Category: Preview

  • Preview: Starship Troopers: Extermination offers cooperative chaos that could do with a little more order (v1.4)

    Preview: Starship Troopers: Extermination offers cooperative chaos that could do with a little more order (v1.4)

    The ongoing success of Helldivers 2 makes it easy to forget Offworld’s Starship Troopers: Extermination launched into PC early access in May 2023 seven months before it and finally arrived on consoles with the v1.0 release in October 2024, nine months late. The post-launch roadmap still promises updates – including a much-needed overhaul of the “Galactic Front” campaign structure – and the small but consistent player base has fluctuated back and forth between positive and negative sentiment.

    Returning to it on console, two years after covering that early access build, it still offers chaotic cooperative fun with brisk progression mechanics and authentic Starship Troopers aesthetics. However, those looking for a daily fix will find the lack of variety becomes an issue after just a handful of missions.

    With a cooperative PvE shooter core, Starship Troopers: Extermination has always benefited from simplicity. You can (and should) drop straight into the so-called “Main Missions” and learn as you go – especially as the base building tutorial and bland “Solo” missions are not even remotely indicative of its potential.

    It’s a class-based FPS with armoured Guardians and Demolishers to hold the line, mobile Rangers and Snipers to mark and prioritise targets, and Engineers and Medics to provide support for structures and infantry. You run and gun between objective points, toss grenades and lay mines, and activate class-based abilities on a cooldown to try turn the tide. There are few surprises where the shooting is concerned, but shredding a bug in a shower of gore looks and feels good.

    There needs to be a mission modifier for unlimited ammo turrets as I could do this all day.

    Starship Troopers: Extermination’s strengths and weaknesses are both tied to the evolving mission structure and base-building elements. Missions follow a similar flow: you’re dropped into the battlefield, you capture control points on the route towards a major objective, you defend refineries and gather ore, build and defend a base until a timed- or wave-based objective is fulfilled, and finally rush to extraction.

    Missions are dynamically generated across one of three large maps – with variable weather conditions, time of day, and difficulty mutators – but there’s clearly a limited number of locations objectives can spawn. As a result, you’ll soon end up taking the same routes and defending the same bases over and over again.

    For existing fans of the IP, there’s a familiar roster of Drones, Warriors, and Tigers Elites that’ll rush you; Inferno and Plasma bugs that’ll bombard fortifications at range; an infuriating “Gunner” bug that can whittle down your health from afar; and a massive Tanker Bug as a special event. Befitting the source material, their primary method of victory is overwhelming force, with each mission ramping up the threat level over time and tougher variants emerging. Surviving on foot is a challenge, even if you can coordinate all 16 players, but that is where the streamlined base-building mechanic comes into play.

    Building and maintaining a well-fortified base can be satisfying but it’s rare 16 players spread across 5 fireteams coordinate effectively.

    Within designated areas, you can rapidly assemble outposts around a key structure, building layers of walls, bunkers, towers, turrets, automated sentries, and stockpiles of ammunition for infantry or turrets you’ll need to maintain. Building options all fit into a single menu, you can rotate and align structures easily, and building or repairing simply involves holding down the trigger on the repair tool. On higher difficulties and during siege events, fortifications are the only viable way to survive an onslaught that is unrelenting by the time the extraction shuttles arrive. Mounting a turret, opening fire on an advancing horde, and watching bug corpses pile up against the walls looks and feels incredible – but building bases and coordinating defence is where Starship Troopers: Extermination can also frustrate.

    Although each class has unique and powerful abilities and utility tools when used strategically – such as the Guardians personal fortification or a Medics reviving drone – expanding fortifications and assigning enough infantry to man each approach is messy. Open chat in multiplayer games is the last thing I’d recommend, but even if you’re just communicating with friends or a within a 4-player fireteam, that still leaves up to a dozen other players doing their own thing, and the incredibly limited “ping” system only marks waypoints or enemies.

    All too often, the quickest fireteams build up defences on one side of the base while leaving gaps in the other, or separate from the group to complete optional mission objectives without alerting others to cover their absence.

    Playing as a Medic or Engineer provides an incredibly satisfying support class experience.

    More than ever, I feel Starship Troopers: Extermination still needs a more fleshed out ping system that could be coupled with class- or fireteam-specific limitations. Giving each fireteam a defined purpose might be useful, such as having one dedicated to Engineers and base-building, another for jet-pack equipped Rangers to tackle distant objectives quickly. I’d also like to see a reduction in the speed at which the threat-level escalates, if only to encourage groups pursuing optional mission objectives. It could add some much-needed variety as you’re often knee deep in bugs within 10 minutes, and there’s no viable way to break off from defending the primary objective.

    Of course, it’s a tough ask going up against a competitor with the backing of a publisher the size of PlayStation, but if Starship Troopers: Extermination could focus on polishing and diversifying what it already has, it could provide a much-needed alternative.

    Starship Troopers: Extermination was played on Xbox Series X using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC and PS5.

  • Preview: Gothic 1 Remake – PC Demo (Nyras Prologue)

    Preview: Gothic 1 Remake – PC Demo (Nyras Prologue)

    Arriving almost 24 years after the original release – and 5 years after a divisive “Playable Teaser” was used to assess interest – the “Nyras Prologue” demo of the full-blown Gothic 1 Remake shows serious potential. Albeit probably only for existing Gothic fans or the increasingly niche audience that enjoyed Piranha Byte’s later work like Risen and ELEX. In stark contrast to the Playable Teaser’s action-focussed gameplay and wise-cracking protagonist, the Nyras Prologue aims for a degree of authenticity despite the smoother mechanics and modern game engine powering it.

    Using a rockslide as an excuse, the self-contained demo traps the titular Nyras in the impressively recreated “Exchange Camp” canyon from the opening of the original game. The human Kingdom of Myrtana is slowly losing a war against orcs, essential ore for the war effort comes from the Valley of Mines, but a magical barrier cast to contain the prisoner workforce went awry trapping the entire region under a magical shield that kills anything attempting to leave. Fresh prisoners and goods are sent in by the king in exchange for ore, but the humans trapped inside the valley have split into three factions with their own ideas on how to thrive or escape.

    All the basics are covered as Nyras encounters members of the Old Camp – former prisoners intent on maintaining the flow of ore for goods; members of the New Camp – outcasts and bandits that grow their own food and plan to escape; and he hears of the Sect Camp – swamp-dwelling, weed-smoking mystics intent on reviving an old god. You’ll also encounter and hear rumours of the dangerous beasts that stalk the wilds between settlements. If nothing else, those interested in the Gothic 1 Remake with no prior knowledge of the originals could find this demo a useful primer.

    The limited scope of this demo means there’s only so much to see and do, but it feels much as I’d expect from a “AA” style remake targeting an existing audience rather than the masses. A lot could obviously change, but there’s a clear trade-off between playability and authenticity that should thrill Piranha Bytes fans but might frustrate anyone expecting a modern action-RPG experience. Gothic was never an RPG in which you start competent and end up overpowered; it’s a game about starting on the bottom rung, climbing up while being kicked in the face repeatedly, and eventually coming out on top.

    The demo suggests that design philosophy is intact, but traversal, combat, and menu-ing feels way less clunky – especially on a gamepad if you’ve ever experienced the Nintendo Switch ports. It remains to be seen if the remake tweaks progression, but Gothic was a traditional RPG in the sense you could go far by mastering the stiff combat system but improving your character level, skills, and gear were essential (that or breaking the AI). Also familiar is how dense and hand-crafted the world feels, with plenty of fine details, NPCs going about daily tasks, and items secreted away to reward exploration – assuming you don’t run into something that kills you first.

    The Nyras Prologue demo provides a few opportunities to die by scavenger beak or goblin club if you’re reckless, but the combat feels far more fluid and manageable when facing one or even two opponents. You can swing a sword, pick, or flaming torch; parry or dash back and to the sides to avoid damage; and draw back a bow to full extension for maximum damage at range. While it might not be an intentional nod to the original, I could even cheese a few enemies by awkwardly climbing onto high ground and leaving them sitting around helplessly. I don’t doubt the Gothic 1 Remake will be rife with enemies that’ll one-shot you early on, but the smoother combat is perhaps the most significant takeaway from this demo.

    The last thing to touch on is the Unreal Engine 5 powered visuals and lighting. Despite the archaic engine, the Gothic games generate an impressive atmosphere when the visuals are coupled with ambience and music. The Nyras Prologue demo might not push boundaries, but it still looks good in this early build and recreates that original atmosphere by using the classic soundtrack. On my ageing gaming laptop – with an Intel i7 4C/8T CPU, 8GB RTX3070, 16GB DDR5 RAM, NVMe SSD (components running at lower power draw/clock speeds than their desktop counterparts) – 1440p/30 on the high “Gothic” settings was surprisingly doable, albeit with some momentary chugging after reloading a save.

    Wrapping up my thoughts, the Gothic 1 Remake – Nyras Prologue Demo shows a lot of potential for those craving an authentic Gothic experience, but it’s ultimately a tiny chunk of a much larger game, with limited mechanics and only one environment on show for now. While playing the demo, I kept thinking of 2024’s Alone in the Dark – a game I really enjoyed and felt was underappreciated, but one that commercially underperformed and spelt the end of the developer. I just hope Alkimia Interactive and THQ Nordic are looking at the budget and sales of a game like ELEX II and planning appropriately so we actually have a chance of seeing this become a success and maybe fund a remake of the sequel too.

    Gothic 1 Remake – Nyras Prologue Demo was played on PC (GOG or Steam). The final release will be coming to PC, Xbox Series S|X, and PS5.