Offworld Industries has released an official trailer for Starship Troopers: Extermination inspired by the cult classic 1997 movie Starship Troopers. It’s been nearly 20 years since the last first person shooter Starship Troopers game, which came out in 2005; a year that also saw the release of Starship Troopers: The Miniatures Game as well as Starship Troopers: The Roleplaying Game.
While Starship Troopers was first a novel, all game adaptations of Starship Troopers, including Extermination, have been based on the movie. The original novel had been met with mixed critical reception, winning the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1960, while others criticized the glorification of war and of the military, as well as possible fascist undertones. The 1997 movie, however, took these themes to be used as satire of fascism and authoritarian governance. While the 2005 Starship Troopers was met with mostly negative reviews, the more recent strategy game, Starship Troopers: Terran Command, has maintained a “very positive” rating on Steam since launch, showing that there is interest in the franchise.
In 2022, Offworld Industries revealed Starship Troopers: Extermination with a brief teaser that matches the propaganda recruitment clips as shown in the 1997 movie. Now Offworld Industries has shown fans more with the same over the top propaganda theme. The trailer highlights some of the playable classes in the game such as an assault unit, a heavy infantry, and a medic. The trailer also implies that the game may be quite challenging by saying “the infestation will feel relentless,” before encouraging players to work together to build resources.
The trailer ends with a prompt to wishlist the game on Steam, where the release is set for 2023 without any further specific date. Offworld Industries has previously found success in the tactical FPS Squad. More recently fans have been critical of the choices made by Offworld Industries in regard to Squad, stating that the game is falling victim to microtransactions. Fans have cited Tencent as the culprit.
Tencent continues to buy more and more shares across the gaming industry, such as a huge investment in Ubisoft. Many fans view these purchases as an avaricious attempt for a monopoly, and fear that the conglomerate will divert focus from developing solid games towards a more money-centric development scheme. With that being said, many studios that Tencent has purchased large shares in, such as From Software, or studios Tencent has bought outright, continue to produce high quality games with little interference. Much like Wanted: Dead, Starship Troopers will likely depict big companies and authoritative governments in a negative light; a stark contrast to many players’ opinion of Tencent.
Starship Troopers: Extermination is currently in development and will enter Early Access in 2023 on PC.