Earth Defense Force is a series that’s just kept growing over the years, with each new entry getting bigger and more epic. The spin-off games, on the other hand, hadn’t fared so well, but that finally got corrected with the almost-all-ages Earth Defense Force: World Brothers. Basically a Tecmo-Koei (Fill In the Blank) Warriors-style tribute, World Brothers was pure EDF fan-service in a blocky-voxel world, celebrating the history of the series while introducing plenty of new characters to the roster. Battles were fought over decently-sized square maps from a cube-Earth that had been blown to bits by the invaders, and in the end they managed to emerge triumphant and piece the planet back together. And now the invaders have returned and broken it again, because you may’t spell “alien invader” without “inconsiderate jerk” (implied).
To save our mother Earth from any alien attack
Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 is basically what you’d expect from a new EDF game. There’s hundreds of enemies inundating the screen at any given time and you’ve got ridiculous weaponry to clear it out with. Unlike the class system of the standard series, though, where you pick one of four types of soldier and then two weapons to carry into battle, the World Brothers series has characters with a pre-defined loadout. It doesn’t take long to build up a huge crew of characters to choose from, though, and they fight in four-unit squads. Topping off the battle flexibility, not only do you get to define who’s included in each mission but also switch between them at will, whether that be a standard troops like the classic Ranger or Wing Diver or weirder heroes like the nation-based ones with unique weapons based on regional cliches, such as Tulip Sister with a tornado-causing windmill turret and tulip mines.
Blocky Bugs in a Cubic World with Earth Defense Force: World Brothers
While a lot is familiar in World Brothers 2, the big new addition is elements from Earth Defense Force 6, which is still in localization for its US release. Theofficial Twitter accountannounced earlier this month that EDF6 needed “a little more time,” but seeing as World Brothers 2 isn’t until September 26, that’s a large window for the new Wing Diver Shooter character to make her official debut in the Summer 2024 release window. Granted, that means there will be a lot of EDF in a short period of time, which always has the unfortunate effect of taking the edge off a series, but it will have been over three years since the last EDF by the time the new ones arrive so that should help. Plus the cute blocky look means that Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 gets a T rating rather than the M of its older sibling, so it’s a more family-friendly alien extermination for kids who don’t mind hideous giant spiders when rendered in voxels.
Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 is currently in development for PS4/5 (a single purchase gets both Sony console versions) and Switch, with a standard base-game version and deluxe with season pass for each. The new trailer shows off the action and includes a wonderfully-terrible theme song, so check it out in preparation for the return of the ever-victorious Earth Defense Force.
