Starship Troopers: Terran Command was announced three years ago and at the time, it seemed like fans of the titular franchise were in for a treat.

Combining Starship Troopers with the classic real-time strategy formula seemed like a match made in heaven.

Now we finally have the game in our hands after it being delayed earlier this year, but does it actually deliver on the hype surrounding it?

From Klendathu to Kwalasha

In Starship Troopers: Terran Command from The Artistocrats and Slitherine Ltd., players will take on the role of a Mobile Infantry commander. Players will be introduced to the game’s story by playing through a mission focusing on the invasion of Klendathu.

For those that are unfamiliar with Starship Troopers, both the source material and the game itself deal with humans facing off against a hostile alien race of arachnoid creatures.

Upon invading Klendathu, the Mobile Infantry’s forces are overrun by the sheer number of bugs. Your squad is told to evacuate and the game fast forwards to a new planet known as Kwalasha.

Upon landing on Kwalasha, it’s up to you to command your forces and protect a range of desert encampments and their associated mining operations. Humans need the mines up and running again, but unfortunately for you, the bugs have other plans.

The game runs with this fairly straightforward plot throughout. The narrative isn’t exactly deep but it works in driving the game forward.

Fans of the Starship Troopers franchise will be pleased to know that careful attention has been paid to the source material. The game oozes Starship Troopers flavour in each and every single mission.

The arachnoids are faithfully recreated too and look authentic.

Terran Command

Moving onto the actual gameplay, this is where Starship Troopers: Terran Command falters somewhat. If you were expecting a real-time strategy game where you can build your own base of operations with full freedom in each mission, you might be disappointed.

Instead, players will have access to a small amount of units in each mission who have to fulfil specific tasks. These tasks can range from clearing out nearby bug hives to protecting and defending outposts.

Capturing outposts, radio towers and supply points allows you to call in dropships which can transport your units or replenish your forces. There is a unit cap though so you can’t amass tonnes of units and overrun the enemy. You’ll have to play strategically.

As you clear missions, the game will slowly introduce new enemy bugs to you as well allow you to recruit different types of Mobile Infantry units.

It is formulaic and honestly felt like a throwback to the old school Command and Conquer: Red Alert missions where the odds are really stacked against you. If you enjoy this type of content, you’ll have a blast here.

Starship Troopers: Terran Command does also suffer from a series of gameplay problems. Units tend to get stuck behind one another often and some unit types cannot shoot through their allies.

This means that your squads of rifle infantry will sometimes be useless as they stand around behind another squad and can’t engage with enemy bugs. Thankfully, other unit types don’t have this issue and do mitigate the problem somewhat in the later missions. Shoutout to the Snipers, these guys are indispensable here.

The mission difficulty on “Normal” is fairly forgiving but you might still end up failing due to unit issues. If you try to play the game on its hardest difficulty setting, you’re going to have a bad time dealing with the sheer number of enemy forces that will be running at you.

Some enemies can also bombard you with plasma and you’ll have to really scramble to dodge this since your units won’t do it automatically.

The game’s campaign mode is rather enjoyable despite being formulaic. The in-game cutscenes where dropships fly in or airships come in to bomb enemy forces break up the gameplay segments quite well.

Your commanding officers talking about the game world also eases you into the missions and their objectives at a gradual pace. The tiny tidbits of story that we get in-game features a lot of references to the original Starship Troopers movies and fans will really enjoy this content.

The artistic graphic novel segments are flat out gorgeous too.

Graphically, Starship Troopers: Terran Command looks great with the environments and arachnids looking satisfying. The special effects of unit attacks are also on point and it’s always great seeing flamethrowers lighting up insects while their bodies pile up outside outpost walls.

The music used in the game is fairly standard, but isn’t exactly memorable. It serves its purpose in the campaign though.

The voice acting in the game is well done and true to the source material with some iconic lines being thrown out here and there. “You wanna live forever!?”

Final Verdict

Starship Troopers: Terran Command is ultimately a game that we wish could have done a bit more with its content. The campaign is fun and enjoyable but the little issues here and there such as the unit’s pathing and lack of formations causes problems in later levels.

What effectively happens is that you’ll end up having to micro-manage a lot of your units individually just to get them to survive in harder levels and this can become frustrating.

This is by no means a bad game, but it definitely could have been expanded upon further. Maybe a sequel will let us play as the arachnids and also allow full base building and more?

Hopefully this is the beginning of a great new RTS franchise as the foundation has already been laid and it just needs a little more to make it truly excel.

The game is currently priced at an extremely reasonable R175 on Steam so if you’re in the mood for some RTS bug blasting, we suggest picking it up and giving it a go.