowed Storm 1 to kill it.

After this battle, it was revealed that with the death of Siren, the aliens lost the ability to deploy Scylla and the aliens were left with only a little more combat power than what they had in EDF 5. With this success, The Professor essentially gains full control over the EDF. Firstly he massively increases recruitment and propaganda drives to increase the number of EDF soldiers and secondly he mass produces the weapons he had invented during EDF 7 and has them become standard issue. Afterwards, he orders a full scale assault on every Alien hardpoint on Earth, with Storm 1 leading the charge. After the battle however, with many casualties on both sides, he reveals that the attack was nothing but a diversion. As it allowed them to sneak attack the Nameless on the far side of the moon with every nuke they still had left, successfully killing him and forcing the remaining motherships to retreat while the vast majority of humanity was still functioning.

3 years into the future, humanity has managed to fully rebuild and fortify itself for the next round of aliens planning to make a visit. Storm 1 and The Professor return to Base 251 almost out of instinct until they are pulled out the base and made to participate in a parade in an advanced-style city. A parade that was interrupted by the first wave of aliens. While Storm 1 is fighting the Aliens, The Professor reveals the next parts of his research. He had many scientists do tests on all the aliens that they had found. Shockingly, all the monster species have some genetic similarities to Earth creatures, suggesting that the monsters are Terrestrial. Based on the data, he concludes that all the monsters were evolved species from hundreds of thousands of years in the future, possibly after humanity had been made extinct and the Earth had become a planet of monsters. Even the Colonists, the first aliens encountered, are from Earth's future, and may have either evolved into a new intelligent species or are, in fact, a race of mutated future humans. He hypothesises that the end of humanity could have been brought on by environmental pollution or nuclear wars from at most a hundred thousand years in the future, and that the resulting contaminated Earth caused the few species that survived to evolve over the next millennia into the monsters they fought; ones who are stronger, faster, more fertile, and have the ability to clean up the pollution. He considers such a theory shocking, as that would suggest that, even without the Primers invading, humanity is destined to go extinct.

But the General and the Intelligence Division, although now mostly-believing the Professor about the Primers' time travel, questioned the results. Ignoring the Primers' tactic of repeatedly undoing their own victories over Humanity just so they can win with the least amount of casualties - speculated to be a wisdom developed after a long and bloodied personal history - why would an alien race hundreds of thousands of years from the future want to pick a fight with humanity if humanity is already dead in their timeline? Or better yet, why didn't they just jump even further into the past back when humanity was still in the stone age and before they polluted the planet? But that conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the Ring and the Time Ships. Despite the best efforts of the EDF, the aliens and androids manage to hold the soldiers off and allow the Ships to enter into the Ring and the next morning Storm 1 and the Professor still find themselves in the underground mall. But before they travel towards the surface, he announces his latest discovery, the bacteria found in the Kruuls matches that of what they had pulled from soil samples on Mars, proving that the aliens are actually Martians. He also realises that the Primers took and used fauna from Earth's future in their invasion as part of their terraforming process, due to the monsters' bodily fluids having evolved to neutralise contaminants.

They continue on as they normally are at this point in time. However, when they get above ground, they are confronted by the Kraken aliens, an advanced, flying species similar to the Kruul, and the Haze, a small similar-looking monster species, and are forced back underground. The Professor speculates that the Primers suffer some form of constraints to their time travelling, with the appearance and location of the Ring at the same place and time being one of them. He further infers that the Primers may only be able to interfere with the history of a few years around the point when the Ring appears. The Professor and Storm 1 are forced to continue the rest of the journey underground until they reach the Ring. This time they find it even more heavily fortified than prior. Forcing them to realize that the Martians are on to them and that this just might be the last time they travel to the past.

The duo arrives in past prior to EDF 5 Mission 1. Storm 1 takes this opportunity to buy a gun and return to Base 228 as in the EDF5 timeline. From there, he went on to save the Corporal who showed him around the base and since he already had a gun, the Sergeant didn't need to waste time teaching him how to use a gun. This in turn allowed him to save one of the Nixes before it was destroyed by the ants, which in turn allowed Storm 1 to preemptively save the base's Barga, which in turn allowed him to save Base 228 from getting overwhelmed by the Anchors. This in turn allowed Storm 1 to kill Erginus the first time it appeared. This in turn gave The Professor extra credibility in being from the future and he manages to convince the Chief Commander to listen to him.

Meanwhile, the Martians put in extra effort in the invasion this time around so that even with the Professor in full control of the EDF, the fight is still a hard back and forth. During this time, speculations start arising that the Kraken and the Haze, although similar looking, are in fact two different species due to the latter being born from eggs like other monsters, and that they are actually controlled by the Kraken who are actual aliens. Likewise, a controversial theory that the reason the Kraken and Haze can fly without wings or propeller equipment is that they have can harness an energy unknown to mankind similar to psychokinesis or anti-gravity to make them float. The Professor also has a hypothesis regarding the Martians. The reason they never traveled further into the past is because there is something of historical significance that happened in the last couple decades that caused a causal nexus, which prevents the Primers from changing the past before then lest they suffer a time paradox.

While the battle was continuing however, the EDF had managed to track down Mothership 11 on Earth. The nuclear attack on the moon in EDF 8 had forced the Martians to keep moving the Mothership in earth's atmosphere, the only place the EDF wouldn't nuke. Storm 1 had managed to find it, however it immediately made its escape while abandoning its garrison. This happened several times until Mothership 11's garrison was instantly destroyed by a squad of Hooligan cannons, forcing it to turn itself into the Egg Shaped Ship. However, when it was destroyed, it was revealed that The Nameless wasn't aboard the ship. This time around, the Martians still continued their assault on humanity, albeit disorganized. Luckily, The Professor had already taken control of the EDF and begun mass producing even more advanced weapons for the next 3 years. This in turn allowed them to force the Martians back.

After The Professor and Storm Team reunite in Base 251 after 3 years before another parade, the Professor reveals what the rest of the research division had discovered. His hypothesis, based on this information, is that the reason for the Primers' attack was because of their own temporal intervention. After the Primers had advanced their own civilization far enough in the far future, they paid a visit to Earth and discovered evidence of a human civilization. Curious and very interested, they developed time travel to observe and study newly emerging humans, even showing themselves to those early humans and being praised as gods in myths, such as the Nameless and his Egg-Shaped Ship. Eventually, they came to the conclusion that humans must not know of the Primers' existence, and cut themselves off from humans and went into hiding. However, an accident occurred and one of their ships crash landed in India several thousands of years ago, where it was written into myths as Vimana. This ship was discovered 20 years ago, as mentioned in EDF 5, and this in turn caused those who were aware of the Primers' existence to form the EDF as a global military organization with the brightest scientists developing advanced weaponry. The discovery of their existence angered the Primers, as was considered so unforgivable that the Primers wished to erase humanity entirely. But they couldn't interfere with the distant past any longer as humanity's discovery of their existence from the crashed ship is too significant to history to alter without causing a time paradox, forcing them to only time travel within the last two decades.

With the aliens now cornered and out of options after the EDF have defeated their monsters all around the world, the Primers decide to use brute force and send an army consisting of numerous Mother and King Spiders, giant Cyclopes androids and Type-3 drones deployed by time ships, dozens of Erginus, multiple Archelus and three Sirens to overwhelm the EDF's Barga and Armament Barga Squads, though they were defeated in a close battle. Later, the Ring ship descends and the aliens rush to control the area to allow the time ships to flee to the past; although the ground forces are all destroyed, the fleet of time ships succeed in using the Ring. However, after a few missions in an unknown, unnumbered loop, eventually Storm 1 takes part in a battle when the time ships suddenly appear, their chosen time travel exit point for this loop ended up being here. This is revealed to not be coincidence, but instead to have been a gamble by the Professor, who believed that if they repeated the loop enough times and Storm 1 fights countless battles across the world, even if the time ships choose different time travel exit points for when and where they return to the past, eventually it would become inevitable that Storm 1 would fight a battle in the same place and time that the time ships return to the past. This allowed him to destroy some of the time ships before they could scatter and change history, taking away part of the Primer's ability to alter time and as well as a large number of their special forces. In addition, now that the EDF bared witness to their arrival, the Airforce can track the locations of the remaining ships, allow the EDF to attack and destroy them more of them.

This in turn leaves the whole scale of the war largely unaffected and the future continues to occur unchallenged, while the Professor and Storm 1 do not attack the Ring on the same day as previous loops, making History fixed and preventing the two from going back in time again. Now, the aliens and remaining time ships fight to defend the Ring in the present, as it is revealed that the Ring is a relay base that handles calculation errors to makes accurate time travel possible without getting lost in the endless flow of time. The time ships are sent from the far future to the era the Ring is present, and then time jump again for the last few years. Without it, although time travel would still be possible for the Primers, they would lack the precision needed to get the desired era, which would cause the strategy of their invasion to fall apart and their ships lost to time. The EDF launch numerous operations around the world as a diversion while a EDF large army is mobilized to attack the Ring. However the Primers, knowing about this tactic from a previous loop, set a trap with a greater amount of their forces to defend the Ring, leading to devastating causalities amongst the attack force but with Storm Team surviving. Storm team continued on anyway, attacking and destroy the Ring's weakspot at the bottom which is speculated to be its control unit without causing another temporal incident due not attacking it on the same day as previous loops.

However, unlike what the Professor believed, destroying the control unit didn't destroy the Ring in previous loops, only damage it. The Ring them flips over and reveals a second control unit on the other side, and the Primers sends more ships, androids, drones, the giant metallic tentacles with cannons through the Ring to protect it.With all three submarine carriers providing covering fire, Team 1 manages to destroy the second unit, causing the Ring to tilt into a horizontal position to maintain its balance and avoid crashing. More tentacles turrets and androids arrive through the portal to defend the Ring, however the Ring's octahedron, named the Spinel, begins opening and closing for the first time. The Professor and the Information Division speculate that, without the control units, the Ring has become unstable and is working at max capacity to remain operation, exposing the Spinel's covering and making it vulnerable for brief periods. Even with the Primer's unleashing new, improved tentacles turrets and random monsters and aliens from past loops, a few commando teams drop in and aid Storm team long enough for them to destroy the Spinel and cause the Ring to fall, finally destroyed.

However, another portal opens in the sky on its own and a gigantic flying metal serpent dragon over 1km in length appears out of it. The fight continues on and Storm 1 manages to destroy the head of the snake, revealing the head of The Nameless, causing the Communication's Officer to call it God. Realising it is another Time Travel ship, the Professor believes that this ship was created and sent back from after the Ring was created, from a further decade or century in the future with even more advanced technology, after the Primers realised the Ring had failed. To the Chief Commander's horror, this would mean that no matter what Humanity defeats now, the Primers of the future will just create more advanced weapons and send that back to attack Earth. As the Professor clarifies, Humanity isn't at war the Primers of one specific time period, but all Primers that exist or will exist across all time, allowing them to retry for eternity until they win.

So to counter this, the EDF initiates Operation Omega, revealing that the EDF had previously launched a rocket at Mars containing a large amount of toxic chemical contaminants. With the rocket having reached Mars and the Operation activated, they will detonate the rocket and spread the toxins across the planet, altering the course of evolution and either causing Mars' environment to be never be able to sustain life or cause whatever does emerge to be completely different to the Primers as they are now. Although the Communications Officer objects to resorting to genocide, the Professor goes through with it, both because of the various futures he remembers where Humanity was pushed to near-extinction, and also as revenge for his wife's numerous deaths. He reveals that this is why the Primers wished to be forgotten by humanity and then tried so hard to wipe them out upon being discovered, as the Primers, after pridefully enjoying time travel initially, realized that further meddling in the past would have major impacts to the future. Humanity, due to being in the past, have the potential to change the future and prevent the Primers' own existence if they ever discovered their origins, which they did from the crashed ship.

However, despite activating the bomb, the Nameless doesn't disappear, and instead becomes the very essence of the Primers, empowering it. The Professor and the Intelligence Division realize that they've caused a time paradox, as the only reason they bombed Mars was due to the Primers attacking; if the Primers no longer exist, there wouldn't be a reason to bomb Mars. After as such, a distortion occurs as time itself tries to solve the contradiction by choosing to erase either Humanity or the Primers, with time choosing the Nameless to represent as the manifestation of the Primers' existence. Storm Team fights against aliens and androids that have already been killed that the Nameless has cut off from the flow of time and pulled in to battle them, requiring them to also be killed along with the Nameless to prevent another paradox. The Professor and the Commander also realize that Storm 1 is time's chosen representative for humanity, and that the paradox has existed in small amounts ever since the Primers first interfered with humanity; it was all the way back then when Storm 1 was chosen by time, to exist beyond the confines of time. The fight continues on and Storm 1 is eventually victorious over The Nameless. Mortally injured, the Nameless tried to travel through time one last time, but failed, causing geysers of energy to pierce his flesh. With one final explosion and roar, the Nameless was slain and the Primer race was destroyed once and for all, erased from existence, solving the paradox.

With the long battle over, 30% of Earth's population is lost in the war, but humanity will not suffer from the Primers' any longer, and use the aliens' science and technology from the invasion to advance civilization and their knowledge of the future to embark on a new path, with the EDF as its protector. After the victory against the Nameless, everyone deeply thanks Storm 1 for all he's done. If the mission is completed on Inferno difficulty, the Communication's Officer confesses her feelings for Storm 1.

Soldier Classes[]

All four classes from EDF 5 (Ranger, Wing Diver, Air Raider and Fencer) return in this game, with some alterations.

The Ranger and Wing Diver now have a dedicated "backpack" equipment slot for certain throwable items: both classes get their hand grenades shifted to this slot. The Ranger also now equips Impulse mines and C Bombs to the backpack slot along with his new stolen-from-the-Air Raider ZE-GUNs, while some of the Wing Diver's orb weapons also end up here. All thrown devices have had their controls altered, being thrown with a fixed amount of force like the vehicle summons in the previous game instead of having a variable aim line, though the throw distance can still be controlled to a degree by aiming the camera vertically.

The Ranger has also gained the ability to mantle over low obstacles that cannot be destroyed by his roll, and has had "super armor" frames added to his dodge roll. For the Wing Diver the news is not quite as rosy, as her air-dash moves have been made less powerful: there is a longer delay between boosts, as well as a roughly 50% increase in the energy cost of boosting. Both classes now have some weapons with a new mechanic related to mid-magazine reloads, decreasing the reload time for the Ranger and the energy consumption for the Wing Diver based on how much ammunition is still in the weapon.

The Air Raider also gains a "backpack" slot, but his hosts a more substantial collection of devices including his support posts, forcefields, decoys and exploding Roombas. A new set of strikes using a series of small drones that follow the Air Raider around have been added: contrary to many pre-release rumors, these strikes are an addition to conventional ones rather than a replacement for them. In addition, unlike the regular strikes, all drone-based strikes can be used in underground maps: related to this, the equip screen will now highlight any selected weapons the Air Raider cannot use in the current mission in red, in the same manner as weapons that exceeded online level limits in previous games. The previously extremely limited Suppress Guns have had their magazine size increase from 1 or 2 shots to 6 or 12 and all types have received a range buff, making them distinctly more serviceable as actual weapons. His sentry guns have been shifted over to the Ranger class.

The Fencer now defaults to having two boosts with any type of booster equipment instead of one, providing him mobility even with no support equipment. However, his jump boosts have been weakened somewhat since the previous game. Like the Ranger, he can now mantle over obstacles he cannot destroy, though this requires a boost in his case and the animation is slower. His weapons with spin-up times have been altered: rather than having to wait for the whole spin-up time before the weapon fires at all, these weapons now start firing immediately but their rate of fire gradually increases up to their proper rate during the spin-up time.

Enemies[]

Returning enemies from previous games include:

• Aggressive Alien Species α
  • Red Ants
  • Green Ants
  • Golden Ants
  • Mother Monster
• Aggressive Alien Species β
• King Spiders
• Aggressive Alien Species γ
• Flying-types
  • Red Hornets
  • Death Queens
    • Red Death Queens
• Aranea
• Teleportation Anchors
• Teleportation Ships
• Colonists
  • Armored Colonists
• Cosmonauts
• Tadpoles
• Battle Drones
  • Red Drones
  • Bomber Drones (DLC only)
• Type 2 Drones
  • Imperial Drones
• Deroys
• Shield Bearers
• Erginus
• Archelus
• Teleport Anchor
• Teleportation Ships
• Outpost Base
• Mothership
• God

New enemies from this game include:

• Giant Androids (Primer machines, Hector-like, attacks with stretching claws)
  • High Mobility Android (Can climb much more efficiently, has an octahedron-shaped head)
  • Red Androids (Have inverted pyramidal heads, behave like the original android)
  • Android Artillery (Has 2 additional guns that shoot in an arch)
    • Android Cyclopes (Has four pulse cannons in its body, is the royal monster version of the androids.)
    • Android Grenadiers (Trashcan-like body, carries two yellow explosive spheres)
      • Android Cannonballs (Upgraded version of the Grenadier, carries two massive purple explosives)
• Drones (Flying mechanical enemies, act as support for the Androids)
  • Type 3 Drones (Five-armed, fire lasers from their tips)
  • Nacres (Look like clam shells, open up to reveal flamethrowers when attacking)
  • Blue Type 2 Drones (Blue drone variants. Have weaker armor but more firepower. DLC only.)
• Kruul (octopus-like aliens, armed with sidearms and buckler-like barriers)
  • Elder Kruul (Wield two weapons and two shields, one in each arm)
  • Kraken (Evolved version of the Elder Kruuls, much larger head compared to the rest of the body, can freely swim in the sky)
  • Haze (Miniature white monster squids. When it dies, it releases a cloud of black ink that renders the nearby area unobservable.)
  • Kruul Capsules (Dropships, can carry up to three Kruuls)
• Plus Monsters (Enhanced variants of the Primers' insect hordes)
  • Aggressive Alien Species α Plus (Species α ants with stronger and bigger bodies and glowing eyes. Comes in both normal, red and gold versions. Normal and gold versions shoots green acids)
    • Mother Monster Plus (Enhanced Species α queens. Comes in both normal, red and gold versions. Red one lacks acid but digs up the ground in front of it to launch a vertical line of boulders at enemies. Also digs up rocks with its charge for a larger area of effect.)
    • Giant blue α Plus (Giant blue ants with tougher bodies and shoot blue acid in a larger amounts. Are slower than smaller ants. DLC only.)
  • Aggressive Alien Species β Plus (Species β Spiders with electrified webs and bigger bodies. Comes in both normal and silver versions. Silver versions have glowing eyes)
    • King Plus (Massive King with electrified webs. Comes in both normal and silver)
    • Giant blue β plus (Giant blue spiders with green electrified webs. DLC only.)
    • Species β Plus Eggs (Giant eggs hanging between buildings. Will periodically spawn either regular Species β spiders or giant blue ones. Will also spawn them when attacked. DLC only.)
• Giant blue flying-types (Giant blue hornets that shot a rapid stream of spiked red lances. DLC only.)
• Giant blue Aggressive Alien Species γ (Giant blue rollers. They remain in ball form at all times. They ball forms has numerous spikes on them, and although a lot slower, also have immense durability. DLC only.)
  • Giant king Species γ (An even larger Roller coloured red. Acts similar to to blue rollers but slower and tougher. Also launches its' spikes into the air as it rolls, these spikes then emit a field of green electricity near them. DLC only.)
• Unarmoured Cosmonauts (Cosmonauts wearing only a helmet and equipped with usual weaponry. They are more fragile, but also faster. Heavier versions also wear armoured boots, but nothing more. DLC only.)
• Ring (A strange ring-like structure with an octahedron floating at its center, in truth a massive time machine/portal.)
• Tail Anchors (Anchor-like, has two tentacles with energy weapons. Has a round shield on its top)
  • Massive purple teleportation anchor, spawns royal monsters
• Timeships (Jellyfish-like, eight tentacles, drops tail anchors)
• Death Blossoms (Large terraforming structure)
• Siren (Massive flying dragon similar to the Greater Wild Dragon from EDF 4.1, will turn into Glaukos if sufficiently damaged)
  • Scylla (aquatic version of Erginus, is several sizes smaller, follows after Siren)

DLC[]

As usual, a number of low-level DLC weapon and equipment packs were available at release, including new Decoys bearing the licensed likenesses of a number of Hololive characters. A Season Pass was also available, which includes all mission packs as well as all DLC which was not a pre-order bonus or store-exclusive promotional item.

The first major DLC pack, Lost Days, released in Japan on March 23rd 2023. This pack includes 19 new missions, 76 new weapons (17 for the Ranger, 21 for the Wing Diver, 20 for the Air Raider and 18 for the Fencer), and new "Primal" variants of basic enemies with enhanced abilities. Like EDF 5, the new weapons are level 100 or greater and can only be unlocked by playing the new missions on Inferno difficulty: some are repeats of weapons from EDF 5's DLC, but the majority are completely new.

The second DLC pack, Visions of Malice, released in Japan on June 29th 2023. This pack includes an additional 40 missions, 110 new weapons (29 for the Ranger, 28 for the Wing Diver, 28 for the Air Raider and 25 for the Fencer) and more new enemy types.

Missions[]

Weblinks[]

• Official Japanese website