I imagine many of you are unfamiliar with the Front Mission series, but this news is of great interest to me personally and perhaps some of you will appreciate it too. Front Mission is a turn-based strategy series focussing on mech combat and customisation. Think Armored Core, except turn-based and thus more tactical. Up until now, Square had been handling development of the series but they’ve passed that job to Double Helix now. The most notable piece of information is that Evolved will in fact be a third-person shooter, which is quite a change of direction for the series.

Front Mission 3 on the original PlayStation is still among my all-time favourite games, and is the only Front Mission game to be released in Europe unfortunately. Looking at the debut trailer below, it definitely feels more western, perhaps due to Double Helix’s involvement this time. I can’t help but be distressed over a new developer and a whole new direction being taken in an IP I have so much love for, but perhaps Double Helix can revitalise the underrated franchise and draw more people into mecha games. Front Mission Evolved is being developed for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC so I’m pretty certain that means it’s coming to the U.S. and Europe this time. Oh and yeah, I know the trailer isn’t too flashy, Front Mission was never really known for amazing cutscenes, it’s the customisation that shines in these sort of games.