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group=lower-alpha is a 2019 action-adventure stealth game developed by Ilinx and published by Square Enix. It was released in February and March 2019 for the PlayStation 4 and Windows platforms. It was announced at a press conference by Sony Interactive Entertainment before the 2017 Tokyo Game Show. Set in the universe of the Front Mission series of videogames, the story follows several individuals trying to survive amidst a surprise invasion of their country, while both helping civilians to safety and attempting to stop destruction and damage wrought by Wanzers, a form of combat mecha.
Originally conceived as a strategy game, it gained more action elements as development proceeded and ultimately became the first survival game in the Front Mission series. Developers conceived character ideas before the game's planning began, and many changes to their appearances and ages occurred as the story solidified. Left Alive received generally unfavorable reviews from critics. While many praised the graphics, story, and music, reviewers criticized the game's controls, artificial intelligence, game physics, and voice acting.
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.
As the invasion begins, Olga encounters a young orphan named Julia, whom she pursues to save her from a human trafficking ring run by the Garmoniyan military. Olga discovers Julia is a survivor of a Semargl research project which infected victims with the MODS virus. Leonid is framed for the assassination of Novo Slava's liberator and national hero, Ruslan Izmailov, and forced to escape during the invasion. He learns that Ruslan is still alive and is a deep cover Semargl agent. Seeking revenge, Leonid pursues Ruslan and kills him. However, Olga later witnesses an inexplicably alive Ruslan appear and capture Julia on behalf of Semargl.
The three protagonists meet up and head downtown to reach a rescue helicopter sent by Patrick. Olga goes off to rescue Julia, while Mikhail hijacks an unattended Wanzer to create a distraction. On his way to the rescue helicopter, Leonid encounters Ruslan, now revealed to be a cyborg. After a final confrontation, Leonid destroys Ruslan, and the three protagonists are picked up by Patrick's rescue helicopter as an international peacekeeping force arrives to take control of Novo Slava.
If all thirty civilians and four major supporting characters the protagonists encounter through the game survive, a secret ending will play. It shows Ruslan revealing to Leonid during their final confrontation that Semargl possesses a computer system called M3, which can predict the future. M3 predicted that human overpopulation would lead to humanity's decline, leading Semargl to use the MODS virus as a means of population control. An after-credits scene shows Koshka uploading all data acquired from the invasion of Novo Slava to M3 before "proceeding with the next phase".
For the game's artwork, Nabeshima had the design team make sure he remained faithful to the Front Mission aesthetic. He also created a character with the inspiration he found through the artwork of the original Front Mission artist Yoshitaka Amano, who is also one of his favorite artists. Artist Yoji Shinkawa drew the three main characters based on a simple profile and then began submitting rough sketches of Leonid's character for consideration since that was a character type he was very familiar with. He then designed the characters, continuously checking to see that he was maintaining a balance between them. He also did sketches for the game's other key characters and also designed one of the wanzers. The mechs did not have to look like traditional "Zenith-type" wanzers from Front Mission, just "powerful/formidable", so Shinkawa designed purely from his imagination. Shinkawa advised on the 3D graphics and how they looked in motion. Shinkawa notes that he adjusted designs with developer feedback for each character about three to four times. There was much discussion about the direction of Mikhail's character, with him first conceived as middle-aged but then young and handsome, necessitating a redesign. His personality began as conceited, like one who had an affluent childhood, but as his dialogue made him more "honest and earnest", his design changed again.
Before story development, Yoji Shinkawa already had some characters who existed in the Front Mission series in development. In developing the game, the team discussed prioritizing a sense of reality for the story. This decision led them to set the game in the present world, but all the countries names are changed. The designers also decided that a very realistic plot that would still feel like Front Mission would involve several characters dealing with "evil conspiracies" caused by nations plotting against each other. Composer Hidenori Iwasaki worked on the music, drawing from his experiences as the composer for some of the music in previous Front Mission games. Orchestrator Jordan Seigel and audio engineer Shinnosuke Miyazawa also helped record the soundtrack at Abbey Road Studios in London.
On the day the game was released worldwide, Square Enix launched a free downloadable content pack for Left Alive. This "World of Tanks Collaboration" pack contained only in-game advertising for World of Tanks.
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.
Heather Alexandra of Kotaku loved the idea of urban warfare, including searching for improvised weapons to take on war mechs, and said the game "drips with style and mood", but felt the game's "stiff" and "sluggish" controls made it impossibly hard to play.
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