Over the years, Western Earth Defense Forces have had inconsistent release times. I got into the series with the PS Vita version of Earth Defense Force 2, but have since played every game on PS4, PC, Switch, PS Vita, and Xbox 360 through backwards compatibility. I think this is one of my favorite series and I’ve always loved playing EDF. Earth Defense Force 6 has been a long time coming, but it’s finally out in the West on PS5, PS4, and PC (Steam and Epic). Having now played it on Steam Deck and PS5, it feels great to have such a rich and excellent EDF game, but there are a few things you need to keep in mind. In this Earth Defense Force 6 review, I’ll cover them and focus on the PC version played on the Steam Deck. It’s worth noting that, as of this writing, Earth Defense Force 6 has not yet been tested by Valve on the Steam Deck, and therefore is not yet marked as “playable” or “verified.”
I think every Earth Defense Force game is basically a standalone, but Earth Defense Force 6 is the right sequel to Earth Defense Force 5. Series people start with this game. Did all your friends get Earth Defense Force 6? Grab Earth Defense Force 6, but I hope you’ll go back and play Earth Defense Force 4.1 and Earth Defense Force 5. With all of this, Earth Defense Force 6 builds on Earth Defense Force 5 in almost every way. There are enhancements to classes, new weapons, many new quests, old quests, new maps, old locations, and more. This feels like the richest EDF game yet, and for its asking price, it’s incredible value.
Since this review will focus on the Steam Deck version of the game, I won’t spend too much time on the story. What I will say is that Earth Defense Force 6 has a stronger narrative than past games, and if you’ve played Earth Defense Force 5, you’ll get the most out of it. “Earth Defense Force”. Newcomers will still find a lot of great writing, humor, and everything we love about Earth Defense Force dialogue here. Yes, this includes the same English voice options. If you prefer, you can also choose Korean, Chinese, and Japanese voice options on Steam.
The structure of Earth Defense Force 6 is similar to that of Earth Defense Force 5. Don’t expect a freewheeling online experience here. Calling this game “Earth Defense Force 5.5” is pretty accurate, but that’s not a bad thing in most ways, it’s just not the big new advancement for the franchise that some people might want. I view this as a “if it hadn’t broken” situation, because the last thing we need is another iron rain.
Before entering PC ports and options, Earth Defense Force 6 used Epic Online Services for multiplayer. I don’t know if this particular situation requires you to log in or do anything else since I’ve done this before, but I wanted to make a note of it. As far as I know, the only cross-platform play on PC is between the Steam and Epic Games Store versions. I have access to the PS4, PS5, and Steam versions of Earth Defense Force 6, and I’ve even tried creating a lobby and searching across platforms. PS4 and PS5 can be played together, but unfortunately PC is separate. Hopefully the next Earth Defense Force will be cross-platform friendly from the start.
In terms of controls, Earth Defense Force 6 is similar to Earth Defense Force 5 in that it forces you to enter the inputs used on the title screen. On the Steam Deck, pressing any button will cause the controller to be programmed. Tapping on a touch screen in a game forces you to use a keyboard, mouse, etc. To play docked games, I had to make sure to press a button on the Bluetooth controller so I could play it. Reordering controller menus doesn’t seem to work perfectly here. I hope this specific issue is resolved, but given that Earth Defense Force 5 is the same, I don’t think it will be. Speaking of controls, you can rebind controls for each category from the game settings menu.
To test Earth Defense Force 6 online multiplayer on the Steam Deck, I set up two specific scenarios. The first is a normal multiplayer game with friends. Inviting my friends to join a room I created is a bit finicky and requires using the D-pad communication menu to send invitations through Steam (or Epic). After it was completed, my friend joined and we played online without any issues. He was on another continent and we had no issues playing the missions over Wi-Fi. The second thing I tested was Steam Remote Play Together. It’s not an ideal way to play for two people, but I wanted to see how Earth Defense Force 6’s split-screen gameplay would look and work on the Steam Deck. As expected, the framerate frequently dropped below 30fps in split-screen mode, but it still worked. I imagine the console version here will be similar.
Earth Defense Force 6 has the same PC port functionality as Earth Defense Force 5, as online and control details are unaffected. Opposite gender filtering (off to 16x). The Earth Defense Force 6 graphics options menu also lets you adjust screen settings. This allows you to select display modes, switch letterboxes and adjust resolution. Although the resolution options show support for 800p, Earth Defense Force 6 runs at 16:9 on the Steam Deck.
Performance was similar when playing Earth Defense Force 6 on my Steam Deck OLED and LCD models. When playing alone, expect an average frame rate of around 40 fps, regardless of your graphics options. I turned everything off to test, then turned everything on to test. Outside of the shadows on some maps, it doesn’t make much of a difference. As of this writing, I’m not playing the game at a lower resolution because that frame rate is fine for me playing on the Steam Deck. After all, I did play EDF2 on PS Vita and EDF World Brothers on Switch. For what it’s worth, Earth Defense Force 6 isn’t even locked to 60 fps on PS5, so that’s no surprise. Don’t expect it to run like Earth Defense Force 5, at least not yet on the Steam Deck. I noticed it ran a little better on the latest Proton GE, but stability was an issue with multiple crashes when I tested it. I stuck with Proton Experimental (Frontier) and only had 2 crashes in the 20 hours I played on Steam Deck. I’ve played the game for over 50 hours on PS5 and haven’t had a single crash.
The PS5 version of Earth Defense Force 6 supports PS5 activity cards and loads very quickly, but performance isn’t perfect in any of the three graphics modes. Modes include 4K (faster speed), 4K (better image quality) and Full HD (better speed). I play games on a 1440p monitor, so I stuck with Full HD for best performance. Even there, it couldn’t maintain a locked 60 fps. I haven’t had time to test the PS4 version of the game on PS5 through backwards compatibility to see if it delivers the most stable frame rate. I’ll update this if I do have time. The faster speeds of 4K appear to be a good compromise between higher frame rates and performance. I don’t recommend the 4K image quality mode at all. Considering how it works, it feels like it would be a better fit for Sony’s next-gen console. Check out the opening screenshot below using the PS5 event card:
No matter which platform you’re playing on, I recommend checking out the camera settings under game settings. I stuck with camera type 1 and increased the rotation speed. The preset is too claustrophobic for me.
As usual, Earth Defense Force 6 comes with a ton of DLC from day one. I want to be clear that the base game has more than enough content for its asking price. I haven’t accessed any of the DLC yet, so I can’t comment on the weapons or missions yet. I will play them in the future and may review the DLC packs as I did enjoy the DLC from the previous games.
For a game that can’t even maintain a locked 60fps when running at 1080p on PS5, Earth Defense Force 6 on the Steam Deck runs much better and looks better than I expected. The game itself is a fantastic sequel to Earth Defense Force 5, probably my favorite game in the series. I’m looking forward to replaying many of the missions with friends and getting DLC packs in the near future. The West’s wait for Earth Defense Force 6 has been a long one, but the rewards are definitely worth it.
Earth Defense Force 6 Steam Deck Rating: 4.5/5
