Starship Troopers: Extermination Review

Another PvE multiplayer shooter has been fully released. Starship Troopers: Extermination has lofty goals—it has 16-player co-op and battles hordes of bugs, as well as base-building mechanics. The game is based on the movie of the same name, which is based on the novel. You'll see some good campy cutscenes before each match that offer a nice atmosphere, but no story or worldbuilding compares it to Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.

Despite its low box office performance, the original film is jam-packed with wonderful characters, action, and a sense of awesomeness. The message about fascism is plainly intended to be humorous, but it is not meant to be taken seriously.

It's a shame Starship Troopers: Extermination lacks a campaign mode. The Galactic Front offers the closest approach to a story, with players striving to clean up a bug-infested planet for the United Citizen Federation.

However, a single-player campaign with 25 missions is expected to be released in the near future. Casper Van Dien has returned as Juan Rico, which is fantastic, but he is only in the training phase right now. I sincerely hope they bring him back, along with Jake Busey as Ace, for a full single-player adventure.

Unfortunately, The Galactic Front is more of a community goal that rewards cosmetics, so its impact on the long-term plot is uncertain. Players receive victory points by completing matchmade assignments, but the corporate feature slows their progress.

So, then, is Starship Troopers: Extermination worth your time and cash? Well, that depends. Core, at its center, lies a game about teaming up with 15 other troopers to drop into bug-infested planets and check off some objectives, main missions, side missions, and a pretty wild horde mode for when you're craving chaos.

The flow is simple: build a base, fend off swarms of angry bugs, and pray your team at least vaguely knows what they're doing. When everything goes according to plan, the action can be quite exhilarating inside a swarm. For example, after a time, it feels like you do the same dance with yet another bug.

From the start, you can choose between randomly generated missions and quick play, which will place you in an ongoing match. As your rank increases, more difficult missions become available, with modifiers such as harsher tiger bug ambushes or explosive melee attacks. While higher-difficulty missions offer more XP, the system is poorly handled, most likely in an attempt to direct players into specific mission types.

A typical Extermination mission includes arriving on the planet, conquering territory or establishing a mining rig, and constructing a base to fight against spider waves. As targets are met, the waves grow larger and culminate in an extraction phase. The combat is adequate, but real-time strategy components, such as transporting resource cans to the base or raising turrets, may soon devolve into chaos—especially without a well-coordinated crew.

You can pick from three different classes: Assault, Heavy, and Support, each has unique strengths, weaknesses, and progression paths. The Assault class is a conventional soldier with a decent balance of mobility and firepower, similar to the movie's classic characters.

The Heavy class is built for defense, and it comes with abilities such as building walls to block knockback, making it crucial during base defenses. The Support class can heal teammates and deploy supporting drones to enable them during more complex missions.

As you progress, you continue leveling up your class and unlock new perks, abilities, and a variety of guns, adding some replay value. However, the classes do not feel particularly differentiated at first, and the pace of progression toward better gear is slow. Also worth noting is the fact that jetpacks—the signature trait of Assault class soldiers—run out of juice fairly fast and may frustrate players looking for more vertical freedom of movement.

The gameplay is intense, particularly during enormous bug attacks, which evoke those frenzied scenes from the film. Starship Troopers: Extermination has a great range of tasks, although they all follow a similar structure: acquire resources, create a base, defend against bugs, and eventually evacuate.

This is where base building brings the strategic touch into play. You can build defenses and barricades to protect your squad, which is critical during those frantic closing seconds. However, there isn't any actual task variety in the game, making sessions feel a bit the same-ish after some time. There is currently no campaign or narrative-driven option, prompting many users to wonder when a story mode will be available.

The official release has some cool features. The added Carnage System now scatters Bug corpses over the battlefield, generating additional obstacles and altering how foes navigate the landscape. Plus, the class advancement system has been redesigned, allowing you to gain new weapons, tools, and cosmetics as you progress. There's also the Inferno Bug added for you to fight.

Starship Troopers: Extermination currently works fine in its official release, although it requires a few stability patches. I've observed minor graphical errors while pointing down the sights, and there are occasionally floating rocks or strange shadows.

Performance is another issue. Starship Troopers: Extermination's performance drops dramatically during heated periods. I had to substantially reduce the visual quality, but even so, the results weren't great.

Bugs would teleport at random, rubber-banding was rampant, and the arachnids would sometimes stand around admiring the weather. This is compounded by the clunky company system, which doesn't have basic functionality such as adding friends or an in-game directory.

However, the biggest issue I encountered was when I tried to queue up with friends. The game kicked one of us out without fail. In the end, I was not able to queue up with anyone from my friend list on Steam, so this review comes from a solo queue perspective. This is disappointing for a game that can only be played in co-op mode.

Visually, however, the Arachnids themselves look just like they did in the movies, which is awesome. The AI can be a little dense at times, but when the waves hit you, it seems like you're in a movie, which is fantastic. You can go to multiple planets and a moon, I believe. There are a few thousand players on Steam and perhaps more on consoles, but the primary issue is the pricing.

Oddly, however, Starship Troopers: Extermination’s price was increased from $30 to $50. While I'm a huge Starship Troopers fan and enjoy this game, I don't think it's worth $50. There's more to spend on DLC for cosmetic packs. Leveling up your classes allows you to access new visor colors, outfit colors, and helmet decals.

They're not spectacular, but they're there, giving you something to strive for. However, the better-looking cosmetics are hidden behind a paywall, which is ludicrous. I have yet to encounter a player in the wild who has bought one of the premium cosmetic packs.

I might have overlooked the performance issues if the game looked good for the hardware it required. However, the visual and animation departments are simply unimpressive. Everything turns brown and dull, while other players' animations are stuttery and stiff.

One major missed opportunity with this game was not getting the rights to the movie soundtrack. It would be nothing short of divine to hear the original Starship Troopers theme music while being invaded by Arachnids.

There's the ability to create your own Company in Starship Troopers: Extermination, but matchmaking is inconsistent, leaving you waiting upwards of several minutes at a time. Mining Galactic Front rewards is simply not worth the time it takes; all you get is a few subpar cosmetics.

Surprisingly, Starship Troopers: Extermination is worse than before now that the full release is here. The performance issues, lack of content, and bland visuals make it a tough sell at full price. I can't deny that the game is fun when you are into it, but it's not $50 worth of fun. However, Offworld seems determined to address many problems in future patches.

While I hate to make this comparison, you ought to have a lot more fun playing a game like Helldivers 2 or even Space Marine 2. If you are a fan of the Starship Troopers franchise, it would be best to wait until the bugs and performance issues are dealt with or until there is a price cut.