Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War!

My first hour with Ultimate Bug War felt genuinely surprising for a licensed game. Auroch Digital, the Bristol studio behind Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, has pulled off the same trick twice: take a beloved IP, dress it in chunky late-90s pixels, and find a way to make the retro aesthetic feel purposeful rather than cheap. The hook here is smarter than most. The game exists in-universe as a recruitment simulator built by the Federation's own government-funded studio, FedDev, aimed at training the next generation of soldiers. Casper Van Dien reprises his role as an older, grizzled General Johnny Rico in live-action FMV cutscenes between missions, and the writing around it is sharp enough to land the satire without winking at the camera too hard. You play as Major Samantha Dietz through eight human missions spread across locations including Klendathu, Zegema Beach, and the ruins of Buenos Aires. The visual approach is clever: NPC troopers render as 2D sprites while the Arachnids are full 3D models, and watching Warrior Bugs transition from distant sprites into hulking three-dimensional threats as they close in on you is both a smart performance trick and genuinely unnerving. The arsenal runs deep, north of 30 weapons and items, from the Morita assault rifle and flamethrower through to tactical nukes and orbital strikes. Calling in an air strike on a bug swarm while your squadmates uselessly wander into the blast radius is the kind of chaotic, darkly funny moment the game keeps delivering. Difficulty is no joke on the higher settings, and there is a God Mode option for players who just want to see the carnage without the friction. The problems are real, though. Your AI squadmates exist primarily to die, and while that is arguably intentional commentary on the Federation's cannon-fodder ideology, it also means the squad system adds friction without adding tactics. The five Bug Missions, where you control an Assassin Bug that can fly and spit fire, feel mechanically rougher than the Trooper campaign, and multiple reviewers across the board flagged the bug controls as awkward. The open environments are also a mixed bag: the sandbox layout works well on Klendathu and the beach maps, but some areas are flat and sparse in ways that feel like budget rather than design. The whole campaign runs four to ten hours depending on difficulty and whether you hunt the secrets hidden in each level, and that shortness is the most common complaint. There is replay value in the four difficulty tiers and a score system that nudges completionists back in, but the objective variety does not quite keep pace with the game's ambition. Steam users are sitting at 92% positive across over 1,200 reviews at the time of writing, which tells you the audience it was made for is getting what they came for. Whether you share that enthusiasm depends almost entirely on how much the Verhoeven film means to you and how forgiving you are of boomer-shooter rough edges. For Helldivers 2 fans looking for a solo fix with genuine satirical backbone, this delivers. For everyone else, manage expectations on length and AI quality before committing.

Alex · Scout Team

Catch-all

Be the first to comment on Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War!.