Wind Break

Wind Break (Wind Shear in 4.1) is the fifth mission in Earth Defense Force 2025 and Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair.

Objectives
2025: Emergency support request. The Wing Diver team is engaged with a very strong enemy and is taking heavy casualties. Their engagement location is not far from here. You are to head out immediately, destroy the monsters and rescue the surviving Wing Divers.

4.1: Emergency support request: The Wing Diver team is engaged with a very strong enemy and is taking heavy casualties. Their engagement location is not far from here. You are to head out immediately, destroy the monsters, and rescue the surviving Wing Divers.

Storyline
Seemingly either another Wing Diver team or further members of the same team have managed to get themselves Retiarius'd, requiring Storm Team to prevent natural selection running its (justifiable) course.

During the course of the mission, Ohara speaks up. He declares he would like to call the new species "Retiarius," since it catches its prey in a net, apparently being well-read on Roman gladiator classes while simultaneously not familiar with the simpler word "spider." He further speculates that if entire new species are emerging, the new giant insect nest could represent a dire threat to the human race, "At this rate, Earth will become a giant insect planet!" He insists that the EDF must head underground and destroy the the nest.

At the end of the mission he repeats this insistence, and curiously also declares that there is "a danger that the flying giant insects might have evolved" and that they may be superior to the Wing Divers. Seemingly, he has simply guessed that these are something that is someday going to exist, but isn't sure when.

Incidentally, this is not the greatest leap in logic Ohara will make during the story that turns out to be bang on the money.

4.1 Changes
No changes aside from that the mission is now called Wind Shear, presumably because the previous title led to too many fart jokes.

Enemies
Both versions:

Retiarius x 7 with webs (3 spawned at level start, remaining 4 with the Ants, webs all spawned at level start)

1 wave of black Ants, 36.

Both Versions
Wind Break is the first mission where the player has to deal with more than one type of enemy at a time. It can also be a nasty wakeup call since Retiarius with anything is automatically an unpleasant combination.

The mission layout is more or less a straight shot down a road leading to the plaza with monorail tracks overhead, which give the level's Ants a good vantage point to shoot acid down from. The area is claustrophobic and lined with tall buildings, and the various Retiarii are mostly annoyingly placed in side-roads where they will throw their webs through buildings. The mission can be difficult when starting out since the first warning a Retiarius is aggro'd is often when it hits the player character, and a long-range weapon might aggro the Retiairus between the two skyscrapers, which early on is basically game over since there is no way to hit it until it has pulled the player character the entire length of the road and through the group of Ants.

The Ants will not spawn until Storm Team gets roughly level with the first Retiarius on the right: before that, it is just the Retiarii.

It is best to load out with one weapon to deal with Retiarii and one to deal with ants, though a Fencer is fine dealing with both with his Hand-Gatlings. An Air Raider is best off using a Vegalta if they have one (the DLC Vegalta Gold is good here on lower difficulties) since all enemies come from directly ahead; throwing an airstrike or artillery marker far forward to thin out the Ants in the plaza is also a good plan, though care must be taken not to hit the intervening webs. Being in a vehicle prevents a Retiarius trapping the Air Raider, only dealing one-off damage, and this will become progressively more important to remember.

A recruitable NPC Ranger squad starts out on the road ahead; it is a very good idea to recruit them, since it prevents them running forward and aggro'ing at least two Retiarii. There are once again recruitable Wing Divers trapped in the Retiarius webs who can be freed, and usually a few Rangers from the group in the Plaza trapped in the webs of the ones to the right and left as the Plaza is entered.

Since about half of the Ants in the mission's single wave will busy themselves with a group of Rangers who spawn at the edge of the plaza and a group of civilians who also spawn there, it feels more like two waves, a small one and a larger one. The small wave tends to arrive in time to help out the first Retiarius on the right, while the large group usually finishes dealing with their new friends in the plaza just in time for Storm Team's arrival at the top of the road.