Are you ready to do your part, trooper? Then let's kill all the Bugs in Starship Troopers: Extermination! Read on to find out whether the early access game's gameplay, graphics, and soundtrack are worth buying in our review!

Starship Troopers: Extermination Review and Score Explanation

Starship Troopers: Extermination Score Explanation

Starship Troopers Extermination Review: Kill ‘Em All!

Starship Troopers: Extermination may be a licensed movie game, but it is one hell of a movie game. Though it’s still thin in terms of content, there’s enough of it for hardcore Starship Trooper fans to relive the Federation’s fight against the arachnid menace.

Also, with Offworld Industries of ‘Squad’ fame behind the development, online FPS players can be sure that there will be more content to come as the game is further developed. Overall, whether you’re a Starship Troopers fan or you’re into team-based PvE, we suggest you pick this game up if you don’t mind the small amount of content at the moment.

Starship Troopers: Extermination Full Game Review

Pros of Starship Troopers: Extermination

Things Starship Troopers: Extermination Got Right
Great Gameplay That Captures the Starship Troopers Experience Amazing Visuals Loaded With the Starship Troopers Aesthetic Massive Maps and Player Counts Great Soundtrack and Sound Design

Great Gameplay That Captures the Starship Troopers Experience

Even in early access, Starship Troopers: Extermination is hands-down one of the best co-op shooters of the year. From the start of a round to its finish, the game is steeped in the franchise’s atmosphere. You drop in via a dropship and are thrown immediately into the fray. Your squad is given semi-random objectives aimed at fulfilling your ultimate mission, while many bugs charge at you from all directions.

Once your objective is completed, usually you would have to hold out for a good amount of time while waiting for extraction. That’s when the base-building elements come in. Build walls, bunkers, turrets, electric fences, and whatever else you need to put more space between you and the bugs. There are a lot of Bugs, by the way. From the lowly Drone to the fierce Warrior, to the hulking Tiger and Grenadier Arachnids, you can’t take all of them on by yourself.

What’s also great about the gameplay is that there’s voice chat enabled, so you can roleplay with other players (or your own friends, since you can invite them into your personal session) as Rico’s Roughnecks, Rasczak’s Roughnecks, or whatever other groups you liked from the movies. At the very least, it allows for inter-squad coordination since the maps in this game are huge.

Massive Maps and Player Counts

Speaking of huge maps, all of them are set on the Planet Valaka, across stretches of what used to be Federal Colonies. Whenever a game begins, the AI sends you and your squad to complete objectives across this map. This can be pretty manageable if you’re playing on Easy Mode, but on Medium games, the objectives get a lot farther from where the rest of your unit is.

There can be times when you’ll have to fuel up an ARC to complete the mission, but the fuel is somewhere almost a kilometer away. So as a team, you’ll have to decide: should the whole unit go out there, or should you send out a squad instead while everyone else keeps the Bugs away from the mobile HQ?

So far, the game supports up to 16 players cooperating simultaneously. We hope that Offworld Industries will expand this number in the future, along with the bug counts. They’re good now, but they would be a lot better if there were more of them on screen at once.

Amazing Visuals Loaded With the Starship Troopers Aesthetic

Another thing that Offworld Industries got right with this game is the art direction. Each member of the Deep Space Vanguard looks like they’re ready to kick some alien butt, and they’re detailed according to their class. The Hunter is lightly armored but has a jetpack, the Bastion has many armored plates and big shoulder pads, and the Operator has a huge support pack right behind them.

The Bugs are no slouch in the design department either - all of them are rendered in an almost grotesque fashion, and they move in an unpredictable, erratic manner. Just like in the movies.

The maps are also very pretty to look at. Though they’re mostly situated in some sort of desert, the ruins of Federal Colonies and military bases sell the Starship Troopers movie’s aesthetic, making you feel like you really are on a mission to retake these places from the Bug menace. Also, before you load into a session, you will always see a news report from the Federal Network showing you what’s happening on the ground. It’s a really nice touch.

Great Soundtrack and Sound Design

Though there’s very little use of the soundtrack from the original Paul Verhoeven movie, Extermination makes its own tracks that are obviously inspired by it. There’s the main menu theme that illustrates the courage and valor of the DSV, the music that goes off whenever a firefight with the Bugs happens, and whenever the mission is about to end and you have to make a run for the extraction ship. All of them are bombastic military scores that really carry some of the sequences by filling you with pride and determination.

Though the game also knows when to be somber and subtle as well. For example, dying and losing in a game will make the Main Menu theme a softer, mournful piece. While you’re exploring the map toward your next objective, the music can get eerie, warning you of the foreboding danger.

Cons of Starship Troopers: Extermination

Things That Starship Troopers: Extermination Can Improve
Small Amount of Available Content Gameplay Can Get Repetitive Several (Game) Bugs Still Present

Small Amount of Available Content

As of this writing, Starship Troopers: Extermination has only one or two (big) maps, three character classes, and some weapons, equipment, and perks between each of them. The content development is in such an early state that the late stages of the tech trees for each of the character classes have ‘In development’ written on them.

For now, this is what players of the game will have to content themselves with, though Offworld Industries is bound to release a content roadmap just like what they did for Squad. If you bought the game this early, be prepared to take breaks after playing the same two maps over and over again. It’ll get better over time, but that time couldn’t come fast enough.

Gameplay Can Get Repetitive

The gameplay loop is essentially “Arrive in dropship> Kill Bugs > Escape in spaceship > Gain better stuff to kill more Bugs with > Arrive in dropship” ad nauseam. Though this follows closely what a soldier of the Federation would’ve probably been doing in real life, video game players might find this repetitive with the two game modes currently on offer: AAS and ARC Slam.

Hopefully the ‘Horde’ mode (where you’ll be holding out against a relentless swarm of bugs for as long as you can) arrives soon to mix up the gameplay a bit.

Several (Game) Bugs Still Present

Let me start this by saying there is an amazing lack of bugs (both with and without the capital ‘B’) in this game, despite it still being in early access. No crashes, and no glitches whatsoever. Sometimes though, strange things happen.

Like, for example, I was playing this game and no Arachnids appeared on screen for the good part of three minutes. The game was still waiting for the sole ore refinery we were getting resources from to stop cooling down. Offworld Industries will have to look at events like this and fix whatever’s causing them since dead moments kill player immersion.

Starship Troopers: Extermination Overview & Premise

You are part of the Deep Space Vanguard, an elite group within the Federation’s Mobile Infantry, that is tasked with high-risk missions that will help humanity’s efforts against the Arachnid menace! You will be dropped into abandoned Federation colonies, where hundreds of thousands of bugs will descend upon you. But fear not, trooper! As you will be armed with the best weapons the Federation has to offer.

Developed by Offworld Industries, the same guys behind the acclaimed team-based FPS ‘Squad’, Starship Troopers: Extermination puts you into the boots of an elite Federation soldier. You and 15 other players will be tasked to help gather resources, detect sites of enemy activity, and ultimately find the hives they are coming from. Of course, what’s a game without hordes of massive Arachnids or ‘Bugs’ barreling down on you at every moment? The game will throw hundreds of these guys at your squad all at once, and it’ll be up to you to not get overwhelmed.

The game mixes online FPS gameplay with RTS base-building. Need to defend a position until the dropship arrives for your extraction? Put up a few fences, bunkers, and turrets to keep the Bugs at bay. You will also have access to three different soldier types - each one with its unique abilities that could spell between victory and becoming a Bug’s breakfast. So far, it is shaping up to be a very faithful and entertaining addition to the many games set in the Starship Troopers universe. So do your part, and buy the game today!

Who Should Play Starship Troopers: Extermination?

Starship Troopers: Extermination is Recommended if You Enjoy:

• Starship Troopers: Terran Command
• Deep Rock Galactic
• The Earth Defense Force series

Starship Troopers: Extermination will prove to be a hell of a good time for fans of the Starship Troopers films, as well as the recently-released RTS Starship Troopers: Terran Command. If you’re not a Starship Troopers fan, then maybe you’ve already been rock and stoning while killing hordes of bugs. If Deep Rock Galactic is your go-to for bug-squashing action, then give this game a try too.

Maybe you’re more used to killing bugs and other aliens in Earth Defense Force? Starship Troopers: Extermination may not have the EDF series’ destructibility, but it captures the feeling of fighting against insurmountable odds perfectly.

Is Starship Troopers: Extermination Worth It?

Starship Troopers: Extermination Will Be Worth It Eventually

For $25, Starship Troopers: Extermination is pretty cheap, though there’s not much variety in terms of content at the moment. Still, considering that it’s in early access, there’s still a lot more to add. So if you’re willing to wait, there will eventually be more content in the future for you to play around with.

If you’re a hardcore Starship Troopers fan, then by all means, grab this game. If not, then you can afford to wait around for a bit until all three initial game modes are in, along with the perks for all the trooper classes.

How Starship Troopers: Extermination Matches Up to Recently-Released Games

Games That Came Out Recently	Pros	Cons
Darkest Dungeon 2	Starship Troopers: Extermination proved to be a much more thrilling experience, especially since you could play it with people online or with friends.	But you'll get more hours out of Darkest Dungeon 2, and people who simply don't like sci-fi would probably be better off buying this game instead.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom	Considering how TotK is on a separate system entirely, maybe you could instead spare a few more dollars for Starship Troopers: Extermination for your computer? Both of them are great games.	Then again, TotK is what you'd want to play if you don't want to feel too overwhelmed by lots of enemies on the screen at once.
Game 3	I enjoyed Starship Troopers: Extermination more than The Outlast Trials, if only because I got to shoot bugs and I'm a Starship Troopers fan myself.	But The Outlast Trials has a stronger atmosphere, and it also has a bit of a thought-provoking story (at least compared to what we're served with Extermination).

How Starship Troopers: Extermination Matches Up to Similar Games

Games Similar to Starship Troopers: Extermination	Pros	Cons
Starship Troopers: Terran Command	If you want your action with the Bugs up close, Starship Troopers: Extermination would be much, much better.	But if you want more varied content and like being a commander rather than a pair of boots on the ground, then Terran Command would be much better to play instead.
Deep Rock Galactic	Starship Troopers branding aside, Extermination is a militarized version of DRG, so why not get both games for your bug-stomping pleasure?	The only thing DRG has over Extermination though is that DRG features fully diggable underground levels - something Extermination could very well implement in a future update.
EDF Series	Starship Troopers: Extinction is essentially a more grounded take on EDF. If you want a more 'realistic' bug shooter, then Extinction is the game for you.	But if you want to have superpowered mechs, massive bombs, and even more massive guns, then pick up an EDF game and save the planet Earth from the alien menace.

Starship Troopers: Extermination Trailer

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Starship Troopers: Extermination Product Information

Title	STARSHIP TROOPERS: EXTERMINATION
Release Date	May 17, 2023
Developer	Offworld Industries
Supported Platforms	PC
Genre	Cooperative First-Person Shooter
Number of Players	1-16
ESRB Rating	Not Available
Official Website	https://starshiptroopersextermination.com/

Michael Mendoza Ab..

Reviews video games by day, tries to write novels by night. He's a sucker for open-world games (Bethesda Fallout titles, Mount and Blade Bannerlord, Grand Theft Auto), CRPGs (Planescape: Torment, Disco Elysium), and First-Person Shooters (Call of Duty, Battlefield, and immersive sims like Bioshock..