2010 was an outstanding year for sci-fi video games, with titles like Mass Effect 2, Fallout: New Vegas, and Halo: Reach launching to critical and fan acclaim, securing themselves top positions on best sci-fi games lists for a generation. Far less successful was Lost Planet 2, a co-op shooter that arrived too soon, before Helldivers 2 and other online action games set in outer space made a splash.
First of all, we should underline that Capcom wasn’t doing amazingly back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, with its big-name franchises floundering. Big swings were being taken, though, and Lost Planet (2006) was a major effort to create a brand-new futuristic third-person shooter franchise rooted in the relevant subject of climate change (video games have always been political, folks).
The first entry was a moderate success — just big enough to warrant a sequel — and so in 2010, Lost Planet 2 dropped with several bold changes to the established formula. Chief among them was the odd decision to break the story up into several episodes that shifted the focus between the major factions vying for control of the planet E.D.N. III and its Thermal Energy (often referred to as T-ENG).
Quite often, imperfect games like Lost Planet 2 age more gracefully than polished crowd-pleasers. 15 years later, as the gaming hordes devour co-op shooters set on alien worlds, now seems like the perfect time to dig this one up and talk about why Lost Planet 2 (and the series) deserves a second chance. Let’s just all agree to not bring up Lost Planet 3, though, ey?
Extreme conditions
E.D.N. III is no Pandora, even if Lost Planet 2’s 10-year time jump has turned it from an icy hellscape into a lush, verdant world. It’s a difficult place to colonize, and the indigenous Akrid creatures (reptilian insectoids) remain extremely aggressive towards humans. But humanity is desperate, and the recently discovered Thermal Energy holds the key to our survival.
Inside the game, this translates into co-op missions built around traversing difficult terrain while being besieged by the local fauna and the occasional kaiju-sized monstrosity — massive behemoths that can regenerate their limbs even after losing them to shotgun blasts from a Vital Suit (Lost Planet’s version of mechs).
At its most chaotic, Lost Planet 2 feels like a Helldivers 2 prototype, complete with “accidental” deaths from friendly fire. That said, it’s also a far more focused experience with a linear progression that wasn’t meant to nurture a long-term grind. You can just beat it and move on, which may sound attractive to players burned out on the grindy experience of modern-day games.
Same war, new battlefield
A decade on from the events of the first game, Lost Planet 2 establishes that things have gotten worse, despite the apparent boost to the planet’s habitability. So what’s gone wrong? More (and often bigger) Akrids are waking up and destroying all outworlders they come across for one thing. To make matters even worse, snow pirates, survivalists, bandits, the colonial military force NEVEC, and other factions are fighting over land and resources.
Each group’s views on how to proceed with human colonization of the planet are different. While the politics and world-building kind of fall to the wayside in-game, Lost Planet 2 is a textured and gritty sequel that’s more interested in the larger picture of what’s happening on E.D.N III versus telling a single character’s story. As other studios chased a more cinematic style of action-adventure game, game director Kenji Oguro and his team’s take felt refreshingly different.
While Starship Troopers-esque battles with the Akrids are an ever-present threat, the familiar warfare of man against man makes up much of Lost Planet 2, extending even into the PvP modes. The enemy variety helped the slower sections of the otherwise relentless campaign, but we’d be lying if we said fighting other humans is nearly as exciting as battling Akrids. Perhaps this abundance of conventional warfare was why the competitive multiplayer modes never became an online sensation?
Monster hunters
You might have noticed our praise of Lost Planet 2 isn’t glowing. It’s an imperfect gem, and we’re certainly not trying to rewrite history. This is no misunderstood masterpiece, but it’s an off-beat and courageous big-budget project executed with enough expertise to make up for most of its shortcomings.
Still, with games like Helldivers 2 and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 reigniting gamers’ passion for blasting alien bugs with big guns, now is the time to celebrate the brave pioneers of the genre.
‘Monster Hunter but sci-fi and mission-based’ was a hell of a pitch back in 2010, and neither the world nor the developers were quite ready to make it happen, but now, in the far-flung future of 2025, we’d love to see a return to E.D.N. III that doubles down on what made the series special.
We like ‘weird’ much better nowadays, don’t you think?
Lost Planet 2 can be bought digitally on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S (playable via backwards compatibility). Second-hand physical Xbox 360 and PS3 copies are your second-best option, as the PC (Steam) version is currently delisted.
