Apparently, the Starship Troopers franchise is complicated. It’s an over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek action series about fascist space marines exploding bugs. One would think creating sequels and spin-offs would be easy wins, and that a game adaptation would be a layup. Instead, the IP’s history is an embarrassing parade of flops that has nearly exhausted its nostalgic goodwill. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War is here to change that.
This week, we were given early access to the demo for Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War, an FPS retro shooter from throwback aficionados Auroch Digital. After spending an hour completing the demo and another hour immediately playing it again, I can say with confidence: I think we’re back.
The Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War preview was short, just a single mission, but even this quick glimpse delivered a more authentic hit of Verhoevenian ultra-violence than anything in the series since the original film.
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The demo places players in the boots of Mobile Infantry grunt Sammy Dietz. Sammy, alongside waves of nameless NPC troopers, is tasked with protecting the idyllic island of Zegema Beach from an all-out bug invasion. Thankfully, that is all the story we get.
A very tired Casper Van Dien appears in FMV cutscenes as General Johnny Rico, though his exposition mostly serves as flavour. The real adventure unfolds in glorious spurts of low-poly violence. Most of the time is spent shooting, burning, slashing, and tactically nuking the arachnid scourge. Almost all of the dialogue is troopers shouting patriotic slogans at each other. This is all fans ever wanted.
The biggest pickle for any new Starship Troopers game is that it’s releasing after Helldivers 2, i.e., the best Starship Troopers game possible. There are only so many ways to depict the war between man and bug, and the formula has already been dialled in. So what’s a studio to do? Auroch Digital came up with the perfect solution: embrace it. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War is essentially single-player Helldivers with a retro coat of paint.
It’s the ultimate reverse Uno: a property snatching its fire back from its most successful imitator.
The gameplay loop is pretty straightforward: players shoot their way across a sandbox-style battlefield, completing enough objectives to unlock an exfil. Those objectives include killing bugs, avoiding being killed by bugs, blowing up bug stuff, and stealing bugs’ intellectual property.
In practice, this means strafing around while holding the trigger down and waiting for a timer to fill. In the space between objectives, players have to deal with marauding hordes, hunting them back to their nests and closing spawn points with grenades. Sound familiar?
“Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War is essentially single-player Helldivers with a retro coat of paint.”
Players will need to balance their weapons and ammo to ensure they have the right tools to deal with the horde in front of them. Each enemy group is a little different. Some swarms require energy weapons to cut through armoured carapaces, while others need scoped weapons to pick off flyers. Each objective has a stockpile of weapons to arm yourself with, and as luck would have it, the one you need is always nearby.
This is not a tactical shooter. It doesn’t even require complete consciousness. If you have voltage in your amygdala, you have what you need.
It’s a very simple game, and derivative by design, but you know what? It works. This is hands down the second-best Starship Troopers game I’ve ever played. When it comes to single-player Starship Troopers games, it’s the best by far.
It’s tempting to lump Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War into the boomer shooter genre, but it has a little too much going on. It barely even looks like one. Although sprite-based NPCs are running around, they feel out of place next to the fully 3D bugs. Stylistically, the world looks like a half-step between sprite-based games like Duke Nukem 3D and their fully 3D counterparts like Serious Sam and Halo.
Gameplay-wise, some features are decidedly modern, like killstreaks and stratagems. There’s also mech combat. Scattered around the map are Mobile Infantry suits that let players hop into power armour, swapping out their assault rifles for autocannons and chainsaw hands.
It’s all just a little too cutting-edge for the boomers. Ladies, gentlemen, valued others, I suggest we introduce a new genre: the millennial shooter.
Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War is peak 2004.
What’s amazing about Auroch Digital’s games is how they blend so many familiar elements into something fresh. As a guy who likes living in the future, I’ve never been a fan of boomer shooters. The exception is 2023’s Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, Auroch Digital’s last retro shooter. I still haven’t fully recovered from that one. The amount of life and humour they pumped into a retro framework took me totally by surprise. It was the equivalent of putting Tesla motors into a Chevy Astro.
That same energy can be found in Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War. It looks like the past, but that’s just the paint.
Everything you’re doing, and the way you’re doing it, feels modern, but with a little extra. The retro mask softens the exaggeration. You move a little faster, jump a little higher, and the guns punch a little harder. When things explode, they’re just a little more goopy. It’s an elevated reality without being a comic book.
Therein lies the genius of the retro shooter, and the reason so many Starship Troopers games suck. They’re too sleek to be silly, or too cartoony to buy into. By using visuals from a bygone era, Auroch Digital strikes a balance that keeps the game tonally consistent with the movie. Campy without being goofy.
“The point is, this is the closest any piece of media has come to feeling like a proper part of the Starship Troopers universe.”
What’s really interesting is that the game pulls the same trick that made the original film such a lacerating satire. Paul Verhoeven exaggerated the film’s American-style heroics by framing the story as old-school propaganda.
Unfortunately for us, the propaganda he was referencing came from old-school Germany. Yes, that Germany. The joke was always obvious, but hidden in spectacle. But by the time Neil Patrick Harris appears in a Gestapo uniform to hold up the mirror, it’s already too late—the audience is having too much fun with the ridiculous action to care that they’re the ones being ridiculed. Which may or may not have been part of a joke Paul Verhoeven was telling himself.
Damn, Paul Verhoeven might be the best ever. Maybe the world is finally ready for a Showgirls game. Okay, I’m way off track here. Don’t ever get me started on Starship Troopers. The point is, this is the closest any piece of media has come to feeling like a proper part of the Starship Troopers universe.
Despite years of being let down, something in my millennial brainstem still tingles when I see the Federation Eagle. When the stentorian announcer asks if I’d like to know more, I answer aloud: I would. I really would.
I’ll be honest, signing up for this preview was a nostalgic reflex. One I instantly regretted. I’ve been burned and bored too many times. However, after ruminating on my time with the demo, my excitement remains.
If you’re interested in experiencing what 1997 felt like, you can check out the demo on Steam now. The preview mission, Operation Razorwire, is a quick ride, but one worth taking. Always remember: Service guarantees citizenship. Go do your part, trooper.
