XS/PC Left Alive

Square Enix announced Left Alive, a new survival action shooter coming to PlayStation 4 and PC via Steam in 2018, during the 2017 PlayStation Press Conference in Japan. It will launch in 2018.

The game is led by veteran developers Toshifumi Nabeshima (director, Armored Core series), Yoji Shinkawa (character designer, Metal Gear series), and Takayuki Yanase (mech designer, Ghost in the Shell: Arise, Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Xenoblade Chronicles X).

More information will be announced at Tokyo Game Show 2017 later this week.

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Left Alive is a survival action game featuring shoot outs and traps set up with varied placements.
The game uses the same world and setting of the Front Mission series, chronologically taking place between Front Mission 5 and Front Mission Evolved.
There are three protagonist, starting with a young protagonist. Next, you’ll become a female protagonist, and switch among the three protagonists as you progress.
The progression route is up to the player.
There are replayability elements.
There is only one ending, but the outcome of the character changes depending on the course you take.
It uses a stage-based structure.
There is no Wanzer customization, but you can craft by obtaining weapons and materials.
It is mainly offline, but that isn’t to say there won’t be any online elements.
A few Front Mission staff are working on the game.
There are also robots designed by Yoji Shinkawa.
Director Toshifumi Nabeshima first joined Square Enix in 2015.

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The Beginning of the Story

• The army of a neighboring country suddenly attacks a city it borders. That army massacred not only the city’s soldiers, but also its civilians. “Why is such a tragedy occurring…?” That is one of the mysteries of the story.
• The story develops with a focus on three characters stranded in the city.
• The three protagonists are pictured on the game’s key visual. On the left is a handsome young man who is an active duty, but still inexperienced soldier and Wanzer pilot. The woman on the right is a policewoman and former soldier, who carries the weight of a major trauma that occurred in the past and will rear its head once again in the story. And the man in the middle is an escaped prisoner and former mercenary who was supposed to have been executed, but is somehow still alive.

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Gameplay

• Left Alive is a third-person shooter-type action game that plays out through stages and sees the player control one of the three protagonists. There are also situations where you pilot a Wanzer (mech) to fight.
• When controlling the protagonists, the game does not play like a shooter where you can mindlessly shoot off your gun. Your limited ammo and how you manage it will be tied to clearing the stage. If you play it like a typical first-person or third-person shooter, you will quickly run out of ammo.
• The three protagonists have no difference in ability. You will get the same feeling no matter who you play as.
• By combining materials found in the stage, you can craft items like Molotov cocktails and traps.
• Among the items you can craft, there is one that acts as a sonar that gives off the enemy’s position, allowing you to take the most advantageous route. There is also an item weight limit.
• Director Toshifumi Nabeshima: “There are puzzle elements as well as trap action elements, depending on how you use the materials you possess to make items. Based on the structure of the map, you can avoid most enemies, and depending on the weapons and items in your possession, you can play more like a shooter or make use of trap actions. Having a great degree of freedom and highly strategic play was one element that we wanted to implement in this game.”
• Producer Shinji Hashimoto: “It’s not a shooter where you die frequently, it is a game that you can enjoy clearing like a chess problem.”
• Wanzers are large weapons that exist in the game’s world. A threat to the protagonists, their chance of survival when spotted by an enemy Wanzer is considerably low. However, there are means to fight against them.
• If you steal an enemy Wanzer, you can experience the exhilaration of defeating enemy soldiers in a single attack.
• In each stage, there are sub-quests with the goal of rescuing civilians stranded on the battlefield.
• Sub-quest conversations have dialogue trees, and depending on your choices, the civilians’ level of confidence in the protagonists will fluctuate.
• There are also sub-quests that occur in real-time, where the player’s actions themselves become their “choices.” For example, if you encounter a situation such as civilians being held up at gunpoint by enemy soldiers that will be shot to death after a certain amount of time passes, you can either act fast to rescue those civilians on your own or ignore them and let them die.
• Director Toshifumi Nabeshima: “The player will be forced to make various choices in the story and as they play the game. One of the major concepts of this game is to make the player find a solution, take action, and move forward through trial and error.”
• On the results screen after clearing a stage, you will have the option to replay that stage from the beginning.
• When asked about the game’s release date, producer Shinji Hashimoto said, “We will share various new information in September, so please look forward to it.”

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“I’ve known Kojima-san for quite a while now, we’re of similar age, and I’ve been speaking to him for a long time. I think it’s been over ten years, and he is someone I respect a lot in the industry. Besides games, I’ve also been in charge of Square Enix’s merchandising division as well. I’m not involved in that at the moment, but I have been looking after our action figures for a long time.

In addition to doing things for our own properties like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and Dragon Quest, we also do some second-party figures. If there is a series that there has good characters out there, we want to help make them. We’ve done a lot of Metal Gear Solid figures, and obviously as part of that we have worked with Kojima-san and Yoji Shinkawa himself for quite a while. I’ve built a relationship and trust with them.

When they went out on their own, we spoke, and I asked “if you’ve got time and you’re free, maybe we can do something together.” Of course coming with a sudden proposition and asking him to work on a game stright away would have been difficult, but since we had a long relationship going, it was actually easy to do. Timing worked out very well.”

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“He’s very busy with his own game at the moment. I don’t think he’d have time to work on other projects. But like I said, we have a very good relationship with him, and maybe we could discuss something in the future.”

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