Earth Defense Force 5 will ham up the PlayStation 4 this year. The game – which is already available in Japan – popped up on Sony’s official YouTube channel earlier this week, with a “coming soon” notice. It’s yet to be officially confirmed by D3 Publisher, but pre-orders are live on the North American PlayStation Store for Standard ($59.99) and Deluxe ($89.99) editions. The silly third-person shooter has a 31st December release date attached, but we’re pretty sure that’s just placeholder.

“Become one of the soldiers of Earth Defense Force and exterminate the invading aliens,” the product description reads. “Protect peace on Earth.” We really hope this one runs at 5 frames-per-second unlike the remastered Earth Defense Force 4.1 because part of the appeal of this series is how unoptimised it tends to be. Also, that EDF chant is gold. EDF! EDF! EDF!

[source youtube.com]