Starship Troopers: Extermination Review – I Don’t Want to Live Forever

On some level, you have to pity Offworld’s Starship Troopers: Extermination. Entering early access last year in May, it garnered some decent attention as one of the better adaptations of the movie’s action. Sixteen players in a single match, near-relentless hordes of bugs with their corpses persisting and piling high – it all sounded rather promising despite the technical issues and bugs.

Of course, then Helldivers 2 launched earlier this year. It made no bones about its inspiration, twisting it to deliver clever satire while offering high-octane battlefields with objective variety, exceptional production values, fun weapons, and an addictive gameplay loop.

"Right away, the lack of soul or pretty much anything charming about the franchise is evident."

Comparisons between Helldivers 2 and Starship Troopers: Extermination are perhaps inevitable. While their gameplay is different, I believe the latter has some significant problems and would struggle to shine even if the former didn’t launch earlier this year. There’s some potential, but it’s buried under a load of metaphorical and literal bugs, bad design decisions, repetitive action, and continued performance issues.

Starship Troopers: Extermination doesn’t have a “story” per se. The Galactic Front is perhaps the closest equivalent to any direction, with the discovery of some planet filled with bugs, which the United Citizen Federation wants to cleanse (shocking. However, it’s more of a long-running community goal that awards cosmetics. How it will affect the long-term plot is unknown, but it currently boils down to participating in matchmade missions non-stop to earn Victory Points. Unfortunately, this is also handled poorly due to the Company feature, but we’ll get to that.

Right away, the lack of soul or pretty much anything charming about the franchise is evident. Sure, you have those faux news broadcasts before missions and decals that unenthusiastically proclaim that the “only good bug is a dead bug,” but that’s it. There’s very little chatter between Troopers during missions. The Arachnids at least come across as threatening enough, so there’s that.

From the outset, you can select a randomly generated mission to matchmake for or opt for Quick Play, which will take you anywhere. You want to focus on the former upon reaching higher ranks, which offer higher-difficulty missions that net more XP. They could have more challenging modifiers like increased Tiger Bugs, Grenadier Ambushes, or explosive melee attacks, but successful completion means significant gains in progress.

"The mindlessness can feel somewhat appealing, even if it removes whatever dynamism the other mission types would present. The underwhelming number of building options also doesn’t help the later waves feel more exciting."

Why not separate the difficulties and award increased XP based on the same? Probably to funnel players into certain objective types. A typical Extermination run involves landing on the planet, capturing some territory or setting up a mining rig, and then building up your base to defend against the Arachnid hordes until your Arc generator gathers intel. As time passes and objectives are complete, you’ll face larger waves of enemies. The final phase is often an unrelenting assault, and whether you’re successful or not, it culminates in an extraction.

Combat is first-person, but there are some elements of real-time strategy mixed in. After setting up a base, you need to mine and transport Ore canisters to it to build walls, turrets, ammo crates, etc. Sometimes, you must harness fuel canisters to power the Arc and begin its grand analysis. Unfortunately, said mining rigs are often hundreds of meters away, necessitating constant back and forth.

Unless you’re rocking with a group doing their best Navy Seals impressions, it can turn into a chaotic mess of slaughtering Arachnids, hauling resources, repairing defenses, reloading turrets and weapons, and questioning whether all this is really worth the Citizenship.

Some more straightforward missions provide a base from the outset and send waves of enemies with increased attack modifiers. It functions more like traditional Horde mode, as you earn resources after every wave to spend on improving your base. The mindlessness can feel somewhat appealing, even if it removes whatever dynamism the other mission types would present. The underwhelming number of building options also doesn’t help the later waves feel more exciting.

"As such, the gameplay does have its moments, especially when visibility is obscured by alien gunk and screen shakes as corpses pile up and explosions go off."

The gunplay is serviceable, though the number of times I wished my character would reload while continuing to ADS is too high. Unlike, say, Helldivers 2, you have multiple classes, each with unique perks, weapons, and unlocks, which I like. There’s enough distinction between the Guardian, who specializes in staggering Arachnids with machine-gun fire and setting up a fortified position, and the Ranger, who can boost around and detect emerging bugs with their sensor.

Unfortunately, they all start rather underwhelming, and you must grind XP to unlock their essentials, like a perk that halves melee damage from enemies for the Guardian. It wouldn’t be an issue if each class didn’t have to be leveled separately, further feeding into the repetition and monotony of replaying missions that offer increased XP. I’m fine with weapon XP, but why not divide every class into different skill trees where earning XP nets Skill Points? These can then unlock the required perks, and maybe even allow some mixing and matching to spice up the variety.

It’s obvious why Starship Troopers: Extermination goes for the current class setup. It wants to reinforce the squad mentality, with players presumably filling different roles. While not the worst approach to balance, it doesn’t help the tedious leveling (and if your allies don’t have the tools for busting heavily armored Arachnids, it’s GG).

As such, the gameplay does have its moments, especially when visibility is obscured by alien gunk and screen shakes as corpses pile up and explosions go off. I also like how some of the larger foes are actual threats. Even if it’s frustrating in the early going without the necessary survival tools, you have to worry about the positions of Grenadiers and leverage high ground against Warriors and other threats in melee range.

"While you can make a Company all by yourself, there’s no system for adding friends or even an in-game directory for finding other players."

However, the performance is simply abysmal. Despite going above and beyond the recommended requirements on PC, it nose dives when things get hot. While it necessitated dropping the quality significantly to approach anything resembling playable, the results were still underwhelming. Then there are all the other issues, from bugs simply teleporting out of nowhere to rubber-banding when they’re not standing around admiring the weather.

Capping all of this off is the Company system. To participate in the Galactic Front, you earn Victory Points from missions and Company Operations. The latter is initiated with Intel and can provide additional objectives and Medals for more VP, which contributes to advancing the Front. This goes much faster with more players in your Company since you can pool Intel.

While you can make a Company all by yourself, there’s no system for adding friends or even an in-game directory for finding other players. Instead, you need to count on the game randomly recommending players to join. Create your own Company, and the option to join other Companies completely disappears.

"It may have a different gameplay loop, but stick with Helldivers 2 if you want anything remotely resembling a compelling Starship Troopers experience."

It’s possible to matchmake with other players’ companies, but the wait times for my own Operations didn’t make it worth it. As a take on Clans, Companies are simply terrible, presenting a significant barrier to anyone who wants to grind away on the Galactic Front. Not that the rewards (three underwhelming cosmetics) are necessarily worth it right now.

After exiting early access, Starship Troopers: Extermination is indeed pitiful, just by sheer virtue of its slow progression, asinine Company system, performance issues, and jank. The positives are whelming at best, but perhaps the worst part is that it just fails to immerse you in the universe, much less like anything you do matters. It may have a different gameplay loop, but stick with Helldivers 2 if you want anything remotely resembling a compelling Starship Troopers experience.

This game was reviewed on PC.