Starship Troopers: Extermination Review

I am looking over the battlements of my team’s hastily constructed base, my HUD is flashing that a wave of bugs is imminent. In the distance, I can see a group of four troopers trying to collect ore from a refinery and back to the base in time.

It is too late for that though; Warrior and the larger Tiger variants of the aliens emerge from the ground in bursts of dirt. They are arachnid-like creatures with huge clacking jaws, with the Tigers having telltale stripes across their bodies. The squad open fire and the spindly legs get ripped off the Warriors’ bodies, green blood plumes from their bodies as they collapse. The Tiger takes more hits and then sends one trooper rag-dolling. A swarm of small drones appear to attack another trooper, and he goes down.

Then the whole floor in front of my wall erupts in spindly monsters. The two turrets that were mounted on the wall earlier are now manned and shredding through the throng. My whole screen becomes a blur of viscera and claws, with a cacophony of gun fire and bug screams accompanying it.

I rush down to the ground floor to gather ammo for the guns. One of the other troopers fires a dart that pulses for enemies; there is a red outline of tens of enemies through the barricade. By the time I get back on the parapet, there is pile of corpses against the wall. The bugs are literally crawling over their dead to clamber up onto our parapet. In a panic, I just shoot into the fray unsure it will do anything.

We then all get a notification that the mission has failed – a drop ship has been dispatched and respawning has been disabled. Almost immediately our team starts launching themselves towards the new objective, abandoning the damaged outpost.

What happens next is a panicked set of pitched fights through darkened tunnels, lit poorly by head lamps and tracer fire. By the time we get to the drop ship there are 8 of the original 16 remaining troops left alive. We extract with a dramatic ‘DEFEAT’ emblazoned across the screen.

When Starship Troopers: Extermination is at its best it is in these moments. There is a frantic chaos, that feels fit to break but it is exhilarating. It is a first-person sci-fi shooter that combines the discombobulated delight of the Earth Defence Force series, with an emphasis on teamwork in the face of overwhelming odds ala Hell Let Loose.

A mission-based 4-16 player multiplayer game, Starship Troopers: Extermination splits people up into teams of 4-man fire-squads. The objectives are either collecting resources, destroying a target, or holding a point. There are 6 classes to pick from – the heavy weapons expert, the medic, the sniper etc – each come with their own special abilities and upgradeable weapons. These will be needed as even on Easy most of the missions will be a solid challenge. To get the best results everyone should be on microphone and communicating, but even then, the game does a good job of throwing curve balls. There are flamethrowing aliens, plasma strikes, and patrolling high-powered enemies that can devastate if approached without caution.

The sound design is top notch with all of the weapons sounding like they do in the films. The skittering and the plodding of the aliens is suitably unnerving, and the distant explosions and gunfire are effective at setting the turbulent mood.

Less impactful are the visuals. Although I think there is some intent to recreate the ‘made out of plastic and cardboard’ aesthetic of the films, there is also a lot of bland textures and some flat looking assets. Worse is that a lot of the levels are set at night, or in the darkness underground. With only the headlamps to light the way it leads to a lot of confusing navigation. This combined with some uneven collision and unresponsive vaulting mechanics can edge out the fear in favour of annoyance. This would be okay for short, scary stints but it can end up being a large part of the mission and it really sucks the fun out of shooting bugs. This unfocused nature is not helped by the fact that the servers are subject to a lot of lag. Currently, it leads to a lot of jerky traversals and a lot of missed shots as the bugs warp across the screen. There were multiple instances of me trying to trigger a special to avoid damage that simply didn’t work.

The UI does not help either, with hit detectors firing off in the middles of the screen, UI prompts for objectives and the busy set of indicators for skills – it can be disorientating and not in a good way.

This is when Starship Troopers is at its worst. You’re flailing around in the dark, being shot from all angles, and then dying with no one around to help you. On harder difficulties this will happen regularly as the big enemies can take you out in one hit. Death spirals can and will happen, and with no friends to share in the carnage it can be an empty experience. The server stutters will help contribute to that.

Having released on PC in early access over two years ago, there is a large amount of content but there is also the problem that as a new player it can be easy to be drowned out by the more experienced players. The base building that is introduced as a neat feature in the tutorial was something that I mainly experienced others doing around me. I was relegated to rushing around with my build tool just helping where I could with little understanding for why.

The big new addition is the single player content. It is great to see and hear Casper Van Dien reprising his role as Johnny Rico, and even an eye patch as a nod to his progress in the films to battle scarred veteran. Sadly, outside of some very pretty levels, the missions are tedious. They can help level up some of the starting classes, but it doesn’t feel worth it for the snail like pace of the experience.

So, this is where I’ll say that if my opening story resonated with you and you want to experience that, Starship Troopers: Extermination is a must buy, in between some those lows, you will experience those heady highs. For those not excited about this, the technical shortcomings will drag you down.  

Conclusion

Starship Troopers: Extermination is a game full of tremendous potential. Two years after early access that potential seems within reach with a bit more polish. The action can be a blast, but often the bugs, some design choices, and unstable servers act against its overall vision. Often it felt like I was fighting the game itself and not the bugs onscreen.