Starship Troopers: Terran Command – Raising Hell DLC

The Starship Troopers: Terran Command – Raising Hell DLC brings the heat!

2022’s Starship Troopers: Terran Command was a solid real-time strategy game based specifically on the movie franchise of the same name. Aside from a few missteps, I quite liked it and had a good old time playing through the campaign. Now, with the influx of interest in Starship Troopers reappearing thanks in part to Helldivers 2, we have the Raising Hell DLC. This adds a new mini campaign including new troops and enemies, as well as a few challenge missions. For under £10, it’s a pretty solid bunch of content for fans of the base game.

Taking place around the same time as the base game, this DLC takes you to the volcanic planet of Gehenna, where an orbiting refuelling and resupply station supports the war effort. Bugs on the planet are making the fuel extraction operations more difficult, and the Mobile Infantry has been sent in to shore up the mercenary forces in the region. The station has its own agenda though, and things might not be as on the up-and-up as they should be.

The campaign takes place over seven missions, lasting around thirty minutes to an hour. There’s far less focus on base management in the expansion though. Previously, you’d need to choose buildings to give you access to specific troops that could be called down by dropship. This time around, you tend to be given a handful of starting units that can be bolstered by finding and capturing bases. It’s rare that you’ll need to build any new structures, and even rarer for you to even decide what the best structure to go for is. This DLC is all about the troop management it seems.

Whilst the Mobile Infantry gets a pair of upgraded units, most of the new troops are based around the mercenaries the station had been hiring. The powerful shotgun troops need to be placed up front, but have access to grenade rounds meaning they can stay in the rear to provide fire support. Shredders act as longer range, high fire output units that are great for anti-air as well as targeting swarms of weaker enemies, whilst the Engineering Biped is more melee focused and appears to be designed for one specific purpose.

That purpose is related to the new bugs, some of which are in the category of most annoying enemy types ever, being ones that get close to your troops before blowing themselves up to cause massive damage. Immolators are hardy types that blast fire until their health is depleted, when they charge at you. The Bipeds are the counter to these, so you need to have them on hand. The Bomberbee are fliers who just hurtle towards your soldiers straight away. Shredders tend to be the best way to deal with them. 

Both of these foes are irritating though, and you’ll really need to make quick target selection decisions or you’ll be chewed up pretty fast. There’s still the issue of battlefields being crowded leading to miss-clicks that can prove fatal too. Other new enemies are less annoying but do need consideration. Pyroflies are aerial bugs that need to be shot down, whilst Stingers offer ranged attacks that your shotgunners and flamers won’t be able to reach without repositioning. I like the tactical considerations that these enemies provide more than the kamikaze ones that just prove annoying.

The difficulty is somewhat all over the place as well, with a difficulty spike on the second stage followed by the third and fourth being a relative breeze. Thankfully, the level-by-level difficulty options means you can dial the challenge down for each battle if they’re proving too much. The difficulty doesn’t really detract from the fun all that much, but do expect a steeper challenge than the base campaign.

As an expansion, Raising Hell is a pretty decent package for the price. The campaign will take you a good few hours, and the challenge maps allow you to put the new units through their paces in different ways. Fans of the original game will be happy with the additional content, but it won’t sell those who weren’t fully enamoured with what came before.

The Starship Troopers: Terran Command Raising Hell DLC is available on PC.