Ludography
70/100
Players121 ratings
74/100
Critics5 reviews
More scores
Metacritic23 critic reviews
66/100
Metacritic usersuser score
68/100
GameFAQsJust Right
3.37/5
Player reviews
80% positive1,882 reviews
Steam Deck
Unsupported
Runs on
Windows
Price
US$3.44

Where to get it

Lost Planet: Colonies cover

2006 · Capcom · Adventure · Platformer

Lost Planet: Colonies

Timed Xbox exclusive

The game is played through a third person over-the-shoulder view. Players are allowed to switch between first person and third person at any moment. Players either travel on foot or ride various types of mechanized suits called Vital Suits (VSs). VSs carry heavy weapons such as chainguns and rocket launchers.

Released
21 December 2006
Platforms
PlayStation 3WindowsXbox 360
Genres
AdventurePlatformerScienceShooterThird-person shooter
Developers
Capcom
Publishers
Capcom
Series
Lost Planet
Modes
MultiplayerSingle-player
Perspective
Third person
Themes
ActionScience fictionSurvival
Engine
MT Framework
Country
Japan
Age ratings
PEGI 16ESRB TACB M
Languages
English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish (Spain)
Copies sold
1.7 million as of 2022-03-31
Time to beat
9hmain story11hwith extras17hcompletionist
Composers
Akihiko Narita

About

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (ロスト プラネット エクストリーム コンディション, Rosuto Puranetto Ekusutorīmu Kondishon) is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom for Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 3. The game was released in Japan in December 2006 and worldwide in January 2007. Originally intended to be an Xbox 360 exclusive, it was later ported and released for Microsoft Windows in June 2007 and PlayStation 3 in February 2008.

Additionally, the game can be purchased from the Xbox digital store and played on Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles through the Xbox backwards compatibility program.

›Story

C. N. III. N.

III, a new Earth-like planet in grip of a brutal ice age. N. III is inhabited by an aggressive and territorial insectoid alien species named the Akrid, which come in all shapes and sizes and generate their own precious thermal energy. N.

III, and help colonization efforts for the remainder of the human race by destroying the Akrid, all the while attempting to survive both betrayals and the extreme conditions of the planet.

The game starts with Wayne, his father Gale, and their unit taking on a mission to kill a giant Akrid known as Green Eye. During their mission, Wayne is separated from his squad and watches his father's VS explode. Wayne is left drifting in the snow and is frozen solid for 30 years. Wayne wakes up and finds himself in the care of Yuri Solotov and his crew of snow pirates; Luka and Rick.

Apart from his name and the Green Eye, Wayne remembers nothing of his previous life. Yuri is particularly interested in the thermal extension (or Harmonizer) attached to Wayne's arm, which has enabled Wayne to survive all this time. Yuri tells Wayne that NEVEC is working on a project designed to thaw out the planet to make it safe to live on. Wayne joins Yuri's band, and while on a mission to wipe out an Akrid hive, fights a woman named Basil.

Basil tells him that Yuri has killed her husband and that she was looking for revenge. At the same time, Yuri mysteriously disappears, leaving Wayne to question his loyalty. With the help of Rick and Luka, Wayne discovers the Green Eye's location and destroys it with Gale's (his fathers) VS. Shortly after, Wayne and his VS are attacked by NEVEC's field commander, Bandero.

Slowly, after escaping the attack, Wayne remembers that rather Green Eye being responsible for killing Gale, it was actually a few NEVEC soldiers with Bendero watching. Wayne and Luka barely escape, only to find that their pirate fortress (trailer) has been sieged, and that Rick has been taken captive.

For the next year, Wayne and Luka initiate hit and run attacks against NEVEC, which has taken control over the human race. During one of their attacks, they discover Rick is still alive due to him being rescued by Basil. Basil and Wayne take a NEVEC trooper named Joe hostage. It is after taking Joe prisoner that Basil goes on to explain that the Harmonizer slows down the aging process and unlocks the powers to Gale's VS.

After they interrogate him, they find out more about NEVEC's Frontier Project. N. III a safe place to live for humans. After joining the snow pirates, Joe arranges for Wayne to meet with NEVEC leadership, inadvertently leading to an ambush where Bandero shoots Wayne in the leg.

During the confrontation, Wayne and Joe learn that the project will use T-ENG to wipe out not only all Akrid but also kill all humans left on the surface while all of NEVEC watches safely from the sky. Horrified, the pirates go on a final mission to stop the project. Wayne confronts Bandero a final time, killing him and regaining his father's rebuilt VS. Wayne finds Yuri and before dying from torture, Yuri gives Wayne an attachment to his Harmonizer as it would allow him to unlock the true power of his VS.

While Wayne begins his attack on NEVEC's honcho, Commander Isenberg, Basil sacrifices herself to buy him time and Joe sets off explosives to destroy the elevator from which NEVEC would hide. Wayne confronts Isenberg and after fighting in VSs, shoots him in the head with a single pistol bullet right before he passes out, losing his memory again. Wayne wakes up to find Luka and Rick starting to melt all of the ice and snow from the planet, and slowly colonization begins once more.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The game is played through a third person over-the-shoulder view. Players are allowed to switch between first-person and third-person at any moment. Players either travel on foot or ride various types of mechanized suits called Vital Suits (VSs). VSs carry heavy weapons such as chain guns and rocket launchers.

They can pick up weapons lying on the ground and fire multiple weapons at once. On foot, players are able to use a grappling hook to pull themselves up to normally hard-to-reach places, or to hook onto a VS and hijack it. Driving VSs and using certain weapons requires thermal energy. Also, the planet's cold temperature causes the characters' thermal energy level to continually decrease.

Story

C. N. III. N.

III, a new Earth-like planet in the grip of a brutal ice age. N. III is inhabited by an aggressive and territorial insectoid alien species named the Akrid, which come in all shapes and sizes and generate their own precious thermal energy. N.

Development

In a 2006 interview with Game Informer, developer Keiji Inafune recalled that Capcom wanted to make a game that took advantage of the medium while also feeling cinematic. Films such as Starship Troopers, The Thing, and the Alien franchise influenced the direction of the game. Inafune in particular noted the idea of fighting alien creatures on a snowy planet was inspired by the Antarctic setting of The Thing. The design of the vital suits were loosely inspired by the Japanese works Armored Trooper VOTOMS and Appleseed.

The usage of mecha in Lost Planet was part of a broader goal to cater to both Japanese and Western audiences. Mecha were a common trope in anime and manga, and by 2006, Capcom felt that by 2006 Western audiences had grown accustomed to anime.

Reception

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition received mixed to positive reviews. 00% and 66/100, including a score of 36/40 from Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, which Gamasutra described as "impressive". The game's visuals and combat were praised, but reviewers criticized the controls, voice acting, and slowdowns in the frame rate. Reviewers were generally in favor of the game's premise and mechanics, and the gameplay was compared to Bionic Commando and Mega Man.

N. III was welcomed as a change of pace from the common settings portrayed in other shooters, such as World War II. GameSpy said "[the levels are] evocative in a way that yet another urban wasteland, spaceship interior, or burnt out WWII battlefield can't be". The game's system of forcing the player to constantly search for T-Eng to survive was considered novel, if not particularly challenging.

Legacy

Lost Planet received a mobile port for phones using the Brew 3.1 Operating system and released on December 21, 2006.

Lost Planet 2 was released and was available for purchase in May 2010. A spin-off titled E.X. Troopers was released in October 2012 in Japan. The third main game titled Lost Planet 3 was released in August 2013.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Xbox 36021 December 2006Japan · Worldwide 12 January 2007
Windows26 June 2007North America · Europe 29 June 2007
PlayStation 321 February 2008Japan · North America 26 February 2008 · Australia 27 February 2008 · Europe 29 February 2008

Editions and related releases

Expanded editions
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition - Colonies Edition
Built on it
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Colonies Edition

In the same series

Games like this

Collections1 collection

Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.