Starship Troopers: Extermination – Preview

One cannot help but feel old when realizing that the first Starship Troopers film is already over 25 years old. The movie quickly gained a cult status and several sequels were spawned, even though they could never reach the same success as the first film. Back in 2022, however, the world suddenly got treated to a new Starship Troopers game which was dubbed Terran Command. This title provided a base-building experience similar to the Command & Conquer games and was received rather well by the fans of the franchise. Now, a year later, Starship Troopers: Extermination was released in Early Access, providing a more gritty experience. Extermination is a multiplayer FPS with simple base-building elements, and we couldn’t wait to exterminate some massive alien bugs.

Starship Troopers: Extermination doesn’t really have anything in terms of story value present in the game. Before the start of every match, you’ll see a short news fragment that respects Starship Troopers’ source material. The short segment is basically a glorified loading screen, but it does help build the right atmosphere. The same goes for all design aspects of the game. The game’s graphical prowess might not be extremely impressive but the game still looks good. The bugs look intimidating enough, and you’ll quickly recognize which ones you’ll have to fear the most. Extermination also gives you a great battlefield atmosphere, as things can turn chaotic very quickly when a new wave of bugs spawns around you. Add to this that there is friendly fire, and you’ll soon notice that there is literally no safe space in the heat of battle.

The sound design of the game isn’t too bad, but it does feel a bit bland as well. The soldiers’ voice lines are basic, and they could have done with a bit more variety. We’re actually missing some fun voice commands as we saw in games such as EDF. Nothing beats being able to start random chants where other characters might be able to join in. Then again, we can also imagine this would be abused heavily to annoy other players.

As a whole, the game’s offset is very simple. You get dropped on the planet Valaka, and it’s your mission to exterminate the alien Arachnids and secure the planet once again. You’ll be part of the Vanguard that is supposed to achieve this goal, and you’ll have to complete objectives to do so. While the game does have a few different modes present already, they basically boil down to the same thing: complete objectives or gather materials, build a base, survive heavy Arachnid attacks, and get the hell out of there. This format was ideal for short bursts, and the game does already have a few new weapons and passive upgrades you can unlock.

You’ll be able to play as three different classes in the game, namely the Hunter, Bastion, and Operator, and the more you play with them, the more you can unlock for them. We were able to unlock new weapons and passive upgrades such as increased magazines for weapons, but also grenades, ammo fabricators, and so on. It’s fun that there is something to work towards, but the game’s content is also very limited at this point in time. You’ll quickly notice that matches will not hold that many surprises after a while, but it does make the game a fun pastime to play in-between bigger titles. Only the clumsy base building of other players may spice up some matches, as the layout of your base will probably be slightly different for each match you play.

Sadly, we’ll also have to address the elephant in the room for this online-only FPS title: other players. While Extermination does allow you to create a party of 16 people yourself, the chances are quite slim that you’ll easily achieve this lofty goal. This means that you’ll have to work together with other players, which is always an adventure. When we originally started off on the American servers, we were constantly bombarded by rude players nagging their way through the entire match. When we swapped over to the European servers, things suddenly turned a lot more pleasant, and the sessions also felt a lot more casual. Of course, you can simply turn off voice chat altogether, but it might be useful to be able to communicate with other players online when you’re in a pickle. During matches you’ll be able to choose out of five of the four-man squads to join, so you’ll also have to be quick if you and your friends all want to be in the same squad. Luckily, it doesn’t matter too much if you are not in the same squad, as all players will have to work together anyway to make it out alive.

Conclusion

We found Starship Trooper: Extermination to be a lot of fun, especially when you can muster together several people to stick close to in-game. For an Early Access title, the experience is already fairly polished, but as it stands now, the content is extremely limited. Even though we see great things for this squad-based FPS, we hope a lot of content gets added during its Eary Access period. That being said, if you like hectic shooters and love playing short matches, we suggest you keep following this one’s progress.

Ibuki

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Aspiring ninja.

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