Starship Troopers has some pretty cool games, and Starship Troopers: Extermination is easily the most interesting one out there. The excellent worldbuilding of Starship Troopers is in full force here, and the developers at Offworld Industries have picked the best genre to show it off.
Starship Troopers Extermination is a co-op first person shooter, where squads of troopers take on the hordes of Arachnids across vast planets in a brutal battle for survival. This game launched in Early Access in 2023, and it took me a while to finally get around to trying it out. I am glad I waited, because Extermination has come a long way since its Early Access launch. It left Early Access earlier this month, and despite some performance problems I have been enjoying this more than I expected to.
Starship Troopers: Extermination might ‘just’ be a co-op FPS, but that is taking it lightly. There’s a surprising amount of depth into its gameplay, more so than many competitors out there. For starters, Extermination favors the defensive approach and players can craft sprawling bases on maps to fortify their positions. The Troopers are vastly outnumbered by the Arachnid swarms, and I love the way Offworld has approached the player’s style. What’s also different is the lack of PVP. You’re fighting massive armies of AI-controlled bugs, not opposing players. When people have to work together instead of screwing each other over like in other games.
Even with the varied unit classes, you’re still going up against a more powerful and numerous enemy. Being able to build lines of support to backup the army is great, adding a tower defense element to the standard multiplayer shooter model. With players having to work together in up to 16 player co-op to complete missions, it is a great example of how gameplay can organically show a world’s story more than a narrative. It is a subtle approach and Extermination is a stronger game for that. As players complete missions, they unlock upgrades, gear, and cosmetics to enhance their trooper’s capabilities and appearance.
Starship Troopers: Extermination is one of those co-op titles that is top heavy in favor of multiplayer gameplay, and while I always prefer solo games over co-op, Offworld Industries made the right decision here. There is an excellent tutorial to help newcomers learn all the mechanics. This helps a lot, as many of these online games throw players into the fray without much tutoring, expecting you to pick up the pieces. With Extermination prioritizing teamwork over enemies, I was quite impressed with the tutorial. The building tutorial also goes into decent length on the ‘turtling’ part of the game.
Starship Troopers: Extermination has struggled since hitting the big 1.0, with many players having major problems with performance since the upgrade to Unreal Engine 5. While I have experienced a few framerate drops during intense firefights, my greatest issue was connecting to a mission. Often I experienced waiting times of over 10 minutes to jump into a mission, although once I was in I had no problems with disconnects. With this in mind, it might be worth waiting for some more patches before diving into the game. There is a good game here.
