Waterside Bugs

 is the fourtieth offline mission and the fourty-third online mission in Earth Defense Force 2025 and the fourty-second offline mission and the fourty-fifth online mission in Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair.

Objective
2025: Huge alien creatures have been confirmed along the river that runs through the city. They seem to have made several entrances to their tunnels by the river. You must hurry to the area and destroy the tunnels. Flying types have also been spotted in the area. Good luck.

4.1: Huge alien creatures have been confirmed along the river that runs through the city. They seem to have made several entrances to their tunnels by the river. You must hurry to the area and destroy the tunnels! Flying types have also been spotted nearby, so good luck.

Storyline
Storm Team is in a residential area, when the Tactics Officer reports that the number of giant insects is increasing and she suspects that there are Tunnel Exits somewhere. HQ then orders to search and destroy them. Storm Team can already see large number of Hornets flying up from the river and soon Scout confirms that there's an underground tunnel going along the river. The soldiers eventually find it and a Ranger reports it to which HQ tells the importance of keeping the bugs at bay.

Aurora Situation Report then reports the appearance of flying giant insects and that the EDF is planning a large-scale attack against them. Scout than decides to tell about the insects on the river once again.

Ohara randomly states that giant insects need water, as if it was some kind of big revelation, to which HQ replies that there is no water on Earth for Aliens. After a few seconds he feels like he should talk more so he orders Storm Team to destroy the tunnels and unnecessarily repeats it again.

TO gets an emergency transmission from Sidney, but gets confused because the only thing she hears is "swallowed whole", HQ speculates that a new giant insect type might have appeared. Then another poor quality transmission can be heard from Hawaii again talking about being swallowed whole, displaying the clarity of mind and communication skills exemplified by the EDF. HQ asks to clarify but something seems to block the signal.

4.1 Changes
The mission was moved to the Town map.

The number of enemies has increased and mutant insects were added on higher difficulties.

A Wing Diver team and a Fencer team were added, and the weapons of the Rangers were changed.

The mission starts near the school and the Tactics Officer doesn't say anything until the transmission from Sydney.

2025

 * Two team of 4 Rangers both equipped with Shotguns appear near the players at the begining of the mission. They cannot be recruited.

4.1

 * A team of 5 Rangers equipped with Assault Rifles and their leader with a Shotgun appears near the players at the begining of the mission. They cannot be recruited.
 * A team of 5 Rangers equipped with Rocket Launchers appears near the players at the begining of the mission. They cannot be recruited.
 * A team of 5 Fencers equipped with Blasthole Spears appears near the players at the begining of the mission. They cannot be recruited.
 * A team of 5 Wing Divers equipped with LAZRs appears near the river at the begining of the mission. They cannot be recruited.

4.1
Bring a weapon that can deal with a swarm of insects from both land an air. And a weapon to destroy the tunnels.

There are seven Tunnels on the river. The left- and rightmost tunnels both spawn Black Ants the ones closest to them spawn Spiders the one in the middle spawns Crimson Ants and the two on the opposite bank of the river spawn Hornets. The order which ones you destroy is important since the last three remaining spawns ten of their respective insects and on Hardest or Inferno they spawn the mutant versions of them.

Which anthills you keep is dependent on how you play. On Hardest or Inferno ground units might want to destroy the ones spawning Black Ants first because the Gold Ants that will spawn as reinforcements can one-shot even high armor characters. While an Air Raider with a helicopter would want to keep both the Crimson and Black Ant spawning ones since they have a hard time hitting aerial enemies.

The two tunnels farthest from the player's spawn point are close enough that some weapons (like some of the Air Raider's air strikes) can destroy both of them at the same time. By destroying three others and then destroying those two only two batch of the insects will spawn during the reinforcements instead of three.