From sneaking around as an anthropomorphic animal thief to bumping fists with my bro in a PMC daydream to banging my oversized noggin on prehistoric eggheads, I’ve already spoken about a fair number of dream projects. In this installment, I’m going back to my second-favorite gaming era. (The era that coincides with the start of my video game career, no less.) Join me as we venture into the frigid wasteland of a far away world in a tale of ecological collapse, mini-mech suits, and giant freaking bugs. Welcome, traveler, to Lost Planet.
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is a third-person shooter developed and published by Capcom. You play as Wayne Holden, a government soldier on E.D.N. III, a tundra planet populated by giant insects called Akrid. After suffering a serious injury, Wayne wakes up under the care of snow pirates trying to overthrow the corporation leading the colonization effort of the planet. Suffering from amnesia, Wayne only remembers two things: who he is and the name of the bug that killed his father. Yes, there’s more context and backstory but that is the thrust. And it’s glorious.
The subtitle isn’t exaggerating. E.D.N. III is a planet of extreme cold. Playing the game, you feel it. The way Wayne trudges through the drift, the crunch of the snow under his boots, the blowing wind, and the constant threat of freezing to death create an atmosphere where I felt a pressing need to keep moving, find shelter, and collect heat to survive. To help with that last point, Wayne has a device on his back powered by thermal energy units called “T-Eng.” The T-Eng reserve in your device depletes when you’re outside, which you are for the majority of the game. In order to survive, you have to collect T-Eng capsules from Akrid corpses and by activating data posts that spit them out for reasons. If your T-Eng supply hits zero, you start to take damage. Management T-Eng is a key part of the game but it isn’t laborious. Keep moving and keep shooting and you’ll be just fine. It does mean you will need to prioritize enemies. You can’t focus all your fire on the big bad Akrid since you’ll need to pop smaller ones for their precious heat nuggets. You’ll also need to move around the map to find heat sources in the world so you can grab the pellets and keep fighting the hordes.
In addition to T-Eng management, one of the big bullet points are mechanized exoframes called Vital Suits. These VSes give you access to heavy weapons like chain guns and rocket launches but consume T-Eng. Still, they’re essential in some encounters—plus they look super cool. Vital Suits are such an identifying feature of the game that players got a tiny one for preordering the game.
If you want to use their firepower outside the suit, you can by carrying an oversized gun in both hands. The trade off is that you’ll move slower—being more vulnerable to attack and less able to get that important T-Eng—but it’s still so cool. On foot, no only are you faster, but you have access to a grappling hook that you’ll use this to ascend cliffs, outside walls, and, yes, get into Vital Suits. Plus you have an array of weapons you use outside the suit.
On the enemy sides, bugs are the big selling point and there’s a nice variety. From under the earth and above, from giant insects full of glowing orange weak points to hidden hives that are the heart of the enemy, the Akrid are fantastic foes. But there are human ones as well. From rival snow pirates to NEVEC soldiers to an…unexpected final boss fight, there’s plenty of variety in who you will encounter out in the wilds.
From the giant bugs busting through the earth to the armies of human enemies trying to take me out to the environment to the Vital Suits, Lost Planet sells its world like so very few games do. Sitting down with Lost Planet: Extreme Condition remains one of my favorite gaming memories and I’m always excited when I find others who love the game just as much as I do.
But it’s not the only Lost Planet to be found. In addition to Extreme Condition, the series saw two sequels. Lost Planet 2 introduces both warmer biomes to E.D.N. III as well as a coop campaign for up to four players. Lost Planet 3 was developed outside of Japan by the now sadly-defunct Spark Unlimited. It returns to the first game’s single-player focus and introduces more narrative-driven elements like NPC conversations and side quests. Players also have upgrade paths for gear and player-built rigs replace Vital Suits. Both installments deprioritized T-Eng as an essential resource which diminished the sense of place within the game but I enjoyed both on their merits. Japan also got an anime-styled spin-off for the 3DS and PS3 called E.X. Troopers which I haven’t played.
At the time of Lost Planet: Extreme Condition‘s release, I had only recently gotten back into console gaming after a brief time away. I was stoked for the game and sitting down to play it did not disappoint. The 360-era was, for me, the golden age of third-person shooters with Gears of War, Army of Two, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, this game right here, and many others. When I think about what I’d like to see from a new Lost Planet game, I go back to the core of a hostile environment. In addition to the mechanics at play in the first game, adding dynamic elements like snow drifts, avalanches, ice storms, and more. I’d like to see the player have to consider other resources in addition to T-Eng. I can see a place for adding a shelter system that players need to build and advance as the world changes around them.
But not in a typical survivor game way. The core of Lost Planet should remain the shooting, the action, the thrill of the (bug) hunt. I like the idea of advancing and customizing gear (and thus gameplay). I like the idea of core missions and side quests that force you to balance what must be done with people you’d like to help, objectives you’d like to complete—but at a potential cost. In the near two decades since the first game’s release, the field has seen a lot of mechanical ideas that are worth exploring inside the Lost Planet bubble.
I have no clue if a new Lost Planet will ever happen. A quick Google search brings up a lot of clamoring for a remaster/reboot of the original but I have heard nothing official. I would absolutely play a remaster but a reboot is what I want. The core of the game brought into the modern era. If such a thing happened, I’m sure Capcom would keep it internal. But, man, I’d love a crack at it. It’s a game that I hold very dear and a new spin on the concept is one that I would be very hot to take on.
