Mankind left Earth 80 years ago in order to build a life on the planet E.D.N. III. As the colony grew, humanity encountered The Akrids, a bug-like alien race that declared war on the humans for intruding on their territory. The humans didn't have any effective means to defend themselves and had to retreat from the planet. During the course of the retreat, a young man named Adam had his father killed by a Akrid named "Green Eye". Scientists soon discovered that the Akrids were a source of precious thermal energy, stored inside their bodies. This needed resource gave humanity an economical reason to fight back. On Earth, the Vital Suit was developed, a heavy weapon mech-like vehicle, Returning to E.D.N. III, Adam is among the many Vital Suit pilots, and seeks to avenge his father's death.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is a 3rd-person shooter. Controlling Adam, the player makes war on the Akrid armies. Adam's main objective is to destroy Akrid hives, and ultimately defeat "Green Eye" but there will be several goals for him to complete along the way. Adam can hold two weapons and one type of grenade at the same time. In addition, Adam can find different Vital Suit upgrades to give himself new abilities. Since it's very cold on the planet, thermal energy is needed to survive and restores health energy. In order to get it, Adam can either activate Data Posts or destroy things that have it in them like exploding barrels or enemy Akrids. The thermal energy stored slowly decreases over time and needs constant replenishing.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition also features a multiplayer mode where players can go online and play in four different game-modes against up to 16 other players. Besides the usual Deathmatch and Team-deathmatch; there is "Station Control", where players try to find and activate data posts on the map and "Fugitive", where one player flees from all the rest killing opponents and waiting for the timer to count down.