Look, I know we’ve had a Starship Troopers strategy game before. (It was Australian as well!) But that was back in 2000, and we’ve been well overdue some bug hunting since then. Fortunately, that’s where Starship Troopers: Terran Command comes in.
The new Starship Troopers RTS made a bit of noise a couple of years ago. Things have been relatively quiet since then, but late last week publishers Slitherine Games quietly put out a new snippet of gameplay from Terran Command, which is due out sometime this year.
It’s pretty straightforward stuff. We don’t see most of the UI, the broader story, resource management or how developers The Aristocrats (Order of Battle: World War II) are approaching Starship Troopers thematically. But it is a nice little snippet of how the troops move around, the kinds of AOE attacks and positioning you’ll be expected to deal with, and just some of the sounds of the game.
A day after that, however, Terran Command‘s publishers streamed a much larger snippet of gameplay with a developer Q&A. This offered a much deeper explanation of the kinds of units you’ll be able to recruit, different environments and scenarios. The end of the livestream, which you can view below, takes place in a bombed out urban location, which looks a lot more interesting to manage than the “hold a single chokepoint” design from the earlier trailer.
The design of the unit logos and the speed at which everything moves is giving me strong Company of Heroes vibes. That’s not hugely surprising: as one of the best strategy games ever made, it’s no surprise that other games would adopt Relic’s approach to cover, unit classes, movement and management. We still haven’t seen what the base and resource management looks like yet, so there’s a possibility that this all pans out more like Dawn of War 2 rather than a full RTS.
And I’d totally be fine with that: managing a limited number of squads, after all, is a perfect fit for the Starship Troopers universe. (The Steam description seems to indicate as much, too.)
Either way, if we get a strategy game that’s about as fun as Iron Harvest from last year — not GOTY material, but good enough to scratch that RTS itch — then I’ll be happy. The developers will be running waves of betas throughout the year, with the first one kicking off in March or April. You can sign up for that here, but just note that you’ll have to sign an NDA if you join up.
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