If you’re a die-hard Starship Troopers fan, chances are I was already working with you on the front lines of Valaka in the early days of Starship Troopers: Extermination’s Early Access launch. For those of us who know who Casper Van Dien is, the long toil, the very limited objective and mission types, and the old-fashioned shooting never let us do our part. It didn’t deter me. Because we work together as a team to blast huge waves. Bugs have a powerful appeal as you build your base and hightail to safety. But for those who aren’t, there may not be much reason to stop by just yet.
Decades after the events of Paul Wierhoeven’s cult sci-fi classic Starship Troopers, the arachnid threat still looms large, threatening human safety every minute of every day. want to know more? Well, Extermination doesn’t have much more to tell, but it does at least answer the question, “What would happen if you and her fifteen companions were thrown directly into chaos?” The answer is inconclusive at best, but the base-building mechanics add an interesting tower-defense-style angle to the delightfully simple running and gunning.
Perhaps the first and biggest disappointment with Extermination is that it’s so similar to the 1997 film, but completely devoid of satirical content. There are plenty of references to the film, from the soldier’s equipment, to the breaking news blaring before a new round, to the soundtrack, but the similarities are mostly superficial. Some might consider the old-school shooter feel (lacking modern shooters’ auto-regen and dash happy moves) and mandatory friendly fire to be an attempt at satire, but that seems like an exaggeration. .
With no story to tell, and literally just showing up to shoot bugs over and over again, this movie, like it did in war movies, masks the “headless” struggles typical of this kind of team shooter. I won’t try. This may be fine for die-hard fans of the Starship Trooper series, but it feels like a clear lost opportunity for a brand deeply committed to treating genre cliches as critical mirrors. .
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Two mission types will be available at the start of Early Access. The first is Attack and Security (AAS). This gives teams a series of faster, more maneuverable objectives that they must capture and hold different points in different parts of the map. They’re light and fast in combat, but I’ve found them to be prone to weird bugs (apart from the ones that try to kill you). For example, a common goal is to have an ore refinery that produces tanks activated and guarded, then escorted to the base every 30 seconds. Any processor can do this several times before needing a few minutes of cooling. It’s fine if you have multiple processors active at the same time, but I often see the whole team standing around his one refinery, fiddling with his thumbs. The proverb is “Do you want to do it?” live eternally? “Do you want to?” instead of ” hang on eternally? “
The second mission type, ARC, refines resources on the map to maintain power while keeping the primary objective in one place. More adjustments will be required, and we will be working on both combat and building mechanics more often. That said, it’s locked at the account level, so it took about an hour and a half of game time to unlock it. This seems like too much for half the amount of content available.
Both available mission types end with the team building a base around the property to protect it from waves of terribly bland intruders. There are 5 types of bugs so far, but 3 of them are practically the same types of melee warriors when it comes to how to deal with them. However, Gunners and Grenadiers are relatively rare, which shakes the formula up a bit as threats from range are always prioritized in the field.
In addition to the same buggy menu, both mission types share most of the same limited amount of sub-objectives. In other words, both modes do the same things in roughly the same way. This is mainly why I prefer his AAS mode. The tactical element added by ARC mode only reveals how shallow the list of things to do at any given moment in Extinction is.
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The base building system is very simple, building walls, bunkers, turrets, etc. is as easy as dropping a template and fabricating parts with repair tools. This intuitiveness is great because once bugs start breaking through your defenses, there is little room to repair or rebuild your defenses. However, anything you place can be altered or destroyed by others, so you’ll need to coordinate with your team on how to lay out your strongholds.
Once the ARC has finished its mission (or is destroyed before that), it will begin a frantic sprint towards its extraction point. Meanwhile, self-resurrection is disabled and bugs begin to proliferate more. These escape dashes always feel reasonably hopeless and dangerous, and the tension builds each time, even if the only reward for a successful escape is more meta-progression points than if you were killed in action.
In Extermination, it’s incredibly easy to die while doing well. Your weapon is enough to kill bugs, but even a team of 16 players can be overwhelmed by the enormity of the bug threat. This makes the Operator class the most valuable of his three classes available in Early Access. Because healing is so valuable, and trying to get a fallen soldier back up without a crutch resurrection drone is often a risk not worth taking.
The other two classes, Hunter and Bulwark, each have unique capabilities in their jetpacks and deployable mobile fortresses, but don’t have the same obvious value as healers. Additionally, their offensive abilities are indistinguishable from each other until well down the tech tree, with unique weapons and passive perks locked behind XP gates. After about 15 hours of playtime, I’m around Tier 6 in the Hunter and Operator classes. This means that in addition to your standard grenade, you have another primary and secondary weapon option, perks you can equip, and additional equipment such as thermal mines. My Bulwark is Tier 11 and is starting to prove itself as a class that can support itself by laying down gates that stun enemies or unleash a unique big punch with the Nuclear Det Pack. Classes max out at level 20, so if you want to unlock everything, you’re going to have to work your best.
With so many bugs and players on screen across huge maps at once, Extermination runs surprisingly consistently. It is not without glitches. I got stuck on a fair amount of terrain. But the only serious bugs I encountered on a regular basis were of the giant, explosive variety. However, the lobby menu is a little more frustrating. Loadouts and gameplay settings are reset every time you quit and restart, so you’ll need to re-equip your weapons and perks and readjust your mouse sensitivity and sound options at the start of each session. . This is very annoying.
