Earth Defense Force 6 Is An Incredible Sci-Fi Shooter With The Most Bang For Your Buck [Review] (2024)

Earth Defense Force 6 has finally come to the West. And alongside being one of the few true sequels in the long-running series, it’s also a sublime game filled with a surprising amount of story depth, the same B-Movie voice acting fans have always loved, and just so many weapons.

Right, let’s go through what Earth Defense Force is, because it’s a criminally underrated series. Earth Defense Force is a cult line of games that’s been going on for several years and puts the player in the role of a soldier in an ongoing fight against an alien ant farm. Well, you fight aliens and also giant ants, anyway. The series is known for having a massive number of enemies on screen, wonderfully cheesy writing, more weapons than is reasonable, and being highly replayable.

In This Episode of Earth Defense Force…

Earth Defense Force is also a series that’s rebooted itself a few times. But in a rare instance of continuity, Earth Defense Force 6 (EDF 6) follows from the end of EDF 5. That means that, and spoilers for EDF 5 here, only 10% of the total population of humanity is left on Earth. And rather than fighting to try and win, they’re fighting just to stop themselves from being completely overrun. Humanity has also retreated underground, only emerging to try to find supplies, often losing fighters along the way.

The story follows the fighters trying to survive despite such horrifying odds. There are a shocking number of twists that weave themselves throughout the story though, and I’ll eat my own tongue before I spoil those in an Earth Defense Force 6 review, so let’s move on.

Old Classes Get a Much Needed Boost

The classes are the same as they have been for a while. The Ranger is your standard soldier, with some immense firepower and a little bit of vehicular power. The Fencer is a tank of a unit with surprising mobility, more weapons than any other class, and a fun mix of ranged explosives and melee weapons. The Wing Diver is the flying unit that uses futuristic energy weapons to dole out damage. Then the Air Raider is the support class of sorts, able to heal, call in airstrikes, and pilot vehicles.

However, they’ve all had a significant boost in EDF 6. For example, the Air Raider has always struggled with its own personal firepower outside of air strikes, which only reloads when enough enemies have been killed. This time around, they come equipped with a bevy of drones to send out at will. These drones have anything from a standard machine gun to an AoE electricity field. All of the classes have fun new toys to play with, along with a lot of the best weapons from 5 returning, too.

The Enemies Get Upgrades Too?!

You’re not the only one who’ll get a buff. The enemies you’ll be fighting have had some serious upgrades too. A lot of the units are now far better at scaling buildings than ever before, and the tactics they use seem to be better too. I ended up getting flanked a lot more than usual, often because a big frog man decided to scale the building behind me. There’s also an absurd degree of enemy variety, unlike any of the games in the series. It’s just better.

Verdict: Recommended

Earth Defense 6 has fantastic map variety, better-looking levels, and a story that actually had me hooked. I didn’t keep playing because I wanted a bigger boom, I genuinely wanted to find out what happened next. I’ve always been a fan of the EDF games, but this is the first one that I’m 100% happy to recommend without any weird disclaimers. If you’ve ever been even slightly curious about the series, then now’s the time to sign up and help fight back the alien menace. If you’re a fan of EDF 5, then you’ll get more joy out of this than I could possibly express without spoiling things. Just go get it.

A review code of Earth Defense Force 6 was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review. Earth Defense Force 6 is available to play now.

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