Everything We Know About Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium

Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium Plot

Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium takes place in 2074, 12 years after the events of the original Girls’ Frontline. Set in Eastern Europe, the private military company Griffin and Kryuger have been dismantled by the government due to the threat of becoming too powerful and uncontrollable, but the player, the Commander, still persists in leading a small group of Tactical Dolls– dangerous tactically trained and armed women– well after their forced retirement.

As they live off of fulfilling odd bounties, one delivery mission has them come out of a contaminated zone, wherein they are suddenly ambushed by an unknown force that steals their hard-earned cargo– a mysterious girl. The Commander must now set out to recover the cargo and uncover secrets and conspiracies tied to it.

Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium Gameplay

Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium is a turn-based tactical JRPG utilizing a grid-based battlefield. The combat is likened to XCOM, where the player can order characters across the grid and perform moves against enemies or allies. The gameplay view shifts whenever characters do something noteworthy, such as performing special moves, getting over environmental hurdles, or just plain walking.

Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium Release Date

Though there has yet to be any official announcements, the App Store lists its release date on December 3, 2024. When looking into other countries' storefronts, most prominently in East and South East Asia, they are all listed to come out on December 5, 2024.

Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium Review (Closed Beta)

It’s About Time

I’ve been a huge Girls' Frontline fan since college, even playing it while driving (don’t). Eventually, my hectic schedule forced me to drop it, leaving me with massive, crippling FOMO that kept me from jumping back in. Years later, I finally have time for games—and a paycheck to support it. By now, though, I’d missed so much that Girls' Frontline felt distant, until Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium (GFL2) dropped.

GFL2 is essentially a sequel to the original 2D tactical mobile game by Sunborn. It picks up where the first game left off, in a world where the antagonistic faction Sangvis Ferri has already been defeated (unless?). But unlike the original, GFL2 is a turn-based tactics game that feels more like XCOM than the squad-based original which resembled Sengoku Rance (cultured players will get the reference). In GFL2, the focus shifts to individual units and strategic positioning rather than broader squad-based tactics or territory control.

A Touching Side of Humanity

Just like the original, Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium revolves around the Commander and his/her T-Dolls, which are essentially combat androids with female forms and personalities that can be uploaded to multiple bodies and backed up to a “neural cloud.” This setting creates a very interesting dynamic where the T-Dolls, despite their human appearances, are often seen as disposable, at least physically, and often to protect their human commanders.

In this regard, GFL2 also shares the original’s theme of a main protagonist, the Commander, who treats their T-Dolls with love and respect—essentially as fellow human beings. This perspective leads to romantic subplots between the Commander and their appreciative “disposable” counterparts, as well as the community-driven memes around all the creative and hilarious ways to solve the “problem” of human-android procreation.

These memes wouldn’t be nearly as funny without solid substance in the writing. This is the third thing GFL2 shares with the original: the quality of character development. The main cast, especially the Commander and Groza (the Commander’s most trusted partner in the story), have distinct personalities and quirks, and even side characters are well fleshed-out. The other T-Dolls and human companions are well-balanced, so none outshine each other during shared scenes.

Most importantly, these characters feel profoundly human. Each of them has their own troubles, goals they strive toward, and unique reasons for their loyalty to the Commander, all of which makes sense in Girls' Frontline’s dark, unforgiving world.

Their depth shines through in day-to-day interactions: the issues they face when communicating with someone who doesn’t share their views, the conflicts they awkwardly attempt to solve, their anxiety about a future filled with uncertainties, and so many other relatable, very human issues.

These conflicts and interactions are what initially hooked me to the original mobile game, and I’m thrilled to see this engaging style of character writing back in full force.

Stunningly Beautiful Audiovisuals

A few months ago, I wrote about how mobile games are starting to become too good for its own platform. The gacha scene especially has been cranking out mobile titles that Joe Schmoe and Plain Jane’s phones probably can’t handle. While that ultimately limits the common person's ability to access these games, this trend does mean we get to enjoy GFL2’s incredible-looking models both on the large and the small screens. In fact, these models and animations can even outshine some high-profile recent console JRPGs, even though GFL2 is nearly a year old in China and even older in terms of development. The devs are clearly proud of these models, featuring them front and center at every opportunity, while their 2D artwork mainly pops up during dialogue or in gacha results only.

The voice acting and sound effects are also top-notch, especially the former. There’s a bit of the actors’ soul that seeps through in their performances, which helps a lot in immersing you in the story.

Seriously, GFL2, alongside releases like Snowbreak: Containment Zone, Zenless Zone Zero, and Wuthering Waves, has me pumped for the future of mobile gaming, especially for games with PC versions. With fully-rendered cinematic cutscenes, dynamic camera angles in combat, detailed animations—even for meager features like upgrading T-Dolls—and VN-like story scenes with expressive sprites that change in real time, I can’t help but feel this game is built to last a decade.

Gameplay Welcomes All

The XCOM series, which clearly inspired GFL2’s gameplay, isn’t known for being forgiving. Enemy soldiers, mechs, and aliens can take out your soldiers in one or two hits, depending on the stage’s difficulty and the strategies you use. On top of that, XCOM games use factors like RNG-based accuracy, fog-of-war, limited healing and explosives, and other elements that force you to make careful decisions to keep your soldiers alive.

GFL2 makes this format a lot more accessible by adjusting several key mechanics. For instance, all attacks in GFL2 are guaranteed to hit their target. Covers, which used to boost both defense and evasion in XCOM, now only improve defense—by a lot. This change means you won’t spend ages trying in vain to hit enemies in heavily fortified spots, significantly speeding up the pace of each stage. Each stage is also much, much smaller, with the obvious advantage of not having to navigate a thousand miles' worth of cityscape just to reach the next objective.

Many T-Dolls (and enemies) also come equipped with skills that can bypass cover bonuses, so you’re not completely reliant on explosives to break through them. This approach prevents long stalemates but also leaves your T-Dolls equally vulnerable to these skills, especially when facing enemy T-Dolls. They’ll even flank you to bypass your cover bonuses, using their numbers advantage to catch you off-guard.

If all this sounds like too much, the game also offers an Auto mode. But tread carefully—

The AI is Pretty Dumb

If you asked me what the AI is like in GFL2, I’d probably just shrug and shake my head. The bot that controls your units is, well, pretty dumb but with the occasional upskirts of competence. It knows how to aim skills and spread out damage to avoid overkill, but it often wanders too far into enemy lines, leaving units open to easy flanks. I’ve also seen it end turns outside cover just to get a shot off at an enemy, leaving it open to get killed by potshots.

The AI’s worst habit, though, is spamming powerful attacks regardless of the situation. Overkill happens regularly, even though the AI is meant to spread out damage. And while you’d think this wouldn’t be a big deal since enemies have similar AI, it isn’t. Enemies usually have one or two skills with minimal variation, while your T-Dolls can and will waste theirs as long as cooldowns allow it.

This entire problem is largely yours. Enemies rarely rely on cover as much as T-Dolls since their suicidal tendencies don’t really matter. But for your T-Dolls—fewer in number and needing to survive for high mission ratings—relying on the AI can be more of a handicap.

Not Perfect, But Pretty Close

Of course, GFL2 isn’t flawless. It’s still in the final stages of preparation for global release, so there are a few kinks to iron out. For instance, the dynamic combat camera, as great as it is, sometimes clips through obstacles and blocks your view. Also, each T-Doll’s ultimate animation plays with sound effects only; voice lines follow afterward, which makes the animations feel oddly empty despite looking amazing (I’m guessing this was intentional).

Then there’s the translation. As much as I love the story, some translated lines don’t match the audio. Since I can semi-decently understand Japanese and Korean, the inconsistencies are noticeable. Certain lines even repeat across scenarios, like the localizers copy-pasted text into the final script while they’re being blasted off into space.

Oh, and the gacha rates are brutal. The highest rarity T-Dolls and Weapons are at a mere 0.6% rate. T-Dolls and Weapons are also in the same pool in the standard banner, with no balancing mechanic, so it’s very possible to pull multiple weapons without a single T-Doll. And let’s be real—the T-Dolls are the main attractions here.

Even with these issues, GFL2 is still a tactical game where strategy generally outweighs the characters you have. That makes it pretty friendly for free-to-play players. As a long-time fan of Girls' Frontline who’s also put hundreds of hours into XCOM 2 (with too many VOCALOID mods), I’m more than hyped for GFL2’s full release. It’s a fun, rewarding game that I’m sure I’ll be addicted to once it fully drops.

It also helps that my favorite T-Dolls from the original game have been confirmed to appear in the game later on, too.

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Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium Product Information

Title	GIRLS’ FRONTLINE 2: EXILIUM
Release Date	December 3 or 4, 2024 (Expected)
Developer	Sunborn
Publisher	Sunbron
Supported Platforms	PC (own client, Steam), Mobile(iOS, Android)
Genre	Anime, Gacha, Turn-Based
Number of Players	1
Rating	CADPA 16+
Official Website	Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium Official Website

Alfonso Majarucon

Writer of things from game, anime and manga reviews to news and webnovels. Hopelessly addicted to story-driven games, especially cross-platform ones. Favorite games include Punishing Gray Raven, Arknights, Limbus Company, Elden Ring, Touhou, Soul Nomad and the Disgaea series (except 3 and 6). Avid..