Square Enix shows Left Alive gameplay

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Check this out: in February 2019, Square Enix released a gameplay video of Left Alive, its new intellectual property. In the video, producer Shinji Hashimoto himself, who had already worked on Front Mission and Final Fantasy, takes the controller and plays one of the three protagonists:

Left Alive is set in the Front Mission universe and is a survival game, the first in the series in that style. The story shows a surprise invasion of the city of Novo Slava, on the border between two fictional Eastern European countries, Ruthenia and Garmoniya, with the Wanzers, the franchise’s combat robots, destroying everything in their path. The project began as a strategy game and gained more action during development.

There are three playable characters. Mikhail is a Wanzer pilot who loses his machine and his comrades. Olga is a police captain and former soldier. Leonid is a former rebel leader accused of murder. Besides surviving, the idea is to rescue civilians along the way: those who save all 30 civilians and the four support characters see a secret ending.

The team had heavyweight names. The director was Toshifumi Nabeshima, who directed Armored Core games, and Yoji Shinkawa, famous for Metal Gear, created the promotional art and designed the three protagonists and one of the Wanzers. The game would arrive on February 28 in Japan and March 5 in the rest of the world, for PC and PS4.

What came next

Left Alive came out on the scheduled dates, but the reception was negative. Critics praised the visuals, story and music, but slammed the controls, artificial intelligence, physics and voice acting. It remained a curiosity for those who like the Front Mission universe.