Square Enix’s new project Left Alive was recently announced at the Playstation Press Conference in Japan. What has gamers excited are the people working on the game, as it will be directed by Toshifumi Nabeshima who had joint Square Enix back in 2015 (he had previously worked on the Armored Core series at From Software) and the character designs will be handled by the Metal Gear series’ Yoji Shinkawa. Takayuki Anase, having worked on the mech design for Mobile Suit Gundam 00 and Xenoblade Chronicles X, will be working on the design of the mechas in the game known as Wanzers.
The game will play out as a third person shooter with its main emphasis on survival and will follow three different protagonists at different times. The game will be set in the same world as the Front Mission Series and will take place in the year 2127, which chronologically places it in between the events of Front Mission 5 and Front Mission Evolved. The setting of the game is a city in Russia that is in the middle of a war, and which inevitably affects the lives of the protagonists.
Left Alive will feature replayability elements and will also allow players to progress in whatever direction they choose. However, the game will not feature multiple endings, although character arcs can be affected depending on how they are played out through the course of the game.
While Wanzers cannot be customized, players will be able to make use of crafting to enhance their abilities. Moreover, players won’t be spending all their times in the Wanzers and will mainly encounter them as enemies which they can then steal and use as their own.
As of now, the game will be mainly focused on offline gameplay, and it is unknown what form multiplayer gameplay may take. The team said, “We’re not saying there aren’t any online elements, but they’ll be a bonus if we have them.” All in all, the game seems ready to change up the formula of the Front Mission series in significant ways. This is why the team didn’t want to simply make a sequel, as the new game allows them to look at the world of the Front Mission series through a different perspective.
The game is currently said be half-completed and is set to release for the PC and Playstation 4 in 2018.