Left Alive
Left Alive is a stealth video game developed by Ilinx and published by Square Enix for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4. It was announced at a press conference by Sony Interactive Entertainment prior to the 2017 Tokyo Game Show.
Set in the Front Mission universe, the story follows several individuals trying to survive amidst a surprise invasion of one country into another, along the way helping civilians to safety and to stop destruction and damage by mechanized war machines. Originally conceived as a strategy game, it gained more action elements as development proceeded, and ultimately became the first survival game in the Front Mission series. Some characters were conceived prior to the games planning, and many changes to their appearances and ages occurred as the story was solidified.
Left Alive received generally unfavorable reviews from critics. While many praised the graphics, story, and music of the game, the games controls were found to be stiff and unresponsive, making a game of this type nearly impossible to play. The artificial intelligence of the game enemies, game physics, and voice acting were also criticised.
Gameplay
Left Alive is a primarily stealth-based game with elements of shooter and survival games as well. Players spend most of their time trying to evade enemies and create improvised weapons when stealth fails or is not an option. Activities include guiding survivors to safe houses, crafting weapons, and planning the takedown of wanzers. Other players who did not survive a game stage exist in a players play through and their bodies can be searched for equipment. Players also occasionally have the opportunity to take control of Wanzers and do great damage to their enemies. Players are guided by Koshka, a Rutherian command and control AI which warns players when enemies come close. Weapon crafting includes creating IED’s, traps, and different kinds of explosives from scrounged materials. Players guide survivors to the safe houses by issuing commands on the map screen.Plot
The story takes place in the ‘’Front Mission’’ universe during a conflict between two countries; Ruthenia and Garmoniya. The game breaks the story into fourteen chapters and three characters individual stories. Players begin as Mikhail, who is a Ruthenian wanzer pilot who must survival the loss of his wanzer and fellow soldiers. The next character is Olga, who is a police captain and a former soldier of Garmoniya before the city she lives in became part of Ruthenia. The last character is Leonid, a former Novo Slava rebel leader accused of murder. The plot begins with a surprise invasion by Garmoniya into the Ruthenian city of Novo Slava on the border between the two countries, the same city Olga works in.After the rest of his unit is killed, Mikhail meets Patrick Lemaire, an agent of the western supranation U.C.S. posing as a journalist, who recruits him into investigating a conspiracy involving an advanced prototype wanzer and a virus known as MODS, both of which were secretly being developed in Ruthenia by corrupt officials. Patrick explains the true reason for the invasion is because Garmoniya is secretly acting on behalf of the eastern supranation Zaftra and its secret ruling body Semargl, who wish to obtain the virus and the wanzer.
As the invasion begins, Olga encounters a young orphan named Julia, who she pursues in an attempt to save her from a human trafficking ring run by the Garmoniya military. Olga discovers Julia is a survivor of a Semargl research project in which victims were infected with the MODS virus.
Leonid, who was framed for the assassination of Novo Slava's liberator and national hero Ruslan Izmailov, escapes during the invasion. He learns that Ruslan is still alive and is actually a deep cover Semargl agent. Seeking revenge, Leonid pursues Ruslan and kills him. However, Olga later witnesses an inexplicably alive Ruslan appear and capture Julia on behalf of Semargl.
The three protagonists meet up with each other and head downtown to reach a rescue helicopter sent by Patrick. Olga goes off to rescue Julia, while Mikhail hijacks a unattended Wanzer to create a distraction. On his way to the rescue helicopter, Leonid encounters Ruslan, who is revealed to be a cyborg. After a final confrontation, Ruslan is killed permanently and the three protagonists are picked up by Patrick's rescue helicopter, as an international peacekeeping force arrives to take control of Novo Slava.
Development
Left Alive was developed by Japanese developer Ilinx and produced by Square Enix. It was directed by Toshifumi Nabeshima, who previously directed some of the games in the Armored Core franchise. Shinji Hashimoto, who helped produce entries in both Front Mission and Square Enix's Final Fantasy series, served as producer for Left Alive. The game's promotional art was created by Yoji Shinkawa, well known for his work on the Metal Gear series. In addition to overseeing the design of some of the models, Shinkawa did character designs of the three main protagonists, as well as one of the Wanzer mecha models. He also drew concept art of some of the other characters.Artist Takayuki Yanase, who worked on Xenoblade Chronicles X, also contributed Wanzer designs.
When development began, the development team initially conceived of the title as a strategy game, but it became more of an action title under Toshifumi Nabeshima‘a influence. Nabeshima originally thought that the game would revolve around mech robots fighting each other due to the title's Front Mission roots. However, when he learned that players would be controlling people, and fighting against wanzers, Front Mission
Artistically, Nabeshima had the design team review his artwork to make sure he was remaining faithful to the Front Mission aesthetic. He also created a character with inspiration he found through the artwork of the original Front Mission artist Yoshitaka Amano, who is also one of his favorite artists. Artist Yoji Shinkawa drew the three main characters based on a simple profile, and then began submitting rough sketches of the character Leonid for consideration since that was a character type he was very familiar with. He then proceeded to design the characters, always checking to see that he was maintaining a balance between them.
He also did sketches for the games other key characters, and also designed one of the wanzers. The mechs did not have to look like traditional “Zenith-type” wanzers from Front Mission, just “powerful/formidable”, so Shinkawa designed purely from his own imagination. Shinkawa also advised on the 3D graphics and how they looked in motion.
Shinkawa notes that he adjusted designs with developer feedback for each character about three to four times. There was much discussion for the direction of the character Mikhail, with him first being conceived as middle aged, but then young and handsome, necessitating a redesign. His personality began as conceited, like one who had an affluent childhood, but as his dialogue made him a more “honest and earnest”, his design changed again.
Prior to story development, Yoji Shinkawa already had some characters who existed in the Front Mission universe in development. In developing the game, the team discussed prioritizing a sense of reality for the story. This led them to make the setting the present world, but with all the countries names changed. The designers also decided that a very realistic plot that would still feel like Front Mission would involve several characters dealing with “evil conspiracies” caused by nations plotting against each other.
Composer Hidenori Iwasaki worked on the music, drawing from his experiences as the composer for some of the music in previous Front Mission games. Orchestrator Jordan Seigel and audio engineer Shinnosuke Miyazawa also helped work on the soundtrack, which was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London.
Release
The game was first announced in September 2017 at the Sony press conference for the Tokyo Game Show, with an intended release year of 2018. In September 2018, Square Enix announced a Japanese release date of February 28, 2019. The following month, Square Enix announced that the game would be released outside of Japan on March 5, 2019. People who pre-ordered the game received five desktop wallpapers, a downloadable content pack, and a sample soundtrack. A special edition called the "Mech Edition" was also released that included everything in the pre-ordered version, along with an action figure of a Wanzer designed by Yanase and an official artbook. As part of promotions, Square Enix collaborated with Japanese rock band Man with a Mission to release a song called "Left Alive" on the Japanese release date of February 28.On the day the game was released worldwide, Square Enix launched a free downloadable content pack for Left Alive. This "World of Tanks Collaboration" pack contained only in-game advertising for World of Tanks.
Reception
Left Alive received "generally unfavorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. In Japan, approximately 17,622 physical units for PlayStation 4 were sold during its launch week becoming the number five selling game of any format.IGN called the game a “failure on every level”, with poor controls and game balances issues cited along with technical glitches. Game Revolution praised the games setting and plot, but noted a wildly changing enemy intelligence what would either never miss or ignore the player completely. GameSpot praised the games opening and some of the character dialogue, but explain that the lack of story setup at the beginning lead to large plot revelations having no emotional impact. Destructoid praises the games soundtrack and art direction, but highlighted the low resolution graphical textures that gave the game a “drab” look. They also noted “laughable” enemy physics, where killed enemies bodies would jump in the air however they died. They further describes voice acting as “varied”, from decent, to sounding like the actors “gave up” after one take. Kotaku loved the idea of urban warfare, including searching for improvised weapons to take on war mechs, but the games “stiff” and “sluggish” controls made the game impossibly hard to play. Heather Alexander of Kotaku did find some things to praise however, saying the game “drips with style and mood”. Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of Zero Punctuation ranked it as the second worst game of 2019.