Starship Troopers: Extermination is a new cooperative FPS currently in early access from Offworld Industries. It's based on the cult classic Sci-Fi/political satire film from 1997, Starship Troopers. The game takes much from the original film (and even its less-than-stellar sequels), including the weapons, character designs, and of course the infamous bug menace.
As an early-access game, Starship Troopers: Extermination is a promising experience despite its relative lack of content. For everything the game does right, there is something that could be (and likely will be) improved upon in the near future. Here are just a few of the game's pros and cons.
8 Good: In-Universe References
The Starship Troopers film is known for its extreme political satire. This is something that has, at least in part, been carried over to the game. Many of the movie's iconic lines are referenced in the UI, the game's news report framing of multiplayer matches is taken directly from the film, and even quitting the game invokes the infamous "washout lane."
In addition, all the weapons and character models are faithfully recreated, such as the iconic Morita rifle (which was a Ruger mini 14 placed in a custom-made chassis). The attention to detail is sure to catch the eye of many die-hard fans of the original film.
7 Bad: No Gun Customization
While there are a handful of weapons for the player to unlock as they rank up, none of them have any customization options available as of right now. There are no skins, weapon attachments, charms, or anything else that modern shooter players are familiar with. In fact, the Morita rifle is even missing its iconic under-barrel shotgun attachment.
There is, however, a Quartermaster tab in the class customization menu, which could suggest that this feature is on the way. It would be cool for guns to eventually have customizable optics, magazines, grips, or perhaps even ammo types available to the player at some point.
6 Good: Class-Based Gameplay
One of the most fun things about Extermination is that players get to choose which role to play at the start of each match. There are three classes to choose from, with each having its own weapons and abilities that differentiate them from each other. First, there's the Hunter class, which is analogous to a basic rifleman. The Hunter's ability is the jetpack, which affords them much greater traversal opportunities around the battlefield.
The next class is Bastion, which functions as the heavy weapons class. It gives players the Morita MK3 SAW (a light machine gun) and the ability to become a shielded emplacement turret. With this class, it's about fire superiority and armor over speed. The last class is Operator, and it functions as a support class through and through. Operators are the designated team healers and unlock the grenade launcher at level 11.
5 Bad: Limited Game Types
Unfortunately, there are currently only two game modes to choose from in Starship Troopers: Extinction—AAC and ARC. The former has players completing objectives around the map in a sequence, culminating in a massive horde mode section. The latter is more of a free-form base defense mode, where players build a base around the ARC to defend it from arachnid enemies.
Both game types are fun and well-thought-out, however, they are the only two in the whole game as of now. There is a dedicated horde mode on the way, although it's not known when this will be.
4 Good: The Arachnid Enemies
The arachnid, or "bug" enemies as they are also known, are surprisingly fun to fight. Much of this is due to both the variety of bug types and the sheer amount of them that can spawn at one time. The arachnids are also quite tough depending on the difficulty, with veteran providing some real challenge for even the best of teams.
Teamwork itself is a necessity as the different bug types work together to try and take down refineries, defenses, and of course the players themselves. There are five big types currently; Drones, Warriors, Gunners, Plasma Grenadiers, and Tiger Elites. Each has its place on the battlefield.
3 Bad: Minor Glitches And Bugs
As an early-access game, it's no surprise that Starship Troopers: Extermination has a few of them. Some bugs are easily repeatable, such as custom loadouts not saving after quitting the game, while other bugs are more random. Sometimes textures will become muddy, players can get logged into map geometry, it's possible to be pushed out of the drop-ship during extraction, the redeploy button has a chance to soft lock the game entirely, and so on.
Thankfully, the bugs are minor in the grand scheme of things, however, it would be nice to see them get fixed in the near future.
2 Good: Base Building
In an interesting move on Offworld Industries' part, Starship Troopers: Extermination features base building and resource management mechanics. This has become one of the highlights of the core gameplay loop whether it's in the AAC or ARC game modes. It's similar to Fallout 4's settlement building, only more limited in scope for obvious reasons.
The primary reason behind building a base is to protect the ARC from the arachnid horde's attempts to break in and destroy it. This adds a kind of tower defense element to the game that helps make it feel unique.
1 Bad: There's Only One Map
While It's nice to look at, and rather huge, the one map featured in Extermination is simply not enough to sustain a healthy community of players long-term. So far the only map variation comes in the form of different times of the day the mission takes place.
There's a night stage, a dusk stage, and a day stage, and though each has its own look and mood, are still just reskins of the same map. It almost feels as if the developers tried to trick the players into feeling like there's more than one map, especially with how objectives shift around it during the match. More maps ought to be a priority for this game over the course of its early access phase.
Starship Troopers: Extermination was released on Steam Early Access on May 17th, 2023, and is currently only available on PC.