Earlier this morning, developer-publisher Offworld Industries announced Starship Troopers: Extermination, a 12-player PVE multiplayer shooter it has on the way.
I know there are at least a few readers of a certain age that sat bolt-upright hearing that.
It’s called Starship Troopers: Extermination and hark, a trailer:
It’s exactly what it sounds like on the tin: a wholesale embracing of Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 film adaptation of Heinlein’s aggressively militaristic novel. The game is a 12-player PVE shooter based very much on a set-piece battle from the middle of the film, in which hero Johnny Rico and the Roughnecks bunker down against an overwhelming surge of insect-like alien enemies. Players select from a handful of trooper classes and attempt to hold back waves of insect-like enemies The American Way (read: infinite bullets and the power of unshakeable self-belief).
If you’ve seen the movie, you know the scene that inspired this entire game. It basically inspired the Horde game mode on its own. Imagine that scene, but applied to a handful of different dusty locations and you’ve got the length and breadth of the pitch here.
Verhoeven’s film flipped the propagandist elements of Heinlein’s novel, turning it into a darkly comic satire of the rapacious meatgrinder that is the American military-industrial complex. Indeed, the frisson between the film and its source material makes it one of the more interesting and successful film adaptations ever made.
Based on the trailers, Starship Troopers: Extermination doesn’t seem to care much about the political headbutting between the novel and the film. At 14, when I first saw the film, neither did I, if I’m honest. Most guys my age didn’t. The movie involved copious amounts of violence and boobs and that was all any of us cared about. But what I remember clearly is numerous conversations with friends about how much we wanted a Starship Troopers game, based purely on the fortress scene. Mods and homebrew game types got there first, StarCraft inundated with modes where Terrans held fortified locations against waves of Zerg enemies for 30 minutes or more to secure victory.
It was only after I revisited the film in my 20s that I realised what it had been trying to say, and that it was the opposite of what teenage David (and many other guys his age) had taken from it. Indeed, even calling it Extermination kind of betrays that maybe the game doesn’t fully understand what the film was going for. But maybe it does! I don’t know, I haven’t played it yet! I hope it does! I hope it’s in on the satirical joke!
The team-based PVE shooter has been popular in the last few years. Back 4 Blood tried (and it seems failed) to capitalise on Left 4 Dead‘s enduring popularity. Fat Shark’s new Warhammer 40K: Darktide 4-player PVE title drops later this week. There’s certainly demand for this kind of game, and Extermination‘s 12-player approach would certainly set it apart.
Anyway, it seems like someone finally went ahead and started work on the game we all had in our heads 25 years ago. Starship Troopers: Extermination has no confirmed release date at this time, but you can find it on Steam.
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