Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 film Starship Troopers has to be a satirical masterwork, and the later films based around the world it helped build were even more wild and nonsensical in tone. The films were certainly a major departure from the insanely over-the-top book by Robert A. Heinlein. The original book was rather blatant in its praising of Fascist ideals, and lambasting democratic idealism was also a major part of what made the original book so intriguing in a morbid way. The film franchise that followed could not have diverged any harder from this original setup if they tried.
If you consider the previous statements to be true, and you actually would like to visit that setting again, there’s good news. Then Sliterine Games announcing a new RTS based on the sci-fi franchise is pretty fitting. Starship Troopers – Terran Command, from developer The Aristocrats and publisher Slitherine is a new strategy title coming soon.
The companies behind the project released a pair of simple trailers, each one showing off the game. The game itself is eschewing the much less-liked later films in the franchise, and setting the timeline firmly within the ongoing war between the Arachnids and humans that just got started by the time first film wrapped up.
The Aristocrats is hard at work on Starship Troopers – Terran Command, a real-time strategy game set in the movie universe. The setting places the player in command of a Mobile Infantry (MI) detachment tasked with fighting the bug menace on a nondescript planet surface. As the humans, you have all the standard MI grunts at your command. Although I sincerely hope their battle tactics have evolved beyond 19th century indiscriminately-firing line infantry and at least into the more mobile and effective 20th century at the least.
All the typical trappings of RTS levels look to be here. Players will cluster their forces in diverse compositions that are made to respond dynamically to AI threats. The units will be used to construct bases, claim resources and build out defensive strongpoints to support the forward advance of your ground troops. In terms of units, there looks to be plenty of variety. Humans have heavy mechs and flamer units to hold the line behind swarms of basic MI grunts. There’s even some aerial bombardment involved here. The arachnids, hoppers, tanker bugs, and plasma bugs all show up on the alien side, ready to rip you to shreds.
Here’s hoping the whole project pans out, as it’s still obviously pretty early on. According to Iain McNeil, development director at Slitherine, they’re big fans and have high hopes for the game. “When creating this game, we aimed to capture the essence of the original movie… by creating a coherent set of units and scenarios, but also by mimicking the language, visual elements, dialogues and the little details.”
The game is due release in 2020. You can wishlist Starship Troopers – Terran Command on Steam.
