Capcom announces Lost Planet for 360

Capcom has announced it will be developing a new sci-fi action game for the Xbox 360, titled Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. The game's official Web site is up now and features a few screenshots and a teaser trailer in English with Japanese subtitles. Lost Planet is slated for a 2006 winter release.

The development team working on Lost Planet includes some big names at Capcom. Keiji Inafune, creator of the Onimusha series and Mega Man series, will be working as the game's executive producer, while Jun Takeuchi, producer of Resident Evil 5, will also be producing Lost Planet. The game will be codirected by Kenji Ohguro and Shin Kurosawa. Ohguro has previously worked as a planner for Onimusha and Onimusha 3, while Kurosawa has worked on the Mega Man Battle Network series.

In Lost Planet, humankind survives on a frozen world with the help of protective vital suits, but they live in fear of the native monsters in the planet, the vaguely insectoid eigrids. Players take the role of a mysterious man named Wayne, who was discovered frozen in a vital suit. Wayne suffers from amnesia, and all he remembers are the death of his father and the eigrid that killed him.

According to Capcom, Lost Planet will play as a first-person shooter with action elements, although the trailer and screenshots released show gameplay from a primarily third-person view.

In a meeting with the press, Inafune commented that Lost Planet is being designed with Xbox Live in mind. He said Capcom will be using its experience from the Monster Hunter series to make Lost Planet's online multiplayer modes solid.

Much as it did with the Onimusha series, Capcom is modeling the main character in Lost Planet after a real-life actor. The game will feature Korean star Lee Byung-Hun (Joint Security Area, 3-Iron) to take on the role of Wayne. Like Onimusha series actor Takeshi Kaneshiro (House of Flying Daggers, Fallen Angels), Byung-Hun is a big fan of video games, Resident Evil, and Onimusha specifically, which was part of the reason Capcom gave for offering him the job.