It’s no secret that Helldivers 2 borrows a lot from Starship Troopers. The game’s galactic war against bugs, thinly veiled critique of fascism, and over-the-top action are all staples of the 1997 film. Arrowhead’s beloved shooter wears this inspiration on its sleeve, but before the bombastic co-op game even came out, the universe of Heinlein’s novel was already being adapted into something very familiar. Starship Troopers Extermination has been quietly chugging away in Steam Early Access for over a year now, and with the full 1.0 launch looming, there are plenty of massive changes coming.
If this is the first you’re hearing of Starship Troopers Extermination, here’s how it works. You and 15 other players drop into a world inhabited by Arachnid bugs, and after picking a class you can build bases, complete objectives, and blast away oceans of aliens with tense FPS action. If you’re reading this because you’ve played a lot of Helldivers 2, it’s incredibly similar. There are just more players, classes, base building, and a permanent first-person perspective.
As revealed during the Future Games Show though, the universe of Starship Troopers Extermination is about to get much bigger. The co-op shooter leaves Steam Early Access in October, and developer Offworld is making the jump with two major additions: single-player and the Galactic Front metagame.
The new single-player mode comes with three NPCs to help you during missions, which Offworld says are designed to guide you through the basic mechanics. At the launch of 1.0 there’ll be 25 missions with more after release, but what really sets this mode apart is the return of a legend. That’s right, Casper Van Dien, who plays Johnny Rico in the films, is back and helping the Special Operations Group – your newly formed unit for the game. So he’ll be barking orders at you throughout the campaign.
Then 1.0 is also getting the Galactic Front. This is a metagame campaign not dissimilar to the one in Helldivers 2, where you form clans and jump into massive online games. These can be with friends or random players, and each uses modifiers to make things harder or easier while upping your rewards. There’s a big branching story with major objectives to reach as a community, and Offworld says if you fail, you miss out. Story extras and major rewards might come back around, but the team wants to make them feel important, and use community feedback to further the system.
Ahead of 1.0 Offworld also introduced what it calls the persistent carnage system. This means that every single bug you kill remains on the map, creating ever-expanding piles of corpses during gameplay. Arachnids can use this to get over your base walls and you can use it to block off choke points, or even blast through mounds of bugs to create tunnels to climb through. Offworld adds that it’s exploring the possibility of expanding the carnage system, but that the team wants to maintain the server load and player framerates, with bigger carnage potentially upending that.
From what I saw of Starship Troopers Extermination during the preview event, Offworld’s co-op shooter is expanding at the perfect time. It’s already different enough from Helldivers 2, but swooping in months later with a single-player mode, bigger lobbies, and a selection of classes makes quite the difference. Arrowhead brought the broad ideas to the most people, but Starship Troopers Extermination has the chance to offer up some solid competition.
Starship Troopers Extermination comes to Steam 1.0 on Friday October 11, but the game is playable in early access right now, and can be found right here.
If you want to wait for the full launch, there are plenty of great multiplayer games and co-op games to play in the meantime.
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