A voxel Earth in pieces again
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE: WORLD BROTHERS 2 is a third-person shooter where the Earth has been shattered into square chunks by the supermassive Gaiarch, which burst up from underground. You play as the legendary Commander who once saved the planet, and now you have to do it again. The world is built from voxels, and the enemies are oversized: giant ants, spiders, bees, scorpions, UFOs, robots, monsters, aliens, and even giant EDF soldiers. Old enemies from earlier EDF releases show up here too, rebuilt in voxel form alongside new ones made for this game. There are over 100 missions across 5 difficulty levels, so there is plenty of ground to cover once you start pushing back.
Building your team of four
Teammates are scattered around the world and you rescue them as you play. From the ones you have collected, you pick 4 to form your squad, then choose their equipment to match how you want to play. There are over 100 characters to collect, including soldiers from the mainline EDF games, the spin-offs, and EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 6, plus over 600 equippable weapons and accessories. Your team composition is the main lever you pull between missions: swap in a different soldier, change the loadout, and the same mission plays differently. It is a team-based PvE setup, so everything you build feeds into fighting the alien invasion together.
Playing it with friends
Online co-op supports up to 4 players, so your group can defend the Earth side by side. The game also supports online cross-play with Epic Games Store players. The Invite and Friend features for Epic players require an Epic Games account linked to your Steam account, but online play still works without linking. If Epic Online Services is installed, linking an Epic account to Steam is required. Worth sorting that out before your group sits down to play, so nobody is stuck in menus while the rest of you are already fighting.
Before you start
Expect a parody-leaning, cute-looking shooter that leans into scale: enormous enemies, big team rosters, and a lot of weapons to try out. Missions and difficulty levels give you room to scale the challenge to your group, and rescuing characters keeps feeding your roster between deployments. The Earth is in pieces again, and the EDF does not back away, whether the planet is round or square.