Earth Defense Force 5

Earth Defense Force 5 (地球防衛軍5 Chikyū Bōeigun Faibu) is the fifth main installment in the series and eighth overall including Global Defense Force Tactics, Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon, and Earth Defense Force 4.1: Wing Diver The Shooter. Developed by Sandlot and published by D3 Publisher, the game was released for the PlayStation 4 in Japan on December 6, 2017. The game was released worldwide on December 11, 2018, as a digital exclusive for the PlayStation 4. On July 7, 2019, D3 Publisher announced a worldwide PC release on the Steam platform for July 11th. It was sold at a special 20% discount during its first week on the platform.

Earth Defense Force 5 departs from the continuity established by Earth Defense Force 2017 and Earth Defense Force 2025/4.1, and is set in a new continuity where the Earth Defense Force sees action for the first time in the year 2022. The game features the most weapons of any EDF so far, with 1,187 including DLC.

Soldier Classes
Earth Defense Force 5 features the same four soldier classes present in Earth Defense Force 2025 and 4.1. The player can set armor values for all classes and change their colors. Every class has two appearances; one they start with at the beginning of the game and then standard EDF armor, given to the player around 16 missions into the main game.

For the first time in the series, you now unlock extra armor and weapons for classes that you're not even playing as. However, the other classes only gain half the amount of armor as you would while playing them, and they unlock fewer weapons too.

When the player collects a duplicate weapon, there is chance it will upgrade the weapon. Most of a weapon's stats can generally be increased: those that can will be marked with a star with a number beside it. A outlined star shows it can still be upgraded, whereas a white star means that stat is now maxed out. When a weapon is fully upgraded, a white star appears next to its name.

All classes except the Air Raider now also have dedicated slots for enhancements that alter their stats and behavior in various ways: the Ranger and Wing Diver have one, while the Fencer has two.

Ranger - Flexible and adaptable basic infantry with weapons suited to just about any situation. Their equipment slot can be used to equip auxiliary gear to improve their basic stats or combat abilities such as lock-on range and speed, or even increase the range at which the Ranger picks up health recovery items. The other option that can be set to the slot is calling in a vehicle: some of the previous game's Air Raider vehicles are now exclusive to the Ranger, including the Epsilon Armored Railgun, EF31 Nereid and HU04 Brute, and he can also call in the new EMC vehicle, bikes, unarmed civilian transport trucks (with DLC), and low-level tanks. New to EDF 5, the Ranger can now sprint. The Ranger begins the game as a security guard.

Wing Diver - An airborne class that use high tech energy weaponry and jet packs. Her equipment slot can be used to equip "cores" which alter her energy and flight mechanics in various ways, such as increasing total energy, increasing (or decreasing) her flying speed, or providing a faster recharge. New to EDF 5, she has an evasive boost move, which is most effective in the air. Using this she can charge forwards, backwards and side to side, allowing her to dodge in mid-air and removing her old issues with being stunlocked while airborne. When used on the ground, it is much less effective.

Air Raider- A support class specialized in the assistance of infantry, able to deploy health recovery field generators and force shields, summon vehicles into the battlefield and order air raids over designated targets. As noted above, several of his vehicles are moved over to the Ranger class, and he can no longer call for these. Unlike the other classes, he has no equipment slot, since he already has various buffs that he equips to his main slots. He instead gains a whole extra weapon slot, now having three slots instead of two, as well as his dedicated vehicle slot. Some of his strikes now reload on a timer rather than using reload credits, and these and several of his weapons are now reloaded even if they are not selected. In addition, the old Air Raider's fiddly wiregun weapons have been swapped for a close-range shotgun. The Air Raider begins the game as a mechanic.

Fencer- A heavy soldier equipped with a heavily armored "power frame" and jet boosters, able to carry oversized weaponry, employ powerful energized melee weapons, and use a special shield. The class is able to equip four weapons in two pairs, and most weapons have an alternate function such as a booster or zoom mode. He also has two equipment slots, which can be used to equip various enhancements to his general performance such as allowing multiple sequential boosts or jumps, increasing shield performance or suppressing recoil, or enhancements to his Power Frame that can decrease the inertia effect of heavy weapons and increase his basic walking speed. The Fencer begins the game as a construction worker wearing a civilian exoskeleton.

Gameplay
Earth Defense Force 5 follows the same gameplay style as the previous 4.1,and by extension pretty much every Earth Defense Force game made by Sandlot. At the start of the game, the player cannot select the difficulties Hardest or Inferno, however this becomes unlocked after beating the game once.

Unlike 4.1, many missions now contain pre-placed vehicles, normally being civilian vehicles that the player can commandeer.

Compared to 4.1, EDF 5 features various quality of life improvements, including;


 * Most drivable vehicles (and certain infantry actions such as Ranger's sprint or Fencer's dash) now comes with a faint white pickup-circle that collects any health, weapon, or armor pickups it touches. This mitigates (but does not completely eliminate) situations in which a player could die literal pixels away from a health pickup or miss out on gear and armor upgrades just before the mission ends.
 * Tightened level margins for gear drops. Weapons and gear acquired will be at worst about 10 levels below the stage level, compared to the sheer randomness of 4.1 's drops leading to moments like level 20 gear from a level 65 stage.
 * Medals for completing stages will retroactively unlock medals for lower difficulties (Ex: Clearing on Hard unlocks the medals for Easy and Normal), reducing time spent playing the same stage to remove weapon level restrictions in online play (whereas 4.1 required you to play all 87 stages twenty times to unlock all weapons for every class in online mode.)

Singleplayer
The singleplayer campaign features 110 missions, the highest number of any EDF game to date (not counting DLC).

Curiously, unlike EDF 4.1, caves are no longer pitch black, but are lit by a faint ambient light.

Enemies
Returning Enemies: New Enemies:
 * Aggressive Alien Species Alpha
 * Aggressive Alien Species Alpha Type Red
 * Mother Monster
 * Flying Aggressor
 * Aggressive Alien Species Beta
 * King
 * Aranea
 * Battle Drone
 * Red Battle Drone
 * Shield Bearer
 * Deroy
 * Teleportation Ship
 * Mothership
 * Erginus
 * Teleport Anchor - This game's version of a Tunnel Exit. Curiously, tunnel exits do make appearances in some missions, but are purely cosmetic and no giant insects come out of them. They come in two types: Gold and Red. The red ones are tougher and spawn enemies in larger numbers.
 * Colonist - This game's version of the Hector. They look like giant frogs and come in various forms. Their limbs can be severed if they sustain enough damage, but regrow after a certain amount of time. Green Colonists usually use a machine gun, whereas Red Colonists are often seen using a shotgun.
 * Cosmonaut - Another enemy that serves to replace the Hector. They look like traditional grey aliens and are covered in armor which must be destroyed before the player can cause damage. At first they only use assault rifles, but later in the game they can be seen with shotguns, rocket launchers and flame throwers. They also wear thicker armor at the end of the game.
 * Aggressive Alien Species Gamma - Not seen since Global Defence Force, these giant pillbugs roll around really fast and knock the player off their feet when they hit.
 * Winged Flying Aggressor - They replace the dragons in this game. Despite looking like frogs, they still fly and spit fire like dragons. They come in 3 sizes: Small, Medium and Large, and how hard it is to kill them increases with their size. They are implied to be the "tadpole" form of the Colonists.
 * Archelus - A new kaiju enemy similar to Erginus, but with greater agility. It can roll around and fire exploding rocks from its back
 * Type 2 Drone - A more powerful flying vehicle that appears later in the game. It seems to be this game's replacement for the Flight Vehicle from the previous game. It resembles a Deroy without any legs.
 * Nameless - The final boss of the game, the Nameless is a giant silver-colored humanoid with immense otherworldy powers that is believed to be the "God" of the Primer civilization.

Weapons
See List of EDF5 Weapons.

Downloadable Content
Earth Defense Force 5 has an available season pass in Japan, which guarantees players access to all downloadable content (except preorder and store exclusives) as it is released. D3 Publisher confirmed that DLC would include both mission packs and aesthetic modifications such as skins for weapons and armor. A large number of low-level DLC weapons and vehicles are available: unfortunately these are level-locked and cannot be upgraded. They are as follows:

Ranger


 * Omega Free Bike: a Free Bike variant with a special short-range laser weapon and pink anime girl decoration to embarrass players in front of friends and family members.
 * Light Truck: a deployable unarmed civilian truck of the type found pre-placed in certain maps, which can be used to transport up to three other player characters.
 * Blacker 4.1: a variant of the Blacker tank with a special paint scheme celebrating EDF 4.1 and the main gun replaced with a Dispersal Howitzer.
 * Detector S-Type: an equipment item which increases item collection radius and also increases the effect of healing items on the Ranger's recruited NPC allies.
 * Pure Decoy Launcher: a pack of eight anime girl Decoy Launchers to make a player's acquaintances ask awkward questions about them.
 * Pure Decoy Launcher (Pale Wing): for those plans that hinge on firing a chibi Pale Wing at something.

Wing Diver


 * Volcanic Cracker: a unique one-off orb weapon producing a volcano-like AoE attack, releasing 600 green projectiles that arc upwards and then strike the ground around it.
 * Starburst: another unique orb weapon that fires a shower of of ten large plasma bolts with a 20-meter blast radius downwards.
 * Reverse Core S-Type: an equipment item which changes the function of the Wing Diver's energy core, providing increased charge speed and a superior emergency reload time.

Air Raider


 * Blacker 5: a special Blacker tank variant with a completely redundant EDF 5 themed paint job and a gun that fires time-delay grenades.
 * Nix Gold Coat: a special variant of the Nix mech armed with arm-mounted flamethrowers, shoulder-mounted timed grenade launchers that fire bursts of eight rounds, and a fetching gold paint job.
 * Nix Phantasia Shield: another variant of the Nix, armed with powerful but short-ranged machine guns and with a paint job themed after Bullet Girls Phantasia.
 * Caliban Support Vehicle Happy Manager Logo: a variant of the Caliban Support Vehicle with a delightfully hideous blue paint scheme and a pink interior.
 * FZ-GUN: a low-level variant of the ZE-GUN with a flamethrower instead of a gun, unique in this series of weapons in that it does not deal friendly fire damage.
 * Pure Decoy Launcher: another set of eight anime girl decoys to make players question their financial decisions and sanity.

Fencer


 * Grim Reaper Shield: a special deflector shield variant decorated with the logo of the Grim Reaper unit.
 * Wild Skeleton: a special equipment item, an exoskeleton upgrade which provides enhanced mobility along with an additional use of dash-boost between cooldowns for weapons that have a side thruster.
 * Happy Body Pillow: a weapon the reader believes the writer is making up but is a pink body pillow that counts as a Vibro-Hammer. Yes, really.

The first mission pack, Additional Mission Pack 1: Extra Challenge (追加ミッションパック1 「エキストラチャレンジ」, Tsuika Misshon Pakku Wan Ekisutora Charenji), was released in Japan on April 11, 2018, and cost 1,200 yen on the PlayStation Store. It consists of 15 new missions designed to be especially challenging, featuring extremely powerful and rare enemy types from the campaign as common enemies and introducing armored Colonists with powerful new weapons, and ends with a duel against an enhanced Outpost Base. 34 new high-level weapons and items among the four classes can be unlocked by picking up weapon items. Because these have level ratings over 100, they can only be acquired by playing the DLC missions on Inferno difficulty, and can only be used online in non-DLC missions when the weapon level cap is unlocked (as this normally maxes out at 99 even on Inferno).

The second mission pack, Additional Mission Pack 2: Super Challenge (追加ミッションパック2 スーパーチャレンジ, Tsuika Misshon Pakku Tsū Sūpā Charenji), was released in Japan on May 17, 2018. It contains 14 super-hard missions and introduces a giant bomber variant of the Battle Drone and Cosmonauts in heavy armor with powered-up Raster Cannons, ending with a battle against an enhanced Mothership. Another 29 new high-level weapons and items can be acquired.

The weapons and items added by a given DLC pack can only drop on Inferno missions of the DLC pack they are part of: for example, the DLC Ranger shotgun Fracture from DLC 2 cannot drop in any mission in DLC 1, even those with the relevant drop level. High-end weapons from one DLC can, however, be used in missions in the other as long as they are within the level limit. Interestingly, it is possible to join multiplayer rooms playing the extra missions even if the joining player does not actually own the DLC. They can acquire level 100+ weapon drops as normal while playing the DLC, but will not be able to equip them unless they purchase it themselves.

The PC version of the game has all DLC available to purchase including the store-exclusive content from the PS4 version. The first DLC level pack released on July 25 2019, while the second released on August 8th.

Weblinks

 * Official Japanese website
 * Official Korean website
 * Official English website (US)
 * Official English website (EU/UK)
 * Official English Twitter (US & UK)