Starship Troopers: Extermination — ReviewOptimized cooperative shooting against massive alien swarms delivers intense action across twelve levels, yet shallow progression and repetitive maps restrict long-term engagement.

The first time I got killed by a bug, I was still thinking "this is way too easy." By the tenth death, I started wondering if I should switch to a different game. By the fiftieth death—I finally learned what "tactical retreat" means. Starship Troopers: Extermination is exactly that kind of game. It tells you in the most direct way: you're not a superhero, you're just a soldier who can die.

This feeling of "being mortal" has become rare in 2024 shooters.

The core of cooperative shooting is broken down into three words here: stay alive.

Four people team up against hundreds of bugs. Sounds like a musou game, plays more like tower defense—you need to find cover, manage sightlines, count ammunition. When bullets run out, you're down to melee; when the blade breaks, you can only run. That sense of desperation, being chased across the map by a swarm, is something I've never experienced in Call of Duty. The class system adds some variation. Medics can deploy healing stations, engineers can build turrets, assault troops can carry more ammo. But honestly, these differences get flattened by the single goal of "survival" on higher difficulties. You'll find everyone ends up doing the same thing: hold this damn position, don't let the bugs break through.

That's also where the problem lies—gameplay depth stops here. No skill trees, no equipment affixes, even weapon customization only has three slots. What you can do at hour five isn't much different from hour fifty. The game's "sense of progression" doesn't come from your character getting stronger, but from you learning how not to throw.

Is that enough? For some people, yes. For others, no.

The bugs are done well, the humans are done poorly.

The modeling and animation of those alien insects really had effort put into them—you can see the details of their legs when they crawl on walls, you can see the direction of bodily fluids splattering when they're blown apart. But the moment the camera turns to a teammate's face, you feel like you're looking at a 2018 game. The environments have a similar sense of disconnect. Sandstorms, alien terrain, abandoned bases—these large scenes create atmosphere well, but once you get close and look at the details, the flaws show—blurry textures, crude models, harsh lighting. This game's graphics budget was clearly spent on "distant views" and "bugs," cutting corners everywhere else.

The optimization is surprisingly good though. I ran it at 1080p high settings on a mid-range graphics card, with frame rates stable above 60, not dropping even with hundreds of bugs on screen. By today's AAA game standards, that's already pretty conscientious.

But conscientious doesn't equal good-looking. This game's graphics quality doesn't match its price tag.

12 main campaign levels, takes about 8 hours to complete. And then? Then you repeat these same 12 levels, crank up the difficulty and do it all over again.

No side missions, no hidden elements, not even story branches. The game's "content" is just permutations of these 12 maps—grind the desert today, grind the base tomorrow, grind the caves the day after. Weapon unlocks require grinding, skin unlocks require grinding, achievement unlocks still require grinding.

This kind of design is hard to accept in 2024. It's not that grinding is inherently bad, but you need to give me some motivation to grind—Deep Rock Galactic has procedurally generated maps, Left 4 Dead has the AI Director system, what does this game have? Fixed enemy spawn points, fixed mission sequences, fixed boss fights. By the third run, I could already recite which hole the bugs crawl out of.

The only variable is your teammates. Match with skilled players, 8-minute clear; match with feeders, 20-minute wipe. This game's replayability depends entirely on people.

There's a plot, but you won't care.

The opening CG tells you bugs have invaded and humanity is fighting back. Then you go shoot bugs. Before each mission there's a brief task briefing, after each mission there's a brief battle report. That's it.

No character development, no emotional buildup, not even bothering with plot twists. The only purpose this game's story serves is to give you a reason "why you're shooting bugs." But honestly, I don't need a reason—bugs charge at me, I shoot, simple as that.

If you came here expecting the satirical anti-militarism depth of the Starship Troopers movie, give up now. This game just borrowed the IP shell—at its core it's a pure shooter.

The gunfire is very solid. Each weapon's shooting sound effect is distinctive—the roar of shotguns, the burst fire of assault rifles, the crack of sniper rifles—you can tell what gun your teammates are using even with your eyes closed.

The bug sound effects are also on point. Distant hissing makes you tense, nearby crawling sounds make your skin crawl. Once I was playing with headphones on and heard a bug breathing behind me, which scared me into hitting pause immediately.

But the BGM is quite mediocre. The combat music has an extremely low presence—neither rousing nor oppressive, just that "better than nothing" kind of background sound. I've played for 50 hours and haven't remembered a single track.