Helldivers 2 launched in 2024 to immense success, blending third-person shooter mechanics with physics-based comedy, a non-stop onslaught of enemies, and an overly satirical setting. Two-and-a-half years later, it's still incredibly popular: according to SteamDB, it's climbed back up to around 80,000 peak concurrent players per day thanks to the recent Devoid of Liberty update.

Game development is a long process, but it felt inevitable that such a solid gameplay loop would eventually try to be emulated by another team, and that's exactly what Exterminauts is. It takes the tried-and-tested Helldivers 2 formula and puts its own spin on it. And there's plenty to love.

Where Helldivers has Super Earth, Exterminauts is all about completing contracts for capitalist organizations known as mega corps. In the former, the expendable soldiers you play as are regular army corps called up to be a Helldiver, whereas in the latter, you're essentially just an employee: part exterminator, part repairman, part first-responder, is how it was phrased in a behind-closed-doors presentation at Gamescom 2026.

However, where Helldivers is all about repelling alien forces to defend Super Earth, Exterminauts is about mining a resource known as polymorphic plasma. Once upon a time, humans set up equipment to harvest it on a planet known as Tian, but doing so drove the local fauna wild. Rather than stop entirely, the mega corps simply moved their base off-world, and started sending down exterminauts to deal with the aggression. After all, you're expendable.

Alongside another member of the press and one of the devs at Behaviour Interactive, I played one round of Exterminauts and had an absolute blast.

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