Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon is the follow-up to the highly regarded Earth Defense Force 2017, and we’re bringing three-player co-op and six-player Survival Mode over PSN to this fight! The series comes to the PlayStation 3 for the first time on July 5th, 2011.
First, some history. The Earth Defense Force series originated in Japan and started out with two titles appearing on the PlayStation 2 known as The Earth Defense Force (2003) and The Earth Defense Force 2 (2005). America’s first dose did not come until 2007 when Earth Defense Force 2017; Prior to that, only a handful of savvy importers knew what the series was about; insane numbers of huge insect enemies, massive destruction, boatloads of crazy weapons, and non-stop arcade action.
As the fourth game in the series, Insect Armageddon stays true to its predecessors. The Ravagers, an insectoid race from the stars, has come to Earth to dominate it and extinguish all human life. You play as Lightning Alpha, the leader of Strike Force Lightning and a downright badass. This elite squad of the EDF is equipped with four upgradable armor types and over 300 unlockable weapons to help kick the Ravagers off of Earth.
If you’ve never played any of the EDF games, then you might not know that the series is all about trimming the fat and distilling gameplay down to the purest fun. This isn’t some dramatic space opera with a convoluted twisted RPG storyline and moral choices. You are dropped into a level and enemies (LOTS of enemies) come at you. Your only option is to shoot!
EDF has always been about destruction, too! Pretty much everything you shoot blows up in some fantastic way. Skyscrapers come down with a single rocket and the feeling of sheer power is undeniable … if not slightly ridiculous. In EDF Insect Armageddon, we’ve kicked it up another notch with way more stuff to blow up!
The last piece of the EDF equation is the arsenal. When creating the weapons, we strived to make them as fun and destructive as possible. We utilized different shot patterns, spreads, visual effects, sound effects, and rates of fire to give weapons feel significantly different from one another. Because weapons are such a heavy focus of the EDF franchise, we wanted to allow players to expand their arsenal if they felt that 300 weapons just weren’t enough. We’re bringing out two DLC packs that players can get if they pre-order the game from Best Buy or GameStop. Fifteen far-out new weapons are included in each pack.
The first pack is called “Death From Above” (available at Best Buy) and focuses mostly on new weapons for the Jet Armor (a nod to the character Pale Wing from EDF2). In the video, you’ll see some of the offerings like the Neptanzer QH Proto; somewhat of an electric flamethrower. There’s also the Wallagis 1776L which is a heat-seeking missile launcher that sends missiles on divergent trajectories, but has super high accuracy.
The second pack is called “Pounds of Pain” (available at GameStop) and brings a slew of new weapons to the EDF’s all-new Battle Armor! The video shows off the five-shot-spread rocket launcher known as the Grimhegern Splitzer B. For fans of the Trooper Armor, there’s the RLF-17 Floorboard Rocket Launcher which shoots a volley of warheads straight upwards before they come back down and decimate everything below.
If you’re hungering for more, we’ll be writing more blogs like this leading up to launch. If you just can’t wait any longer, go pre-order the game, then come by and get a sneak peak of the game at PAX East in Boston from March 11th – 13th. It’s going to be epic with a Survival Mode contest and giveaways. I hope to see you there!
