Left Alive

Left Alive is a primarily stealth-based third-person shooter, with survival game elements 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. Players can search the bodies of other players who died in the same area. They also occasionally have the opportunity to take control of Wanzers and do significant damage to their enemies.

During interactions with civilians and other NPCs, there will be dialogue choices that the player can choose. Koshka, a Rutherian command and control AI, guides players and warns them when enemies come close. Weapon crafting includes creating improvised explosive devices, traps, and different kinds of explosives from scrounged materials. Players guide survivors to the safe houses by issuing commands on the map screen.

The story takes place in the Front Mission series during a conflict between two Eastern European countries, Ruthenia and Garmoniya, formerly Ukraine. The game breaks the story into fourteen chapters and three characters individual stories. Players begin as Mikhail, a Ruthenian Wanzer pilot who must survive the loss of his Wanzer and fellow soldiers. The next character is Olga, a police captain and former soldier of the Garmoniyan Army 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 where Olga works. Koshka, the Ruthenia military's logistics and communications AI system, supports all three protagonists.

Left Alive was developed by Japanese developer Ilinx and produced by Square Enix. Toshifumi Nabeshima directed the title, previously having 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. Yoji Shinkawa, known for his work on the Metal Gear series, created the game's promotional art.

In addition to overseeing the design of some of the models, Shinkawa did character designs of the three main protagonists and one of the Wanzer mecha models. He drew concept art of some of the other characters.

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.

DM Schmeyer of IGN called the game a "failure on every level", with poor controls and game balances issues cited along with technical glitches. Jason Faulkner of Game Revolution praised the setting and plot but noted a wildly changing enemy intelligence that would either never miss or ignore the player completely. James Swinbanks of GameSpot praised the opening and some of the character dialogue but explained that the lack of story set up initially leads to significant plot revelations having no emotional impact. Dan Roemer of Destructoid praised the game's soundtrack and art direction but highlighted the low-resolution graphical textures that gave the game a "drab" look. He also noted "laughable" enemy physics, where killed enemies' bodies would jump in the air whenever they died, and described the voice acting as "varied", ranging from decent to sounding like the actors "gave up" after one take.