I haven’t gotten around to playing nearly as much as I wanted, only tried the regular old Ranger class so far, but I played over 40 hours and the level number is in the hundreds and game shows no sign of slowing down. One of my fav moments so far was when I got this achievement after more than 20 hours in:
(Haven’t gotten the 10% achievement yet.)
And it’s a blast, really. Haven’t had as much fun playing one of these since, I dunno, Reginleiv gave it a fresh spin? 2025 introduced the new classes? Though dismembering the frog people and grey ones in 5 was quite a highlight as well, tbh. It’s like they just threw everything they got in here, an accumulation of years and years of ideas, there’s so much variety in enemies and locations it’s dazzling, time flies playing this. And sure, the designs of the various eras don’t always match, but I think there’s a story explanation including lots of time travel nonsense or whatever, I am very much looking forward to the English release to make more sense of it.
Biggest quality of life change is imo that you can run like in 5, but this time you don’t have to press in the left analog and hold it down, it’s a toggle now! I mean, rolling is still better in tight situations because you can take pot shots in-between rolls and you can switch weapons. But it’s neat to just kick it in and zoom around the map. There’s a wind-up and wind-down animation when you start and stop running, but you can at least cancel it with a roll, and there’s some equippable items that speed the acceleration process up (or slow it down, in addition to increase top speed and “weight”, like you can break through more obstacles running and it makes you almost feel like a tank). Breaking through obstacles like cars and trees is just so much fun in general, to see a bus barrel into the horizon at top speed because you rolled into it is of course also wonderful as always, I love that EDF games still put the sliders for physics all the way up.
Also, also you auto-climb “small” obstacles now! Actually you can even climb small houses, like single family homes in Japanese suburbs. Very much appreciated!
Bit hard to see, but you can also climb racks inside buildings, to look down upon your superiors during briefings (there’s more of those than ever before, and I don’t even mind).
You also get another slot as Ranger for grenades and sentry guns, in addition to your two regular weapon slots and the stat boost item slot, which also still serves as a “summon vehicle” slot like in 5. Mowing down bugs and robots with a machine gun on a (motor)bike is very much my kind of a good time. You’ll still flip and flop around and crash because you hit a pebble on a road, but fuck is it fun.
Bikes are strong!
They can climb mountains!
And they still work in caves!
I love bikes.
They also went a bit overboard with the new UI sights, especially when displaying the arches and impact zones of your grenade launchers.
A bit much, especially when running, because you can’t switch away to a less distracting weapon without starting and stopping your run.
It’s super useful though, never have I been this accurate with grenades.
So yeah, I love this game. Maybe my favorite EDF so far? I am a bit proud that I managed to get by on Normal on my first single player run, except for switching to Easy on one big monster mission. I die a lot sometimes, but as should be, experimenting with different loadouts usually yields the desired results. One of the new enemy types even had me resort to using missile launchers underground. Paired with an item to boost lock-on time. And while I first thought that rocket launchers are useless this time around and vastly outperformed by other weapon types, I eventually got one that allowed my to guide the rockets with a laser-pointer so even if the target moved (as they often do), they swirled around until hitting them with uncanny precision. Helped a lot with one of the nasty new enemies that popped up later. The new post-apocalyptic level designs are a beauty too.
Feels oppressive even.
I also appreciate the mechanical designs.
And I don’t remember EDF games having this much shrubbery? Maybe they did. Haven’t played 5 in so long, has it really been five years already since that came out?
This game has grass.
And sometimes looks downright serene.
Some of the caves are huge and impressive to look at too.
Even though the screenshots I captured don’t do it justice.
I’m playing this on a regular old ass PS4, and it’s chugging along satisfyingly at times. Like, single digits, it’s a proper EDF experience for sure. Enough slowdown to make me feel nostalgic. Maybe I would get more details out of mountaintop views on a Pro or PS5?
There’s spiders to snipe in the village below, believe me. And yes, of course I managed to get hit (ball bugs roll uphill too) and ragdolled all the way down again.
I wish you could shoot while sliding.
There’s some neat details in the cityscapes too.
Who wants some wild burgers?
I bet they got all your bases covered in this joint.
Some self-advertisement never heart nobody.
I deliberately try to avoid too much spoilers here, even though I guess many of you already watched some trailers or let’s plays, but that’s just how I do lol. But I can’t really make an EDF thread and not show some explosions, that would be weird.
Sometimes they are purple.
You better believe my framerate tanks when the particles go flying.
I have no idea what I’m saying here.
Fire in the hole.
And maybe some aftermath. Yes, items are still here.
Gotta love them boxes piling up. It reminds you of the carnage that unfolded.
And I guess some action scenes with enemies you know already.
Needles sting less when you sit in a tank.
And maybe not know yet.
That’s it for now I guess, I’ll leave you with the setting sun.
Until next time, EDF, EDF, EDF!!!