Following a Fall 2022 PlayStation release in Japan and a Spring 2024 release in Asia, Earth Defense Force 6 has finally been released worldwide on PlayStation and Steam by D3 Publisher. The EDF series has long offered co-op shooting thrills via 2-player split-screen and 4-player online co-op. EDF 6 maintains those expectations while upping the ante with a whopping 140-plus missions, increased difficulty, a more complex plot, and a whole host of refinements that make the game more fun to play. It’s not quite a perfect game, but it certainly offers what fans want: lots more EDF and weird things to shoot.
The story of EDF 6 begins three years after the ending of EDF 5. 30 percent of Earth’s population has been wiped out during the war with the alien Primers. Cities are in ruin, and the Earth Defense Force continues to battle against remnants of the Primer invasion fleet. The entire game isn’t post-apocalyptic, mercifully, thanks to the introduction of time travel. Players will revisit past missions of EDF 5 and several new and alternate timelines as the Primers prove that the war isn’t really over. As always, the story comes to life not through cinematics but by in-game NPC discussions and radio chatter. Consequently, the twisting narrative can occasionally be difficult to follow, but it’s undoubtedly the series’ most ambitious story so far.
Before we extol EDF 6’s many features and improvements, let’s begin like the game does: with a low point. EDF 5 was the first game in the series to muster a tutorial mission, but the mission is an 8-minute exercise in drudgery. EDF 6 somehow squeezes an even worse tutorial into its first mission. Most of the mission is just waiting around for NPCs to deliver exposition so slowly that time almost seems to reverse rather than merely stand still, but there’s some painfully slow walking from room to room mixed in as well. Only at the end of the 11-minute mission does the game teach players to shoot and use the new support equipment. One startingly bad tutorial mission isn’t the end of the world, but players are encouraged to complete the mission 6-12 times to gain mission completion percentage, so the tutorial’s obvious badness is multiplied several times over. People who buy EDF 6 are clearly going to power through the tutorial, but it still makes no sense to start the game off so poorly.
On a happier note, EDF 6 features the return of the series’ four playable classes. All play significantly distinctly from one another and have hundreds of weapons and armaments to collect over the course of the game. As with each new installment, a host of buffs makes the existing classes more fun to play. The Ranger, the all-around soldier class, can now climb over small objects and ledges, and can equip auto-firing turrets in one of his new equipment slots. Wing Diver, the flight class, has a new support equipment slot as well, though her flight ability has been reduced slightly. Fencer, the tank class, gets two movement boosts by default and gains a support slot that allows players to tweak his movement speed and other abilities. Air Raider, the support class, has changed the most dramatically. He can now equip three weapons, a support item, and a vehicle. The Air Raider’s new drone category of weapons allows him to attack more readily, making him more viable for solo play and more enjoyable in general.
EDF 5 offered 110 non-DLC missions, and that was already a lot given that this series highly encourages players to go through each mission on multiple difficulties and with all four classes. EDF 6 kicks things up a notch by offering a staggering 146 missions in the base game. Again, players will want to clear each mission on multiple difficulties (Hardest and Inferno unlock when you beat the game) and with all four classes. That’s because higher-level gear drops on higher difficulties, and a 70-percent overall completion rating is required in order to turn off weapon and armor limits in online games. With limits enabled, players can’t jump into early missions and low difficulty levels with high level gear, so reaching that 70-percent mark is the long-term goal as always. The big, blessed difference here is that (for the first time since 2015’s EDF 2 Portable) mission completion is shared between the single-player/split-screen modes and online mode. That means that players can jump back and forth between solo and online modes with no penalties. Run into a wall in online mode? Just hop offline where there are no weapon and armor limits, and then beat the stage with your higher-level gear. According to our developer interview, this change was made because of player requests and EDF 6’s vast number of missions.
The missions in EDF 6 vary wildly, but they nearly all involve going into an urban, outdoors, or subterranean area and cutting through waves of enemies. Returning foes include the series’ staple giant ants, spiders, and hornets, plus the human-like frogs and cosmonauts of EDF 5. Before too long, players will also face new types of android enemies, flying drones, shield-wielding tentacled Kruul monsters, deadly flying Excavators, and more. There are only two species of kaiju in this installment, but otherwise, the variety of enemies is impressive. Some of the new foes like the Kruul and Excavators can be downright annoying, but there’s real satisfaction in overcoming them in co-op. Make no mistake, EDF 6 is harder than the last game. Even some early missions throw incredible numbers and assortments of deadly enemies at players, and overcoming them can be daunting on higher difficulty levels. Thankfully, the option of beating a level on an easier difficulty and then returning to it later remains.
As always, EDF 6 truly shines in co-op. 2-player split-screen allows two local players to play on the host’s save file; split-screen players can’t join online games. Online games allow players to host their own game or browse and search for open lobbies. When joining in-progress games, the joining player must sit and wait in the lobby rather than watching the ongoing mission – a recurring issue in this series. Otherwise, the online co-op experience is fantastic. Each of the four classes brings something unique to the team, but multiple players can choose the same class if they like. Enemies have more health in online games, encouraging the team to stick together to overcome threats. Still, dividing and conquering can be effective as well. When a player goes down, another teammate can revive the fallen friend at the cost of half their health. Once the mission ends, everyone gets the full portion of weapon and armor drops collected by the team. It all works together to create one of the best co-op experiences in gaming.
Steam Specifics
Whereas EDF 4.1 and 5 launched on PlayStation before eventually landing on Steam, the worldwide version of EDF 6 arrives on PlayStation and Steam at the same time (2 years after the Japanese release). The Steam version looks and plays great, but it’s not without issues. On Steam Deck, my team and others have experienced random crashes that we greatly hope will be fixed. Even on a desktop, typing messages with a keyboard is semi-borked. If you’re playing with a controller, the spacebar of the keyboard will instantly send the typed message, preventing users from typing multiple words. This was never a past issue in previous EDFs, and it really needs to be fixed.
Controversially, the Steam version launched with Epic Online Services (EOS) required for online play. Epic doesn’t seem to bring any advantages to the Steam game because there’s no cross-play with consoles. Many Steam users dislike EOS, and so the game has suffered from review bombing since launch. D3 Publisher has already addressed the problem and promised to remove the EOS requirement, so this (truly minor) problem will go away in time. Be patient, PC players!
Join the EDF!
It’s a shame that Earth Defense Force 6’s launch has been mired by Steam review bombing, because the game itself is great. Class-based refinements, shared offline and online progress, and a humongous assortment of missions make EDF 6 the best EDF yet. Earth Defense Force is a series that improves incrementally rather than through vast evolutions, and that’s okay. Each of these games offers more than 200 hours of play for completionists. There’s so much to do through playing all the missions, difficulties, and classes! Even without the sheen of a big-budget AAA game, Earth Defense Force 6 offers the most co-op fun of any game this year – and my team will be playing it next year as well.
Earth Defense Force 6 is now available on PlayStation and Steam for $59.99. On PlayStation, a deluxe edition is also available for $89.99 that bundles the game with DLC. The Steam version of EDF 6 is fully Steam Deck compatible.
A Steam download code was provided by the publisher for this review.