GamesActionStarship Troopers: ExterminationThe official Starship Troopers co-op shooter has a full release date, Casper Van Dien, and a miraculous-sounding corpse pile-up system: ‘No other game has been able to achieve persistent death at the scale we’re doing’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesActionStarship Troopers: ExterminationThe official Starship Troopers co-op shooter has a full release date, Casper Van Dien, and a miraculous-sounding corpse pile-up system: ‘No other game has been able to achieve persistent death at the scale we’re doing’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Offworld)

In a flurry punch of announcements, rather good co-op bug-blasterStarship Troopers: Exterminationhas revealed that it’s leaving behind early access and hitting its full 1.0 release onOctober 11, gaining a new singleplayer campaign mode in the transition, and that it’s recruited Casper Van Dien—Mr “I’m from Buenos Aires and I say kill ‘em all” from the original movie—to feature in it. Oh, and that you’ll soon be able to kill enough bugs to literally change the terrain of the game’s maps.
Van Dien will be reprising the role of Johnny Rico in a new, older and more grizzled form: General John Rico, who’ll be giving you orders throughout the new campaign. “Now, [Rico’s] older,” said Van Dien in a chat with PCG, “and he’s got more young troopers— people that he’s looking out for. They mean more to him than the job.”
One of those troopers is you, sounds like. You’ll be playing a soldier “tapped for an elite spec ops group within the Mobile Infantry,” which sounds like a very good way to wind up dead in the Starship Troopers universe.
“It’s officially canon,” said Extermination’s game lead Peter Maurice, who promises that the studio isn’t “just bringing [Van Dien] in to shoot off ‘Come on you dirty apes!’ and just the one liners; if we’re bringing him back it means something to the franchise.”
“[Starship Troopers writer] Ed Neumeier would be proud,” said Van Dien, “And Paul Verhoeven is gonna love it.”
(Image credit: Offworld)

It sounds like the kind of thing that could easily reduce your framerate to zero, but Maurice says the studio has tested it with “literally thousands and thousands of bugs” without issue, prompting him to exclaim “Holy fuck! How’d you do this?” at the game’s tech team. “No other game has been able to achieve persistent death at the scale we’re doing.”
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It’s a big change (and, as much as I love Johnny Rico, might be the most intriguing announcement of all of them), and it’s hitting before the game leaves early access, but Offworld promises 1.0 won’t be the end for major updates. 1.0 is “kind of like a stake in the ground,” says lead game designer Chaz Baker, “Where we’re like, ‘This is ready, this is where everyone can start playing’,” but it’s ultimately “the first stage in a lot of different stages” of the game’s future development.
It all sounds like something I’d quite like to try, but I have to be honest, there’s only one question burning in my mind: At what point will someone try to get the 85-year-old Paul Verhoeven to squad up for some 16-player PvE? “I will be getting it into Verhoeven’s hands,” promises Van Dien, “100%, and we’ll probably get some gaming going on.”
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The Sims begins its 25th anniversary celebration next week with a Behind The Sims episode of news and announcements
Path of Exile 2 numberlord spends 16 straight days killing rare monsters to prove that a stat that makes loot better makes better loot
Palestinian developer raises more than $200,000 to make Dreams on a Pillow, a game about the horrors of the 1948 Nakba
Piranha Games will lay off employees after Mechwarrior 5: Clans ‘performed below projections’
Marvel Rivals’ latest update quietly killed the game’s burgeoning mod scene
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