Starship Troopers: Extermination Review Summary

Enjoyable core game with great 16-player co-op and fun base building, but suffers from severe lag, stuttering, and a low population, falling short of Helldivers 2.

Enjoyable core game: Players report that the core gameplay is good, fun, and enjoyable overall. The game is considered a solid and entertaining experience worth playing.

Great 16-player co-op: Support for 16-player PvE co-op with crossplay is highly praised, creating a chaotic and intense multiplayer experience. The large-scale battles feel immersive and satisfying.

Fun base building: The base building and defense mechanics are found to be enjoyable, challenging, and a rare feature in the genre. Building and defending bases against bug swarms is a highlight.

Faithful to Starship Troopers: The game is considered a faithful adaptation of the Starship Troopers franchise, capturing the movie's atmosphere and authentic feel. It successfully brings the universe to life.

Teamwork is crucial: Players emphasize that teamwork and coordination are essential for success in the game. Cooperative play is not just fun but necessary for handling the challenges.

Severe lag and stuttering: Many players report heavy lag, stuttering, and unplayable performance even on low graphics settings or decent hardware.

Inferior to Helldivers 2: Players frequently compare this game to Helldivers 2, finding it worse in gameplay, performance, and content like DLC warbonds.

Low player population: The game has a very low concurrent player count, often around 300, indicating a small and declining community.

Rubberbanding issues: Players experience rubberbanding, especially at high difficulty levels with many enemies, making gameplay frustrating.

Long matchmaking times: Due to low player count and splits by region/mode, finding matches often takes a long time, especially during off-peak hours.

Team-based co-op shooter: The game is described as a 16-player cooperative PvE shooter with a focus on team-based bug fighting, featuring multiple classes and base building elements.

16-player cooperative gameplay: Supporting up to 16 players in co-op PvE sessions, the game emphasizes large-scale team battles against enemy hordes.

Horde survival mode: The game features horde survival gameplay with base defense and resource extraction, often in an arcade or third-person perspective.

Base building mechanics: Base building is a core gameplay element, allowing players to construct turrets, walls, bunkers, and manage resources for defense against bug hordes.

Bug enemy types abundant: Enemies include diverse bug types such as horde, tanker, gunner, plasma, lava, crystal, fire, and bombardier bugs, creating varied combat scenarios.

Poor optimization overall: Many players complain the game is poorly optimized, causing heavy lag, stuttering, and low performance even on decent hardware and low settings.

Frequent crashing issues: Players report frequent crashes, especially after updates, mid-mission, and even on startup. Some experienced over 20 crashes in 10 days, requiring reinstalls.

FPS drops in action: Players experience significant FPS drops during intense moments with many enemies, dropping from stable 80 FPS to 20 or lower, affecting gameplay.

General stability problems: Besides crashes, the game has overall stability issues, including freezes, instability, and performance problems.

Lag and packet loss issues: Network problems like lag, packet loss, and disconnections affect gameplay, possibly due to netcode or server quality.

Mixed overall recommendation: Clusters 1, 6, 12, 13, 15 show players are split between do-not-recommend and highly recommend, with some giving 10/10 scores.

Wait for a sale: Many players advise against full price and suggest buying the game at a discount or on sale.

Great for Starship Troopers fans: Fans of the Starship Troopers movie or franchise find the game highly enjoyable and authentic.

Best played with friends: Multiple clusters stress that the experience improves dramatically with friends, especially for cooperative play.

Fun horde shooter coop: Players who enjoy large-scale, chaotic bug-killing with many players recommend it for that specific experience.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $15.00.

Session length: 0.5h.

Starship Troopers: Extermination offers great chaotic fun with 16-player co-op, but initial enjoyment is hindered by a clunky tutorial, repetitive solo missions, and technical bugs; the real fun clicks once you play with friends in multiplayer.

Friction: Boring and repetitive single-player tutorial/campaign; Tutorial bugs (black screens, falling through map, unresponsive controls); Mandatory multiplayer lacking bots for solo play; Technical issues (lag, crashes, optimization problems).

Unlock drivers: Playing with friends in multiplayer co-op; Cooperative teamwork and class synergy.

Starship Troopers Fandom Enthusiast: Focuses on immersion and role-playing the mobile infantry; enjoys the atmosphere and references; often plays with friends who share the fandom. Motivation: Reliving the Starship Troopers universe and shooting bugs cooperatively. Stance: buy.

Cooperative Horde Shooter Enjoyer: Prefers team-based play, communicates with others, tries different classes, and enjoys the chaotic large-scale battles. Motivation: Chaotic cooperative gameplay with a large group against overwhelming enemy numbers. Stance: sale.

Disillusioned Early Supporter: Initially invested, tried to engage with all content, but became frustrated with technical regressions, forced mutators, and lack of solo options. Motivation: Desire for a polished co-op shooter that respects player time; now feels let down by developer decisions. Stance: no buy.

Performance reports across VRAM tiers are inconsistent, with frequent complaints about lag, crashes, and stuttering even on high-end hardware, while some lower-tier systems manage acceptable playability after tweaks.

Windows <8GB VRAM: mixed. Players report a split experience: some achieve playable framerates on older hardware, but many face persistent lag, stutters, and crashes.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: mixed. Users note decent performance in some sessions, but server lag, mid-fight freezes, and crashes are common complaints.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: mixed. Most reviews describe improved optimization over time, yet crashes and unstable framerates still affect a significant portion of players.

Steam Deck: The game suffers from frequent crashes, severe performance drops across all hardware tiers, and is effectively broken on Linux/Steam Deck due to anti-cheat restrictions. External launcher requirements and ongoing stability issues make it a high-friction experience requiring significant tinkering or simply unplayable.

Linux and Proton: Based on user reviews, Linux compatibility for this game is severely impacted by kernel-level anti-cheat that blocks playability entirely. Additionally, even when the game was playable, users encountered bugs and performance issues. The overall consensus indicates that the game is effectively broken on Linux.

Monetization: The game features paid cosmetic DLC that many players view as a cash grab due to being overpriced and barely visible. However, the majority of reviews affirm that there is no pay-to-win and that paid content is cosmetic-only. A single review accuses pay-to-win, creating a conflicting picture. Overall, the monetization leans aggressive due to DLC practices, but is not universally predatory.

Expand exo-suit content: Players request more missions specifically for exo-suits, along with additional weapons and greater map variety to enhance gameplay diversity.