This Helldivers 2 Competitor Is Out Today, Do You Want To Know More?

There are plenty of high-profile releases out this month, but if you’re looking to do your part in the ongoing war with bugs, you can now grab Starship Troopers: Extermination on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. It’s launching in a post-Helldivers 2 gaming landscape, but if there’s one thing that makes a bug hunt stand out in this game, it’s that it allows for larger 16-person squads of Mobile Infantry grunts to be deployed and it makes use of a base-building gameplay mechanic.

“We’re full 16-player, we have a different gameplay loop, we have building as a core component of our loop,” game lead Peter Maurice said to GameSpot in an interview. When you dig deeper, you pull that one layer off, you can see that there’s two really distinct games: They kill bugs. We are the bug game.”

Both games do feature some similarities–like an ongoing galactic war metagame, cosmetics, and cheeky satire–but Helldivers 2 was inspired by Starship Troopers whereas Extermination is a licensed adaptation based on the IP made popular by the 1997 Paul Verhoeven-directed film.

Another trick up Extermination’s sleeve is the sheer amount of carnage that players can experience, as bug bodies can pile up and change the shape of the battlefield. That adds an interesting tactical layer to the experience, as players could find themselves hemmed in by all the corpses or use them as a makeshift barrier.

The full release of Starship Troopers: Extermination includes a solo campaign starring actor Casper Van Dien reprising his role as Johnny Rico. It’s designed to help you learn the ropes as you get acquainted with killing all the bugs you see alongside your fellow Roughnecks. Remember: the only good bug is a dead bug.