Spoiler Warning: Beware of minor spoilers for Star Trek: Outposts Unknown and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
I did not expect to be talking about *another* brand-new Star Trek video game so soon after covering Shadow Frontier, but here we are! Paramount Games – Skydance-Paramount’s newly-established interactive media wing – is clearly going all-in on the Star Trek franchise, which is great to see. After the announcement of a third-person horror title, “Summer Games Fest” has just introduced us to a top-down strategy game also set in the Star Trek franchise: Outposts Unknown. And there’s a free demo available to play right now!
Here’s a question which might cement your Trekkie status (or leave you questioning whether you can really call yourself a “true Star Trek fan” any more!) – do you remember a game called Star Trek: New Worlds? No, not “Strange New Worlds,” just simply “New Worlds” – it was a similar colony-building title which was released in the year 2000. Outposts Unknown is, as you might expect, light-years ahead in terms of graphics, and takes advantage of a quarter of a century’s worth of improvements in game design… but there are echoes of that older title, I felt. I had a blast playing New Worlds shortly after the turn of the millennium, so to get another game in that same kind of space all these years later? It’s just a lot of fun!
If you missed it, by the way, I’ve already taken a look at Shadow Frontier, so click or tap here if you want to check out my thoughts on that title.
Last time, I said that Bloober Team – the developers of Shadow Frontier – was a studio I’d heard of and that has a good reputation. Their 2024 remake of Silent Hill 2, for instance, won several top industry awards. Outposts Unknown is being developed by Magic Fuel Games and published by Playstack, neither of which I’m familiar with.
However, Magic Fuel Games seems to have experience in developing city-building games, which is a positive thing, and Playstack published Post-Apocalyptic Courier Service, which is a game I’ve at least heard of! Cityscapes: Sim Builder – developed by Magic Fuel Games – seems to get good reviews on Apple and Android, too. So there are reasons to be positive, even if the developers and publishers aren’t big names in the industry yet.
But that’s for the future, and while I *hope* that the finished game will be good… the demo had a problem. In short, after I’d played for almost three hours (on a single save file), the demo locked up and wouldn’t let me progress any further. In-game characters came to a standstill, the in-game clock stopped advancing, and while the music kept playing and I could move the camera around, I couldn’t do anything. I tried all of the usual things to unlock a locked-up game: closing the programme, re-loading the save, even rebooting my PC. But nothing helped – and with no other save files (that I could find, anyway) my three hours of progress seem to have been for nought.
I appreciate that “game development is hard,” and that this demo version represents an unfinished game that’s still being worked on. Bugs are expected. But… I don’t think it’s unfair to ask Magic Fuel Games and Playstack to make sure that the *demo version* is playable and free from this kind of issue. Is it? I would’ve liked to at least get to the end of the part of the game that the demo allows, partly for my own enjoyment and partly so I could relay that experience to you via my website… but I couldn’t. There’s a serious bug in the current version of the demo, as of mid-June 2026, which prevented me from going beyond in-game day 21. And so, with great regret, I have to recommend *against* downloading the demo unless and until that issue can be fixed.
That is a major caveat, as you can see.
But I did spend close to three hours with Outposts Unknown before I was locked out of progressing, and I have some thoughts. I’ve tried not to let the run-ending bug colour my impressions, because there are definitely things to enjoy about Outposts Unknown.
First of all, I really like the game’s art style. You might say it’s got a kind of “mobile game” aesthetic, but I don’t necessarily mean that as an insult. I like the less-than-realistic style used for character models, buildings, and so on, and I especially enjoyed the bright colours in the environment. Outposts Unknown is vibrant, and that gives the alien planet a truly “otherworldly” feel. Sometimes, even Star Trek on TV can mess this up, with too many planets feeling samey, like they’re all filmed on the same handful of sites in Southern California or Toronto! So to get a planet that looks genuinely alien and different was pretty great.
Something I thought to myself several times while I was playing the demo is that Outposts Unknown is the kind of game I could easily see myself sinking hour upon hour into. Although the game isn’t a true “sandbox,” its procedurally-generated elements give it a certain amount of replayability – assuming that the main story will be solid enough. Gameplay reminded me a little of titles like Banished, and if you know me, you’ll know I’m a huge Banished fan. I’ve sunk hundreds of hours into that game, and I can see the potential in Outposts Unknown to become a similar kind of obsession!
If you’ve played games like Banished, you’ve got a starting point for understanding how Outposts Unknown works. You have resources to collect, buildings to construct, upgrades to unlock, trades to manage, and individual workers (referred to here as “crew members”) to keep happy and healthy. Basic resources can be used in construction, or they can be refined into new variants, which in turn are needed to unlock more advanced buildings and to replenish supplies. Balancing all of this will be something that takes some figuring out; I wasn’t perfect at it in the demo by any stretch!
This kind of gameplay naturally means that there are going to be times where you have more to do and times where you have less to do. Waiting while members of the crew gather enough resources to progress with construction, or waiting for enough refined materials to be produced may, to some players, feel “boring.” I didn’t really get that impression most of the time, but I think it’s worth noting that – *especially* in the opening act – games like this can feel slow-paced.
One thing that I felt really *didn’t* help in this regard, though, was Outpost Unknown’s crew shift system. In brief, the game is split into a day-night cycle, and during the day, your crew will be on the ground, doing their jobs, keeping your little outpost running. But at night? They all board a shuttle and fuck off back to the ship. That *would* be fine… except the in-game clock keeps ticking, and you’re just sort of… sitting there, looking at the screen, waiting for them to come back. Nothing can happen at the outpost without crew; there’s no way (that I found, anyway) to automate things like resource extraction or refining, and there also doesn’t seem to be any way for the crew to rest on the planet. Even speeding up the in-game clock to its fastest setting still meant several minutes of just… nothing at all happening. I’d love to see an option to skip these dead night sections by the time the game makes it to its full release.
I was also a little confused by the ship itself; in brief, you have a few things aboard your ship (in orbit) that you can upgrade and manage, even though you don’t spend any time there and only see it on a menu screen. This wasn’t particularly well-explained in the demo, and I found that my ship, for instance, complained about running out of hyposprays at one point. But… why? And also, why should I care? I mean, it *sounds* like it could be an issue, right? But… with no explanation for what I need hyposprays for, or what their absence may do to the crew (nor how to manufacture them, either) it just kinda… passed me by.
Games like this can feel like they’re throwing a lot at you, especially when you’re just getting started, and in some ways, that’s just how it goes when you boot up a brand-new strategy game. Figuring out the intricacies of the rules and which resources to prioritise – especially when you don’t have the manpower to do it all – is part of the fun of playing! But, especially in a demo version, I guess I just expected a little more guidance on getting started.
I like that Outposts Unknown is set in the Strange New Worlds timeline, and that the game is clearly leaning into the aesthetic of that series. Unfortunately, it comes along a little late – Strange New Worlds has been cancelled, sadly, and will end with a truncated fifth season that will probably air next year. But it’s nice to get at least one video game set in the Strange New Worlds era before the show fully wraps up. And yes, I’m still upset that Strange New Worlds was prematurely cancelled by Star Trek’s new corporate overlords!
Admiral Robert April, who appears in Strange New Worlds, was seen briefly in the demo; I don’t know if any other characters from the show will cross over, nor even how prevalent Admiral April’s role will be further into the game, but it would be nice to get even just a couple of short missions or cameo moments from familiar faces. Does the game *desperately need* that? Arguably not… but if it’s a game made to appeal to existing Trekkies, why not include a handful of familiar characters at key moments in the story?
I’m not the *greatest* player in the world when it comes to strategy games! And I give that as a caveat because I felt a few moments in the demo were either confusing, not sufficiently explained, or just set up in such a way as to take a long time. At one point, relatively early in my run, my next objective (the game gives you objectives in a linear fashion) was to unlock something from the tech tree and synthesise five refined materials called Tech Data. But the demo didn’t explain how to do this or where to get these from – and it was actually a pretty convoluted process.
To get Tech Data you need some kind of advanced science lab (I forgot its name, sorry!), but you can’t just build one. In order to build this lab, you first need refined metal, which means harvesting enough raw metal to build a metal refinery, *then* even more metal to get enough to build the lab. But the refinery and the lab both need power, so you need to build a power generator, *and* wire up the generator to both buildings. All the while… I still only had eight crewmen to get anything done. It took multiple in-game days to achieve this one task when every preceding task had been much quicker. And I just… I didn’t like that, to be blunt. Not for a demo. If I was playing a full campaign, then sure – that kind of thing is par for the course. But to take, like, forty minutes or more of real-world time (at the game’s full speed, too) just… waiting? It didn’t leave a great impression, to be honest.
There were a couple of other bugs in the demo besides the one that killed my run. At one point, two different crewmen were killed by one of the planet’s weirdly aggressive plants – but they didn’t fight back, and I didn’t get any kind of alert or warning. I didn’t see the first one happen, but the second one was in the exact same location, so I think it was the same issue. In brief, both crewmen were attacked while harvesting a resource, and they seem to have prioritised continuing to work over defending themselves, leading to both of them being killed.
And this leads nicely into my next point: it takes *forever* to replace even one dead crewman! You only get “resupplied” once every four or so in-game days, and when this pops up, you get the chance to add one new crewman (or to choose to add some rare resources). But this is *painfully* slow, especially in what feels like the early game; there’s gotta be a better way to replace dead crewmen than just waiting around for days on end while your colony’s efficiency drops.
That being said, I liked the characters. I *adore* any strategy game that lets you rename your workers – your crew, in this case! And it’s just a bit of fun to give them silly names (or, perhaps, to pick real names from Star Trek’s extensive history if you wanna go lore-accurate!) And the crew were pretty diverse – a good mix of humans, Vulcans, and Andorians, though it would be nice to see a few other familiar races represented, too.
And, like I do in any game like this, I found myself getting attached to some of the crew! When they were in danger – and when the game worked properly and *informed me* that they were in danger – it could feel genuinely tense. Combat, such as it is, is pretty minimal, with crew members firing phasers and wearing down the hit-points of mysterious alien flora. But it looks pretty good, and the game has a photo mode if you’re into that kinda thing.
I think I’ve waffled on for long enough.
Think “Star Trek does Banished,” and you’re not a million light-years away from Outposts Unknown. If you like slower-paced base-building games, or if you enjoyed New Worlds back in the day, I think there’s a lot of potential in the game. But, at this stage, I have to recommend caution because of the game’s bugs. Being forced to end a three-hour run, with seemingly no way to go back and salvage things… that’s kinda annoying, and I would’ve liked to have made it to the end of the demo so I’d feel more confident in issuing a recommendation.
If Magic Fuel Games and Playstack keep working on it, and can successfully quash these bugs, then I can see Outposts Unknown becoming a real time-sink for me. It’s the style of game that generally appeals to me, especially with my arthritis limiting my reflexes in some other, faster-paced titles. And as a Trekkie… I’m always going to be interested in a game like this. It’s a genre I like and a franchise I love coming together. As long as the game actually works by the time it launches, I’ll be happy.
This is not a big-budget, “triple-A” kind of title, so you will need to set appropriate expectations. But, speaking for myself, I enjoy the art style, the somewhat less-realistic but still bright and cheerful colour palette and character designs, and the largely text-based interface, with little voice acting, isn’t really a problem for me personally. But as the games industry moves on and more players *do* expect more things like that, it’s something to be aware of before you commit.
I hope this has been interesting. I’m in no mood, frankly, to try again with the demo and potentially kill another two or three hours, only to get locked out again. So unless I see a significant patch, I’ll wait for the game’s full release. And… to be honest, maybe I’ll wait a few days *after* launch to check the reviews! Bugs happen in games, especially games that are still in development – I get it! But this was Outposts Unknown’s one chance to make a good first impression. And despite enjoying myself with the demo much of the time… that bug absolutely ruined it, and it’s definitely giving me pause and making me feel a little cautious about jumping in on day one.
If you decide to try out the demo for yourself… good luck. I hope you’re able to make it all the way to the end! When Outposts Unknown launches – which is allegedly gonna be later this year – I’ll try my best to review the full game, so be sure to check back for that. And if you missed it earlier in the year, I reviewed Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown, which is another Star Trek strategy/management title. Click or tap here to check out my thoughts on that game. And until next time… Live Long and Prosper, friends!
Star Trek: Outposts Unknown will be released on PC and MacOS in 2026. Star Trek: Outposts Unknown is the copyright of Magic Fuel Games and/or Playstack. The Star Trek franchise is the copyright of the Skydance-Paramount corporation. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 