Mutants

Mutants are high-powered reskinned variants of standard enemy types in the Japan-only PSP version of Global Defence Force, Earth Defense Force 2025 and ''Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair. They first appeared in DLC pack 2 for EDF 2025, the aptly-titled Mutant Rampage. ''They encompass the following types:
 * *Golden Mutant Ants
 * *Golden Queen Mutant Ant
 * *Silver Mutant Spiders
 * *Silver King Mutant Spiders
 * *Yellow Mutant Dragons
 * *Red Mutant Dragons
 * **Dark Mutant Ants
 * **Red Mutant Hornets
 * **Mutant Erginus
 * ***Light Green Mutant Ants
 * ***Dark Green Mutant Ants
 * ***Mutant Retiarius
 * ***Red Mutant Death Queen

Note: (*) Shows which mutants originated in 2025's DLC2. These can appear on higher difficulties in some regular missions of 4.1. Yellow dragons will appear on standard difficulties. Gold Ants and Silver Spiders actually first appeared in missions added to the Japan-only PSP re-release of Global Defence Force, and also appear in Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable. Mutant Crimson Ants also appeared in these games, but were brighter rather than darker in color.

(**) Shows which mutant is new in Shadow of New Despair.

(***) Shows mutants introduced in Shadow of New Despair DLC 1: Time of the Mutants.

Ants VS Golden Mutant
Compared to the Regular variant, Mutant ants deal tremendous amounts of damage (in the region of 540 damage per individual "splat" of acid, with the full Inferno-level spread doing in the region of 35,000 at point-blank range) and are faster and more resilient. They will use their acid attack at much longer range than regular ants. The Gold Queen does not have quite the same absurd increase in damage output, but is still tougher and far more dangerous than her counterpart.

Ants VS Dark Green Mutant
This variant of the Black Ant is very deadly as they are the fastest of all variants, able to match pace with a Wing Diver. Not only are they the fastest, but they seem to prefer shooting the player at point blank range; on higher difficulties, this can be fatal. They tend to spawn in extremely large groups, with tunnel exits maintaining groups of over a hundred and in one case a sea of 200 of the little monsters spawning at once from collapsing buildings. However, they are weaker in terms of both durability and damage output, relying on speed and overwhelming numbers to bring down their foes.

Red Ants VS Light Green Mutant
This appears to be a juvenile Green Mutant, but mechanically is actually a Crimson Ant variant. It is the smallest of all ant variants (though still roughly the size of a car; interestingly, almost exactly the same size as standard ants from Insect Armageddon, which had a similar attack to these ants), and is also extremely fast. Like Crimson Ants, they will charge at the player character with their jaws open, but since they are too small to pick them up, they instead toss them like a bull, pushing them back a short distance and then flipping them up into the air. This deals significant damage, though less than a real Crimson Ant's bite and with no continued grapple damage. Like their larger green cohorts, they depend on speed and numbers to bring down their prey, and have the lowest health of any ant type.

Red Ants VS Dark Red Mutant
With increased health, speed, and damage output, this variant of the red ant seems more aggressive and is even more dangerous than their normal counterparts.

Spiders VS Silver Mutant Variant
The Mutant Spiders appearance differ from regular Spiders as they are silver and have purple eyes. When it comes to attacks and health, Mutant spiders can withstand massive amounts of damage compared to their regular counterparts and their damage output is dramatically increased; each line of web deals more damage, and each attack has more lines of web. The same goes for the mutant King Spider. Silver Spiders are one of the best sources of items in the game, however, usually dropping 3-5 on death.

Retiarius VS Purple Mutant Variant
The mutant variant of the Retiarius seems to have a longer range and can throw webs very far. If the player is caught in these webs, the mutant will pull the player much faster than regular variants. The mutant Retiarius also has increased health and damage output, making it deadlier than its normal counterparts.

Hornets VS Crimson Mutant
The mutant variant of the hornet seems to have slightly more health damage output. They are not much stronger than the normal version, and they seem to be more common as you can see them on normal and easy, unlike most other mutants. Like most mutant boss enemies, the Crimson Death Queen is just more durable and deals more damage.

Dragons VS Yellow Mutant
When it comes to Dragons, the Yellow Mutants are actually a weaker variant of the regular green Dragons. Not only do they differ with strength, but also in size as the Yellow Dragons are actually smaller and as a result have less health, though they are slightly faster.

Dragons VS Red Mutant
The Red Variant of the Mutant Dragons are the strongest dragon type short of the Greater Wild Dragon. Not only are they larger than regular dragons, but their damage output is increased and they are much tougher. As a result, the red variant is the most dangerous of the three dragon types.

Erginus VS Mutant Variant
The Mutant variant of the Erginus is the most powerful form of the Erginus. Though it is said to be its "fully evolved form" (and also said to simply be an adult, further implying that Ohara got his degree in Ravager Research by mailing in cereal box tokens) it is still referred to as a Mutant. The Mutant Erginus is much larger than regular Erginuses, has different colored skin which is now red and the blue glowing parts are now yellow, its attacks are much more powerful, and it has loads more health.

Technical "mutants"
Though not actually mutants as such since they are not living creatures, Red Drones, Blue Hectors and large Deroys are the same thing in principle. 4.1 also includes unique upgraded variants of the Hector and Shield Bearer. There are also upgraded Flight Vehicles, an "Elite" Carrier and a huge tunnel exit in the DLC.

Both games
All level numbers are based on the offline mission numbers. Main number is EDF 2025, number in brackets is EDF 4.1.

Drone VS Red Drone
There is really no comparison between these two, with Drones a nuisance enemy only threatening in enormous swarms, while the Red Drone is one of the most dangerous enemies in the game. Red Drones, first appearing in mission 27 (28): High Speed, are fast, move extremely erratically, deal near-critical damage with every hit and are armoured like bank vaults. Instead of firing spreads of eight slow-moving energy bolts, they fire eight solid laser-like beams that strike their target more or less the instant they are fired. Their only weakness is that they are often too busy whizzing around to actually focus on killing things, seeming to only attack things their path happens to intersect with rather than going after a specific target. In 2025 a Red Drone will drop 2-4 items on death rather than having a chance of dropping just one like a regular Drone: in 4.1 this is increased to up to 7.

Hector VS Blue Hector
Blue Hectors, first appearing in mission 45 (47): Blue Fighters, are a more powerful variant of the standard machine; slightly more durable, and with both new variants of the standard Hector machine gun and explosive launcher arms and the ability to mount other weapons such as powerful plasma cannons and miniature shield screen generators. In general a shield-carrying Hector will carry the shield on its right side, leaving its left arm and shoulder exposed to fire from the front, though in some DLC missions Hectors appear with shields on both arms; these are incapable of attacking.

Deroy VS Large Deroy
The Large Deroy first appears in mission 65 (69): Towering Beast, and is a standard Deroy body on enormously elongated legs, with up to 4 laser emitters on each leg depending on the mission. The Large Deroy's normal artillery and stab attacks are unchanged, though its health is roughly doubled. Large Deroys are deceptively fast and due to their huge size have a much longer range for their stab attack. They will tend to twist their body on top of their legs to spin their laser emitters around, creating sweeping beams that are very difficult to avoid, and can quickly wipe out a character's entire health bar with their many lasers if they are allowed to survive long enough to fire them.

EDF 4.1 only
Since these variants only appear in 4.1, only 4.1 mission numbers are given.

Hector VS Fast Hector
"Fast" Hectors, first encountered in mission 23: Giant Robots, simply have their walk speed increased to around twice what it normally is. They can cover ground extremely quickly, but do not appear to differ from their slower brethren in terms of durability or damage output.

Hector VS Slow Hector
The "slow" Hector is a little harder to distinguish from others; it is much tougher than a regular Hector and tends to stay a substantial distance from Storm Team. The most common slow Hectors are Blues with dual Particle Stream Guns.

Shield Bearer VS Elite Shield Bearer
The "Elite" Shield Bearer, though never pointed out as different, projects a gargantuan shield screen some three times the radius of a normal one, and is faster and more durable. This type is extremely dangerous when escorting Hectors (such as when it is initially encountered in mission 29: Brute Force), since a huge number can hide under it and make approaching the Shield Bearer a daunting task.

Flight Vehicle VS Red Flight Vehicle
The red Flight Vehicle is across-the-board more dangerous; it is faster, vastly tougher (requiring two Stringer J9 hits on Inferno, which is 36,000 damage), and deals a huge amount of damage, though its high speed means it cannot stay focused on one target for as long as a normal Flight Vehicle. Interestingly, since their speed increases dramatically as the difficulty level does, it is actually harder for a Red Flight Vehicle to focus fire on a single target on Inferno than it is on Hard. It will sometimes compensate for this by constantly flipping over on the spot to attack the same area multiple times, though thankfully this is rare.

Carrier VS Elite Carrier
First appearing in mission 1 of DLC Pack 2: Tracking Bogeys, the "Elite" transport ship is three times faster than a standard Carrier and also enormously tougher. While the mission description says they are "heavily armed," this is an error; it is supposed to say "heavily armored," and like regular transports they have no weapons.

Tunnel Exit VS Giant Tunnel Exit
This gargantuan tunnel exit is enormously durable and spawns boss enemies (Ant Queens, King Spiders, Death Queens) instead of (or sometimes as well as) standard enemies.