Starship Troopers: Extermination. PREVIEW

Recently, a lot of shooters from independent developers, which are based on famous cinematic universes of the past, began to appear. What is interesting: these games please fans with increased attention to details, as well as to the general atmosphere and authenticity of what is happening.

First we saw Terminator: Resistance, dedicated to the world of dystopian future and the fight between people and machines. A little later we are expecting a game based on Robocop universe. And Starship Troopers: Extermination is between them.

The movie “Starship Troopers”, based on the book of the same name, is considered a failure. That, however, did not prevent it from becoming famous and gaining a lot of fans. And it is especially brightly felt in our area, where this movie was on tape at home at many people.

Few people, by the way, know that originally the book was about fighters in exoskeletons, and not about simple infantry, which was presented in the movie in 1997. But the authors from Offworld Industries decided to focus on conveying those feelings that were experienced by the characters of the movie.

In general, cooperative shooters have long been firmly established on the market. Every modern player knows such projects as Back 4 Blood, Darktide, Deep Rock Galactic, Warhammer: Vermintide 2 and many others.

Except there is one big “BUT”. While most of such projects provide an opportunity for players to overcome difficulties with four players, Starship Troopers: Extermination brings together as many as 16 players on one map.

This figure may not seem so big exactly until you see the realization of the idea in practice. Each match in the game is a natural meat grinder with silent shots, endless screams of characters about reloading weapons and, of course, bugs flying all over the place.

In fact, it’s really hard to put into words the fullness of the feeling of teamwork of the players. This is especially evident during the defense of the base from the horde of enemies or during the evacuation phase. At this time, those who have already reached their goal, trying their best to cover the fire of the lagging comrades, so that they can get to the place. It looks as much spectacular as it causes a sag in the game’s performance on any PC. But to be honest, when you see something like this, you truly believe it’s worth it every time.

There are three classes available to players when selecting their character.
Hunter: a fast stormtrooper that is equipped with a jetpack
Bastion: a local tank that can switch to turret mode
Operator: a support class that can heal allies and deliver resource containers without losing speed.
For each of the classes is presented pumping system. It includes both new weapon options and perks. Perks are able to strengthen certain aspects of the character. And at the moment they do not have negative effects. A lot of things on the progress bar are now marked as “in development”. So we can only guess what awaits players in the future. At the same time, no cosmetic customization of characters has not been implemented at the moment.

Separately it is worth noting the base building system, which is involved in both game modes. In general, it strongly resembles both Fortnite and any other survival game you know. Players place billets of available objects on the map, such as walls, bunkers, towers or automatic turrets. After that, comrades can speed up their construction by joining the work. And it is worth remembering that buildings are purchased for resources, which players need not only to get, but also to deliver to the base.

Each mission ends with an evacuation. At this stage, players all together must reach the waiting transportation. At the same time having only one life in reserve at this time, as the ability to respawn is simply taken away. Nevertheless, players often help each other to reach the desired goal. Pick up the wounded (even without respawning, you can still help a fellow player), cover such attempts with fire and generally try not to behave selfishly. All this gives an inexpressible atmosphere of combat brotherhood. Not all cooperative games can boast of this.

The graphics of the game are not starry-eyed. It looks quite natural, especially for such a setting. The color scheme does not give away acidity or fashionable bright cartoonishness, and in the heat of battle the enemies are quite distinguishable among the objects of the environment.

At the same time, there are enough small details on the map and you can see that it was made with great care and respect for the source material. There are destroyed buildings, and the remaining mini-scenes of battles that have already taken place here, and many other nice little things.

Special attention in the game is paid to weapons. And it is not surprising, because the project is developed by Squad authors. And that’s why every interaction with it, be it reloading or firing, cause sincere pleasure. Add to it realistic wiggling of the sight, influence of explosions and chaos around on your character’s accuracy, and emotions from battles become even more vivid.

There is no point in mentioning bugs and optimization now. Suffice it to say that there are problems with both the former and the latter. However, there is nothing critical that interferes with the enjoyment of the gameplay.

We know a lot of games based on movies or their universes. And Starship Troopers: Extermination definitely has an idea on the concept level much more interesting than similar projects of the past and present. It clearly won’t be a big breakthrough and won’t cause a hype for millions of players. But that doesn’t take away from the main thing.

The authors of the game have set the bar pretty high at the start. But whether they will be able to keep it, only time will show. But in any case, we’d like to say a huge thank you to them both for the fresh cooperative experience and one of the most authentic transfers of movie reality into an interactive form.