Everybody fights, no-one goes AFK in Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War, the new FPS from the makers of Warhammer 40K Boltgun

Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War is out today on PC. It's another licensed retro first-person shooter from Auroch Digital, the creators of Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun. It casts you as a Mobile Infantry soldier wrassling with the Arachnids on a bunch of human colonies, including a seaside resort planet that reminds me of Halo: Combat Evolved.

In general, the game caters to a slightly more recent era of graphicsability than the Doom-ish Boltgun, with boxy weapons and enemies that have me dreaming of the early polygonal 3D period, a few years before the brownification of action games set in. Think heyday of MDK and Turok.

You can be a Bug in this one, as well. Bug = feature, etc. The Arachnids get their own mode, a hybrid RTS experience featuring a special blue bug that can transform into a flying scout, a flame-breathing tank, and a lifestealing DPS unit.

All that's missing is the opportunity to tunnel under walls and bite Michael Ironside's legs off. Perhaps each match could feature a selection of Michael Ironsides drawn from the Ironside Cinematic Universe, including a Sam Fisher Ironside who will do an inverted pipe takedown on your big centipedal ass. I'd like to see Sam Fisher/Michael Ironside choke out a centipede. Alas, he doesn't feature in the following trailer, though you do get to boggle at Old Man Logan Van Dien.

In our Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun review, Caelyn Ellis called the game "the FPS that 40k fans have dreamed of since the first time they inexpertly splodged too-thick paint all over a Space Marine". Given the heavy similarities between licenses, it seems probable Auroch have pulled it off again with Ultimate Bug War, but there's a Steam demo as of writing if you want to kick the tyres.

Inasmuch as I have any emotions for intellectual properties, I do feel sorry for Starship Troopers - a spoof of fascism and the military whose thunder has been stolen by Helldivers 2. Ultimate Bug War looks fun, but I sense that no amount of Ironside bisecting will roll back the relentless tide of history. Even now, The Kids are discovering dusty VHS copies of Starship Troopers in wizened former branches of Blockbusters, and they are uttering the cursed words 'oh wow, a Helldivers movie'.