In just a few minutes, someone’s going to get shot out of the ass of a giant, fire-breathing salamander…

We’ll get to that whole ass-shooting business soon enough, but for now, I’m rushing through the mouth of a shallow canyon on the planet of E.D.N. III, traveling alongside three fellow human-controlled Lost Planet–eers. We know that on the other side of the high rocky walls, we’ll be facing down a giant, hulking, amphibious-looking thing ready to stomp our brains out. Lucky for me, the four of us have plenty of rocket launchers, and a couple of working mecha-suits — called Vital Suits, or VSs — are strewn about in the mucky, muddy dirt.

First things first. I kneel alongside something called a “data post” and start spamming the B button to activate it. Back in 2007, when Capcom’s Lost Planet dashed onto the 360, data posts seemed to be all the in-game rage — not only did they boost your all-important (and constantly depleting) thermal energy (T-ENG) in single-player, but they also worked like territory grabs in a multiplayer mode rather unfortunately named, uh, Post Grab. Whatever the reason, you were forced to frantically pound the B button until the post was fully activated.

While the frenzied spamming hasn’t changed for Lost Planet 2’s data posts, their importance has. The introduction of cooperative play means that you have a team counting on you — unless you’re stuck with a bunch of jerks, that is — and if you die, you’ll need to spawn nearby. With the size of some of the areas in LP2, data posts serve as convenient spawn points, à la Star Wars: Battlefront’s command posts, to put you back into the action quickly and where you’re needed. If you don’t activate a data post in a crucial area, you’ll leave your teammates down a man while you’re making like a chump and hoofing it from a distant spawn point.

Left For Dead?

Four-player co-op means you’ll also be able to commandeer a three-man VS, with one player in the main control cockpit and two others manning turrets on either side of him. But wait…three? What about the fourth guy?

“That’s kind of what we’re going for — the idea of ‘Well, what is the other person going to do?’” explains Oguro. “We could’ve just put an extra seat [on the VS] and made it for four players, but just having those elements every once in a while creates some of the fun.”

Divisional Communications senior manager Kaori Tsukuda later told us, “That’s exactly the reaction they were waiting for.”

Newt Killer

With the data post activated, I grab a rocket launcher just in time for the noisy appearance of the multi-prong–tongued, three-story-high boss creature. My three comrades have scattered to the winds at this point: one guy has climbed into a clunky VS and is scrapping it out along the waterlogged canyon floor, while another dude is unloading round after round from a firearm best described as a handheld missile launcher, and yet another buddy has somehow grapple-hooked up onto the back of the monster and is now riding it like a giant, living surfboard.

No matter where everyone has dug in on the map, we’re all madly cramming lead into the beast’s various “hotspots” — areas on its body that faintly glow a molten orange color from thermal energy. Bust open those cyst-like targets and thermal energy floods out for you to collect — perfect for powering your Harmonizer, a T-ENG–driven health booster.

But for now, we’re each concentrating on two of the salamander’s knees to render it immobile. And the minute the second knee buckles, the creature stumbles to the ground with its mouth wide open. A teammate bravely hops in and — as we all watch his screen in slack-jawed awe — he enters the creature’s cavernous innards…

Nature's Calling

First thing we notice: He’s constantly fighting the gravitational pull tugging him through the beast’s tummy. And if you’re the lucky gastronaut, you don’t really want to leave right away for multiple reasons. For one, you’re temporarily safe from direct harm. Moreover, a large, fleshy bag of T-ENG is hanging before you, just asking to be torn up with your firearm.

Before you start crying “Gears of War 2 did it!” know that this isn’t a brand-new level or mission stage. Instead, it’s just one optional facet of your battle with the fire-breathing baddie. In fact, Lost Planet 2’s director, Kenji Oguro, assures us shortly after our play session that you might not ever see this segment of the fight. It’s a surprise-and-delight moment typical of what producer Jun Takeuchi describes as “those experiences that we didn’t create within the game.” The team may be responsible for placing the building blocks for that specific moment, but it’s up to you and your co-op buddies to find it or skip it altogether. Your story is completely your own, and Capcom’s just creating the environments in which it will all unfold.

Meanwhile, back at the struggle inside the salamander’s stomach…

Bringing Up The Rear

If you can fight the tide of bodily fluids trying to escort you out, it’s wise to unload as much ammo into the boss’ internal hotspot as possible. When you do, you’re triggering things on the outside of the creature that your teammates will greatly appreciate, whether you know it or not.

While our buddy performed a T-ENG-ectomy from within, we noticed that the orange spikes we were firing at on the creature’s back grew larger and easier to hit. That means the co-op partners on the outside can deplete the boss’ health much faster and more efficiently with a friend on the inside. So that’s exactly what we did, blasting the growths on the monster’s back while targeting its other vulnerable bits, too. It sounds like a disgusting way to work together, but it’s absolutely a win-win.

And as for our friend in the belly of the beast? The current of the digestive system ultimately managed to get the best of him, washing him quickly through a sphincter-like orifice and straight out its backside. Yes, it’s anatomically astute, but no less gross.

Ultimately, his icky sacrifice resulted in one dead, towering behemoth of yuck — something that Capcom’s development team, who had been diligently watching our play patterns, applauded briefly before asking us if we wanted to replay the mission on a higher difficulty. Yeow. We quickly went on to try our hands at a series of fast-paced jungle levels that kept the action clicking.

Team Building

Lost Planet 2 will put a huge emphasis on your responsibility to your team. Besides having you mind your own T-ENG reserves when the fighting gets rough, Capcom also plans to incorporate something called a “Team Military Power Bar.” If you happen to die during a mission, you’ll be able to immediately respawn at a data post — but your team’s overall Military Power Bar will take a hit. Once that gauge completely depletes, consider the mission failed, but you can restart to try again.

Who Are You?

Yet after surviving the salamander attack and firefights with hostile snow pirates in the jungle, we still had an identity crisis. What happened to the first game’s pretty-boy hero, Wayne Holden? Are we him again? And wasn’t the planet previously covered in a bunch of cold white stuff?

Well, you definitely aren’t Wayne this time. “There’s no one character in the game,” explains Takeuchi, underscoring one of the team’s central ideas. “You become the hero.” You’re a snow pirate and you’ll build your character to your liking, customizing everything from clothing to starting weapons to taunts. After showing off specific new moves for his on-screen character, Takeuchi even notes that the team’s tweaked the range, types, and usefulness of melee attacks. “They’re a little like the chainsaw in Gears [of War],” he quips.

There’s a strong emphasis on action, teamplay, and a non-traditional form of campaign storytelling, but as for specifics on the story that drives Lost Planet 2, neither Takeuchi nor Oguro is giving much away. Of course, that doesn’t mean there’s no plot; it’s probably just better kept a secret and experienced for yourself. “It’s more about the setting or about the different groups [of snow pirates],” Oguro offers. “You’ll see in Episode 1, you play as this one group [of snow pirates]; then in the second episode, you’ll play as another group. The story will still be important, but it will be told from a different perspective.”

The Heat Is On

We do know this much: The pirates are all still fighting over resources on E.D.N. III — namely, the thermal energy that powers the insect-like Akrid monsters that roam the planet, and just about every other living thing. But as LP2 takes place several years after the conclusion of the original story, all that snow that blanketed Lost Planet’s playgrounds has now given way to a type of climate change that allows more tropical, densely forested areas to thrive.

So, why do you still need thermal energy on a planet that’s warming up and no longer requires you to keep toasty to survive? Both Takeuchi and Oguro point out that unlike in the original game, your Harmonizer’s T-ENG storage won’t be constantly depleting in the warmer climes, but in some environments it might. As the game is still fairly early in development, they wouldn’t go into more detail.

Lessons Learned

Bolstered by the success of the first title, Oguro (the director on both games) claims a newfound confidence in approaching its sequel and its expanded multiplayer elements. “The first Lost Planet was something that we very much learned on the job,” he tells us. “We had to start from scratch, looking at what a shooting game is and how we, as Japanese developers, could compete with developers in the West who’ve been doing this for a long time. We didn’t have much confidence when we were making it. But knowing the finished product was something good gave us the confidence to expand in Lost Planet 2 — to do things on a larger scale.”

But bigger doesn’t have to mean overcomplicated or unrefined. “I notice that good games often hinge on one great point,” suggests Takeuchi. “When I play a game, I try to figure out whether it succeeds at that premise or not. A good example is Shadow of the Colossus [on PS2]: it repeats one pattern over and over again, but does a great job of it.”

So what’s Lost Planet 2’s “great point”? “More content,” says Oguro. “That’s the key phrase for the game — adding in lots of different things. But it’s not just a matter of there being lots of stuff; it’s how you use those items or stages or different modes.” Adds Takeuchi: “I want everyone to look at the game as a package. There’s so much stuff going on, but it ties together into one package.”