Earth Defense Force sequel infesting spring 2011

One week after D3 Publisher confirmed that it was readying a sequel to the cult hit Earth Defense Force 2017, more details have been released on the game. Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon has been confirmed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and will arrive early next year in Europe and North America.

In development at Vicious Cycle games (Dead Head Fred, Matt Hazard), Insect Armageddon will have more features than Earth Defense Force. Whereas the original game had only offline two-player split-screen co-op, the new title will let up to three players fight through the game's campaign together online. It will also have something analogous to Halo: Reach's Firefight mode, where up to six players can battle wave after wave of the game's massive insect and arachnid foes together.

The Earth Defense Force series began life as Chikyuu Boueigun, part of D3Publisher's Japanese line of Simple 2000 budget PlayStation 2 games. While the Xbox 360 offering Earth Defense Force 2017 was the first installment in the series to see release in North America, the previous installments had made their way to Europe under the Global Defence Force and Monster Attack names.

For more on the series, check out GameSpot's review of Earth Defense Force 2017.