In Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2, Sandlot reimagines its cult-favorite formula with a bold, voxelized twist that’s as quirky as it is chaotic.
Just over a decade ago, when I was writing for another outlet, I reviewed a curiously hilarious game from developer Sandlot called Earth Defense Force 2025 for the Xbox 360, which I still consider one of the funniest, over-the-top video games ever made. The game was all about jumping into the boots of four different sci-fi soldier classes and blasting hordes of giant invading insects, UFOs, and aliens to bits with impunity across sprawling, citywide maps.
The voice acting was poor and awkward but campily self-aware, while the animation and enemy character designs were deliberately third-rate. It was a “kusoge” (a lovingly used Japanese term for “crap game”) in the best sense of the word, and I grew to love it the more I played.
In the ten years since, Sandlot and its publisher D3PUBLISHER have experimented wildly with the tone of the 21-year-old franchise, alternating between trademark campiness and Western-inspired seriousness. Most recently, the franchise has pivoted to a full-chested, family-friendly take on the concept in the form of Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2, a sequel to 2020’s Earth Defense Force: World Brothers. Considered a satirical spin-off of the mainline EDF canon, the World Brothers games are also meant to serve as both an homage to and a celebration of all the EDF games that have come before. As such, players can expect characters from all 11 previous games to appear as playable classes.
“Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 swaps out the giant insect body horror for simplistic voxels, all but removing that spine-tingling effect.”
This means that, including the four main classes most experienced EDF fans are used to (the standard, rifle-toting Ranger Class; the female-only, jet-packed Wing Diver Class; the Air Raider support class; and the dual-wielding, heavily armoured Fencer Class), players can look forward to a playable character roster of 100 unique EDF “Brothers and Sisters.” Mind you, those are just the alpha (α) variants—the roster balloons to 300 if you include each character’s beta (β) and gamma (γ) variants. Players can take only four EDF members on a mission at once, but they can assemble and customize up to five alternative fireteams that can be swapped out before each assignment to best suit the situation.
Unsurprisingly, Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 continues the premise of the original World Brothers game, this time with an even more absurd plot. The “Square Earth” (a literal square version of Earth where humanity resides) has been shattered into pieces for a second time—this time not by an invading alien force from space, but by a giant living within the Earth itself named Gaiarch. Once again, the EDF, composed not only of brave international military forces but also legendary heroes from every nation, must reassemble to defeat Gaiarch and its forces in order to put the shattered Earth back together. How exactly that is supposed to work isn’t important, right? Of course right.
The main gameplay loop of World Brothers is fairly straightforward. Once deployed, players are directed on the map towards the area where aliens or other enemy creatures are invading in order to eradicate them. In addition to each EDF character class having its own unique starting weapon (e.g. a machine gun), a Maneuver Ability (e.g. a tactical dodge roll), a Support Ability (e.g. an AOE grenade that repairs the armour of any allies within its blast radius), and a powerful Special Move (SP) that either destroys aliens or buffs teammates, players can earn Skill Points to strengthen existing skills and unlock new ones through battle in the field.
In most missions, up to two fallen EDF brothers or sisters can be found and revived, after which they will either join the roster or immediately join the fireteam if there is an open slot. Potential members are easy to find on the HUD mini-map and are usually lying wounded in plain sight.
When a new EDF sibling is recruited, they bring new weapons and equipment that can be shared with other EDF members, provided they have the required skill to wield them. Each character class is most effective with its starting weapon, but being able to switch out that weapon with others allows players to tailor each class to their liking.
This also provides added incentive for players to thoroughly explore and revisit every one of Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2’s 100 levels to unlock and rescue fallen comrades, as new ones may appear on missions that have already been completed. In this way, the game is very Gain Ground-like: you can leave without rescuing your comrades, but you won’t want to.
“World Brothers is clearly an effort by Sandlot and D3PUBLISHER to draw in younger gamers and their parents without scaring off more sensitive customers, which makes total sense.”
Another reason to revisit levels is to increase the max armour level of each character class on the team. Each team member gains an increase in maximum armour (i.e., health) for every mission they complete, and they even gain some max armour for missions that end in defeat. More armour is critical for surviving later missions and playing on harder difficulty levels.
During battle, players will come across three main types of drops when encountering and killing enemies: health, group health, and SP. Group health replenishes a limited amount of armour for each member of the team, and SP drops charge up the SP Gauge until it is ready to fire. Players can switch to any of the other three team members using the D-pad at any time, which is a preferred alternative to waiting for a weapon to reload or an ability to cool down while under fire.
Despite all the above, I can’t say I enjoyed my time with Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 as much as I thought I would. I understand that the game is meant to be a non-canon spin-off aimed primarily at youngsters and teens, which certainly explains its “Minecraft-meets-chibi-meets-voxels” approach to character and world design. The simplified look evokes other popular games and franchises that have successfully dabbled in this style, including The Touryst and Dragon Quest Builders. The fact that the game is graphically inexpensive for a powerhouse current-gen console like the PlayStation 5 means that even when over a hundred things are happening on screen, the framerate won’t buckle, resulting in a clean presentation and smooth gameplay.
Ironically, however, it’s this cutesy, pristine look that ends up negatively impacting the franchise’s signature “creep factor.” For example, in past EDF games (aside from the original World Brothers game, of course), the giant insect creatures have always been rendered realistically for the era in which each game was made, with the bodies and limbs of the giant spiders sporting unsettlingly detailed hair and mandibles, and the bodies of the giant ants featuring slick, shiny exoskeletons. It’s intentionally creepy, and when you have tens upon tens of these giant insects skittering about, it’s actually a bit terrifying.
Sadly, Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 swaps out the giant insect body horror for simplistic voxels, all but removing that spine-tingling effect. It’s almost akin to playing Grounded with Arachnophobia Mode enabled and ratcheted nearly up to full, with the spiders barely resembling spiders. Perhaps mass appeal is the reason; World Brothers is clearly an effort by Sandlot and D3PUBLISHER to draw in younger gamers and their parents without scaring off more sensitive customers, which makes total sense. It’s just a bit disappointing to me as an EDF 2025 fan, for whom that unsettling feeling upon viewing those monstrous spiders, ants and aliens in full detail is still an essential part of the EDF experience.
Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2’s many large and spacious environments also lack the detail of their non-World Brothers counterparts, once again watered down under a sheen of voxels. It’s all recognizable, of course, but the stages lack the detail and fidelity needed to make playing in them feel memorable.
Call me a party pooper, but the worst part of Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 is definitely the sound. The overall quality is excellent and the battle themes are fine, but the game is simply too cacophonous. When fighting in the field, there’s far too much Saturday Morning Cartoon-level chatter between the characters and HQ.
“The giant insect creatures have always been rendered realistically for the era in which each game was made, with the bodies and limbs of the giant spiders sporting unsettlingly detailed hair and mandibles.”
Many of the fake international accents are annoying, the sound effects are super-repetitive, and the same audio quips from each character class are repeated again and again. The most egregious of these are the constant reminders to switch characters in order to reload or use a character’s SP ability when it’s fully charged. Worst of all, the humour lacks actual camp, which hurts my heart.
If you can get past all that (Master, BGM, SFX, and Voice volumes can all be lowered in the game settings, so at least that’s something), World Brothers 2’s multiplayer modes can be quite fun with one or more friends on board. The PlayStation version offers a split-screen couch co-op mode that’s both exclusive to the platform and brand new to the World Brothers series, allowing friends to experience the game even if they can’t find anyone online to play with. As of this writing, the game is still under embargo, so I was unable to test the 4-player Online Co-Op feature.
In local co-op, the screen is halved vertically for both players, resulting in both players getting an 8:4.5 portrait view. I managed to corral one of my younger siblings into playing alongside me on the couch, and apart from having a narrower field of view than in solo mode, I didn’t notice any significant compromises in the experience. Even with both my sibling and me each in control of our own 4-person fireteam, we were able to venture to opposite ends of the maps we played on without being tethered to each other, allowing us to collect pickups and freely explore for new comrades, all at a rock-solid 60 fps.
Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 is a game primarily geared towards younger gamers, especially those who have online or local friends willing to join them on the couch for some carefree, Starship Troopers-style, alien-blasting fun. Players who don’t mind a bit of repetitive grinding to fully unlock the game’s roster of zany characters and weapons will get the most out of it.
