Viral Deathtroopers game shows why Star Wars needs to embrace horror
For better or for worse, Star Wars games are everywhere these days. After Respawn Entertainment gave us a new hope with Jedi: Fallen Order, upcoming releases, including Outlaws and Eclipse, hope to do justice to the galaxy far, far away. From first-person shooters to multiplayer dogfights, we've (almost) seen it all.
There's one genre that Star Wars has yet to explore, but after Disney+'s Ahsoka series put its own spin on the zombified Stormtroopers of Joe Schreiber's 2009 Death Troopers novel, one gaming fan has tried it for themselves. Deathtroopers is a fan game that's infecting us all with a brilliant idea.
Deathtroopers is the ultimate Star Wars horror game
On Twitter, the game Deathtroopers has gone viral. It shows a doomed Stormtrooper aboard an Imperial Star Destroyer that's been overrun by zombies. The enemies are their fellow squadmates, and the playable Stormtrooper has to navigate the echoing corridors armed only with a blaster and a flashlight.
Making things even more tense, enemies take a tonne of shots to take down, while a countdown clock suggests we've only got a limited amount of time to reach safety. The game comes courtesy of Stefano Cagnani on Itch.io and is completely free to play. In fact, Cagnani has even released a second chapter.
We get some serious Dead Space vibes from Deathtroopers, and in a franchise that's been running as long as Star Wars, we're surprised there's never been a full-blown horror game. A few missions in Republic Commando have gotten close, but it can hardly be considered a horror game.
Give us Alien: Isolation x Star Wars
Click to enlargeAcross the many decades of Star Wars, we've never really captured the horror elements that other sci-fi series have. There's usually a band of merry Rebels or Jedi, but imagine if some marooned X-Wing pilot got stuck in the depths of space and was hunted by a Rakghoul in the style of Alien: Isolation.
Even in the movies, moments of horror have been few and far between, with Emperor Palpatine's resurrection on Exegol arguably being the 'scariest' moment in the saga. Still, with the likes of Resident Evil and The Last of Us meaning big business, a Star Wars zombie game sounds like a license to print money.
While taking the gamble on a full Star Wars horror game might be too much of a risk, we could see it as a spin-off mod tacked onto one of the many upcoming games. Look at the success of Red Dead's Undead Nightmare or the popularity of CoD Zombies.
Speaking of which, there were recent rumours of Call of Duty getting its own Star Wars skins. If this was the case, we could easily imagine Zombies getting a Star Wars reskin for May 4. It would likely never happen, but it's still a fun idea. Somewhere, we imagine some AAA studio is trying to cook up a Star Wars survival horror before everyone else does.
