It’s been a year and a half since Square Enix teased their new survival shooter Left Alive at the Tokyo Game Show. As the release date for the game approaches, though, the company is beginning to give players better idea of what the game looks like and how it plays.
Today, Square Enix released an expansive 14-minute gameplay video of Left Alive. Along with some of the game’s core mechanics, fans can get a glimpse at the environments and the primary characters.
The video, which you can see above, starts off in an industrial-looking landscape before switching to a lengthy dialogue sequence that eventually sees the player escaping one of the buildings. It’s a setting designed to showcase the game’s non-violent-versus-violent options, a way it looks to diversify gameplay and allow for various playstyles.
Square Enix posted an overview of the video and game emphasizing the same things:
Left Alive challenges players to enter a war-torn city of Novo Slava and use their skills to overcome the overwhelming enemy forces against them.
The in-depth video delves into the motivations of each of the three main characters and presents them in different situations. By sneaking through the environment, using crafted traps to avoid confrontation, or facing enemies head-on using powerful weaponry known as Wanzers, players must use every option available and find the best route to survival.
Between that, the visuals and menus, and the game’s general mechanics, many players are comparing Left Alive to the Metal Gear games. In fact, the development team leader expressed a desire to work with Metal Gear‘s Hideo Kojima at one point on a similarly styled project.
But Left Alive is actually more than just a copy of a storied franchise.
Left Alive is ultimately a spinoff of the Front Mission franchise, trading in tactical combat for a survival, action-centered approach. However, its development team includes Takayuki Yanase of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 and Xenoblade Chronicles X as the mech designer, Toshifumi Nabeshime (Armored Core) as the director, and Yoji Shinkawa of Metal Gear fame as the artist.
In short, it’s a collaboration featuring some of the best-known creators in the mech and survival franchises working together to expand the Front Mission universe.
Fans interested in seeing more of Left Alive‘s gameplay can tune in to YouTube or Niconico on February 27 at 8:00 p.m. JST to watch the third volume of Square Enix’s livestream featuring chats with developers and, of course, more gameplay.
Left Alive launches February 28 in Japan on PlayStation 4 and arrives in North America and Europe on PlayStation 4 and PC on March 5.
