Earth Defense Force 6 is the pinnacle of a series that many people view as being a fairly mindless shooter. Despite that, it also has the best use and interpretation of time travel of any game I’ve played. It does that without leveraging new-fangled fancy graphics, instead relying on quality storytelling and some very cool meta decisions that change up the usual “just pick the next mission” grind that’s present in these games. EDF 6 uses all of these things to great effect, and it makes the time-travel concept almost feel believable.
Earth Defense Force 6 spoilers follow.
The fact that time travel is ingrained into basically every aspect of the story means that, while it’s not as visually striking as the time travel offered in something like Dishonored or Titanfall, it’s more engrossing. The way it’s interwoven into the mechanics as well makes for an incredibly novel take on the concept I’ve not seen before, especially when it ends with somehow being more over-the-top than killing a god.
The Future Is Filled With Bugs
EDF 6 kicks off a few years after the end of EDF 5, when the Primers wiped out the majority of humanity. Despite the fact that you manage to kill what might be a god, humans still have to escape underground to try to survive against the alien menace.
The result is that, at the start of EDF 6, you shoot a bunch of giant frogs with guns. You shoot them with guns, but they also have guns–you follow? These are older versions of the same foes from EDF 5, but they don’t move like they want to fight: They move like they’re sick of this never-ending war. Nevertheless, you fight them off, and after a few levels, see a brand-new ship that opens up a strange portal.
You then watch a bunch of other new ships go into the portal with no idea of what’s going on. You find a weak spot on this strange vessel, and after shooting it, everything fades to white, as you get welcomed to EDF 6. This is where you’re booted back to levels from EDF 5, and boy howdy, is that wild.
Another One
You eventually find yourself in the future once more, but things are a bit different. Terraformers darken the skyline, and new enemy types have appeared, but how can this be possible if this is just a loop? Well, guess what: You fight for a bit, find the same portal ship, destroy it, and are welcomed to EDF 7. This loop continues until you hit EDF 9.
It sounds like that should be arduous, but each time, EDF throws a new load of missions at you, with some being brand new, and some being slight tweaks on missions from EDF 5, but with subtle changes to allude to the time-travel storyline. The missions you tend to actually replay– the futuristic ones–also come with small tweaks. Sometimes that’s new enemies, and sometimes it’s something in the background. Most importantly, though, you and the one scientist who knows what’s going on are always aware of these loops, and you’re learning, too.
Through repetition and study, the scientist concludes that time travel is happening and convinces the world of this fact. How do you fight against a foe that can keep traveling back in time and, more importantly, one who can keep upgrading their tech as well? This isn’t a loop; it’s an endless spiral of an arms race where neither side can actually win. How did this begin anyway?
Time Travel Is The New Meta
This segment covers the first 132 levels, which are, thankfully, far better-paced than that of any other game in the series, and all of them contribute to the strange feeling you and the characters will have about the whole time-travel aspect. This is where EDF 6 does something truly incredible: It temporarily stops giving you new levels.
Well, that’s what it looks like, anyway.
EDF 6 has six mystery missions marked with ??? in your missions list for you to stumble upon as you’re trying to figure out what’s happening. Each of these represents a key victory that you haven’t managed in any timeline. Maybe you rescue someone who’s always died otherwise; maybe you find a way to destroy a specific ship earlier than usual. Once you’ve completed them all, you get to the final version of the future, and that’s where the concept goes from well-done to awe-inspiring.
The End Is The Beginning
The first major event in this final future is that you once again find the portal ship, but upon destroying the control unit this time, the ship itself isn’t destroyed. You aren’t hurled back through time, either. Instead, the portal remains open, and enormous tentacles and turrets start to come out of it to kill you and the remainder of the EDF. Things are different this time, but you find two new weaknesses on this ship and destroy it. The war is won, yay! Well, no.
An entirely new portal opens above you, and an enormous flying metal dragon emerges. It’s hard to describe just how large this thing is, but fighting it involves consistently leading your shots because the sheer scale of your foe makes it hard to target. The game states it’s over 1km in length, and it feels it. It turns out this is the newly upgraded version of the portal ship, but one from several centuries in the future, because the Primers you’re fighting have all the time in the world to keep upgrading their tech and sending it back.
After a long fight, you seemingly destroy this ship, only to see that the head of it has been replaced by the final boss from EDF 5: a godlike being with the power to alter reality and create life from nothing. As you continue to fight, you learn that the EDF has discovered these aliens come from Mars. They launch a rocket at the planet to try to destroy them at their source–the present–even though you’re fighting a version of them from the future. You can’t read that and tell me it’s anything less than incredible, and it gets better.
Timey-Wimey, But With Ants And Gods
It turns out that the Primers started attacking Earth because of this missile, but you only ever sent this missile because they attacked Earth. This, dear readers, is a paradox, and that’s not great for any timeline. Gameplay-wise, you just keep fighting until you’ve won, but the way the game justifies this confusing loop is far cooler.
The scientist explains that this paradox has to be righted, because if it exists, then all timelines might collapse. The paradox will, as a result, simply choose a victor. Your aim is to weaken the Primers and their god to the point where they are the logical choice as the loser, and as you keep fighting, you eventually tip the scales out of balance and into the favor of humanity. The timeline erases the Primers entirely.
Earth still suffered losses, but now, society gets to prosper with tech that’s been through multiple timelines and create a proper utopia. Why isn’t all of that removed from reality entirely? I’ve no idea, but there’s simply no other game that makes time travel feel as much a part of its DNA as the actual gameplay. Earth Defense Force 6 one-ups killing a god by having you kill a time paradox, and that’s metal as all hell.
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