Spoiler Warning: Beware of spoilers for Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown and its DLC. Spoilers are also present for Star Trek: Voyager.
I wasn’t expecting this – and certainly not so soon after launch – but Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown has just received its first add-on! There were a couple of free updates to the game earlier in the year, which made a few improvements and also added in the fan-requested Delta Flyer, but this is the first of several planned pieces of DLC for the game. I paid £25 here in the UK for the “Expansion Pass,” which promises to add all of this content in four additions over the next few months. So far, at time of writing, only the first DLC pack – titled Delta Chronicles – is available, but I jumped in anyway to check out what’s been added.
And I gotta say, I’m impressed!
This review will be in two parts… probably. I don’t anticipate reviewing each of the four DLC pieces individually; that just seems like a lot of work relative to the amount of content. I’ve already written two articles reviewing the base game, and I even compiled almost two hundred screenshots in a gallery here on the website, so Across The Unknown has been covered pretty comprehensively! Today, I’m going to cover the first DLC pack (that’s Delta Chronicles) and talk a little about what’s been teased for the remainder of the Expansion Pass. And later in the year – or in the early part of 2027, perhaps, once all of that content has launched – I’ll talk about the rest of it. That’s the plan, anyway! But plans have been known to change.
Before we go any further, I encourage you to check out my review of Across The Unknown, which you can find by clicking or tapping here, and my follow-up piece, which you can find by clicking or tapping here. Those articles will give a lot of context for what we’re going to discuss today, and you can get my thoughts on other aspects of the game from my first two run-throughs.
Secondly, I want to briefly talk about what I did – and didn’t – do in order to review this downloadable content. I went back to Across The Unknown… but not for an entire playthrough. Instead, I used the game’s sectors as checkpoints, and jumped in only to the places where there was new content to play. I didn’t really want to commit to another full run through Across The Unknown, having done two already just a few months back. As a result, I didn’t necessarily get the “full DLC experience,” like having DLC characters or allies available for the remainder of a playthrough. I think what I did is more than enough for a review of the available content, but if you disagree… no hard feelings!
Before we talk about what’s been added, let’s talk about what’s yet to come!
Later in the year, there’ll be new missions, new characters, and even an entire new sector – presumably complete with a main mission of its own. And all of that sounds like an absolute blast! Across The Unknown adapted many different episodes from Voyager, but there was still a lot of content left on the table for the game to pick up. I’m very pleased that the developers are continuing to add new content – some of which, like the Delta Flyer, is free – and I’m happy to pay for DLC for a game like this. I know this is my bias as a Trekkie showing, but Across The Unknown is genuinely one of my favourite games of the year so far, and when it wasn’t overpriced to begin with, I’m happy to splash out on DLC.
Perhaps the thing I’m most curious about, though – and very, very interested in – is the upcoming Equinox DLC.
This sounds like it’s going to be some kind of much more difficult mode, with players able to take on the challenge of commanding the USS Equinox instead of (or as well as? Not sure on that!) the USS Voyager.
I just think this sounds like a fantastically creative and fun idea! The whole point of Equinox (the episode, as well as the chapter in Across The Unknown) is to make you think. Captain Ransom commits a horrible atrocity, but he does so claiming he was out of options and facing starvation and the deaths of his crew. Putting players in his shoes – perhaps facing a much more harrowing and difficult journey – could be absolutely fascinating.
Mechanically, it could be the game’s equivalent of a “hardcore mode,” with fewer hero crew members, less space for resources, a smaller, less-powerful ship, and more. And narratively, it could be a much more in-depth examination of that core theme of Equinox – challenging players by asking “what would you have done in Captain Ransom’s shoes?” In a way, only interactive entertainment can *really* get at the core of that kind of question. If that’s what Across The Unknown’s Equinox DLC is about… I’m all for it! I think it could be a really interesting and unique idea. Even though I think I already know, deep down, that I’m gonna be absolutely *rubbish* at any kind of extra-hard game mode!
But that’s for another time. For now, let’s focus on the newly-available DLC for Across The Unknown.
Delta Chronicles adds two new hero characters, a fun new allied ship, and several new missions based on classic Voyager episodes. I tried out all of them, and I really had a blast. I’d say, if you take your time, don’t try to rush the missions, and just incorporate them into a standard playthrough of the game, there’s about two hours’ worth of additional content – perhaps two-and-a-half or even three if you really take your time, or have to re-play any of the missions. Here in the UK, Delta Chronicles retails for £8.49 (for the Steam version), and it’s also included as part of the £25 Expansion Pass. I think it’s pretty good value for what it is – though it’s almost certainly gonna be better value to buy the Expansion Pass rather than individual pieces of DLC.
The first mission is Cold Fire, based on the episode of the same name. This appears in Sector 3, and gives you the chance to meet Suspiria – the “other” Caretaker.
This mission came with a few skill-checks, an away mission, and a bit of time spent researching and preparing an upgrade that (spoiler alert!) is necessary if you want to get a reasonably good outcome from the mission. Cold Fire is potentially risky for Kes; I think this is a point at which she could be lost, which could impact the remainder of your run. But it was fun, the away mission wasn’t too difficult or silly, and it was neat to step back to an episode I remember fondly but haven’t seen in a while.
One criticism of Cold Fire, though, would be that it felt *relatively* easy to accidentally get Voyager home years ahead of schedule! In my run, using an arguably imperfect save file, at a pretty early stage and without having the benefit of a ton of XP and upgrades, I basically had a 65% chance to convince Suspiria to use her Array to send Voyager back to Earth. That triggered a little cut-scene, which I did appreciate… but I can’t help but feel that a lot of folks could just sort of bumble into this early end to the game without really appreciating what’s about to happen. The whole point of Across The Unknown is to give you these choices, to let you have the run of Voyager and make different decisions. RNG (that’s “random number generation”) has been a big part of the game, and that’s… okay. But in this case? Maybe the probability of success is a little too high for something so early into the story!
Up next is Distant Origin. This mission was a bit more of a challenge; there were several pretty low chances of success, and failing any of them during the “away” mission (which actually takes place aboard Voyager this time) leads to the Voth escaping and the mystery remaining unresolved. A bit unsatisfying, especially if you’re doing a “no save-scumming” run! But if you beat the RNG (or you’ve upgraded everyone and everything so much that you have a higher likelihood of success than I did) then you’re rewarded with a fun encounter.
Voyager gets to take on the Voth City Ship – a massive capital ship – in a combat encounter, and I like the unique look of the ship that’s been created here. This is a mission, though, where you almost have to choose to get a less-than-perfect outcome; it’s possible, I think, for the Voth to basically believe Dr Gegen’s claims about his species’ true history, which in turn means he’s not gonna be available as a hero. The same can happen with Dr Telek R’Mor, Kashyk, and others – you have to be careful when making your dialogue choices with the Voth leader, in this case, to ensure you can escape with Dr Gegen in tow.
I didn’t get to use Dr Gegen much after recruiting him, but I did go out of my way to bring him along on an away mission. As you might expect, he’s got scientific and medical skills which could be useful, and he offers a new kind of cloaking device when he’s recruited – though this needs to be researched in the tech tree. His unique ship combat skill is called Ship Hibernation, and it stops Voyager dead while repairing shields and other damaged systems. That seems… well, let’s just call it “situational” and leave it at that, eh? Not necessarily the most powerful ability!
But Dr Gegen has other potential uses on away missions, and his cloaking device reduces the difficulty of away missions – which, again, could be very handy as you get deeper into a run. When I go back to Across The Unknown for another full playthrough – perhaps later in the year or next year, when the rest of the DLC is out – I’ll definitely be curious to experiment with this a bit more! Re-playing Sector 5 to get the Distant Origin mission was a bit punishing; I’d forgotten how much Across The Unknown’s difficulty spikes around this point in the story!
Sector 7 brings us to Omega Directive, and this is a story with an away mission, some dialogue choices, some tech to research… and a major time crunch! In my first run through Across The Unknown, I got caught out by a Malon ship which I didn’t know would explode (ending my run and forcing me to restart or reload a save) if I let the timer run out. And I’m 99% sure that Omega Directive operates in much the same way. I think it could’ve been interesting to give players a choice here about whether or not to include other members of the crew; perhaps framing it as a “obey the law” versus “circumstances have changed” debate. But as it is, the story plays out pretty similarly to the episode it’s based on.
The away mission isn’t especially tough, and as long as you pick the right conversation options, you’ll get the chance to build an advanced Omega Molecule chamber. There’s still an amount of luck; this is an RNG-based game, at the end of the day! But if you play your cards right, this is one area where you can actually get a better outcome than the real Janeway did by stabilising the Omega molecules. If you’re going for an “evil” run, you can even steal the synthesised molecules – or try to, anyway.
I’d rank Omega Directive about on par with other side-missions in the game. It was fun, but I’d have happily entertained a proper cut-scene, and maybe some kind of risk-reward option when it comes to deciding who to trust with the secrets of the titular Omega Directive. The away mission was okay, and as long as you have engineers and techies in your crew, you’ve got a pretty good chance of success. The ticking clock adds a bit of jeopardy to the situation, and if you wait too long, it’ll clearly end in disaster – so there’s definitely something to spur you on.
Given that Omega molecules have just recently been referenced in Star Trek, it was a bit of fun to step back to this story – it’s another episode I haven’t seen in a while. It’s a good mission for Seven of Nine, and I like that it’s an example of how Across The Unknown gives you the chance to not only recreate Captain Janeway’s choices… but to do better than she managed to do. The base game didn’t always have that – so this was a fun change of pace.
Sector 10 brings us the final two away missions: Homestead and Inside Man.
Despite Homestead being one of Voyager’s final episodes, at least in my playthrough of Across The Unknown, it came first. So we’ll start there! This mission felt the most basic of all the DLC content, to be blunt. I think there’s a way for it to end in a ship battle with the miners who are attacking the Talaxian settlement, but I played the mission twice and didn’t get that outcome. Story-wise, Homestead follows the basic plot of the episode; if you’ve got some of the upgrades and researched specific techs, it seems like there are multiple ways to convince the miners to leave the Talaxians alone.
What was unusual here, I felt, is that Tuvix – a potential hero character if you play that mission – has no role here. If Neelix is missing or replaced by Tuvix, then your “we’ve got Neelix at home” replacement Talaxian takes point on this mission. It’s nice that you don’t have to just skip Homestead, and still have the option to play it, but I can’t help but feel that this could’ve been a fun way to include Tuvix, or to further that particular storyline in a new or different way.
Inside Man can lead to the recruitment of holographic Barclay, and I really like this idea. One thing I’d love to see, as the Expansion Pass continues its rollout, would be more hero characters from other parts of Star Trek. A fun idea would be replacing certain Voyager characters with others from The Next Generation era – Deanna Troi, Garak, Jadzia Dax, or Data could all be really fun inclusions in a game like this, if the point is to give you a completely different voyage across the Delta Quadrant! And, to me at least, this Barclay inclusion feels like a first step.
Because this is getting towards the end of the game, Barclay won’t get a ton of time to make an impact – but I enjoyed Inside Man for what it was. There’s some RNG in determining whether or not your heroes figure out the original deception in time, and I think this has the potential to end your run if you get it wrong (or get unlucky), but that’s part of the game!
Inside Man also offers a potential new allied ship: the Ferengi Marauder! I’ve always loved this design, so I went out of my way to make sure I could get the ship. And it really is a fun thing to see Voyager and a D’Kora-class ship going into battle together! Given that this is, again, the final act of the game, you could conceivably bring the Ferengi with you in the final confrontations with the Borg… and I just think that’s a really neat idea. I like that the developers took the basic storyline from Inside Man and extended it, asking the question “what if the Ferengi came to the Delta Quadrant?” Narratively, the mission ends and you don’t get to see the Ferengi again. But having them as a recruitable ally for combat… it’s just really neat!
Finally, we have the Delta Flyer – the only piece of content we’re discussing today that you don’t need to pay extra for!
I’m glad that this was added in; it felt like a pretty glaring omission from the original game, and it was something I noted in my review. Because of the way the Delta Flyer was conceived of and built in the series, it seemed like something that would be *pitch-perfect* for a game like Across The Unknown, which made its absence all the more odd.
The Delta Flyer is a difficult unlock, coming right at the bottom of the tech tree under all of the other shuttlebay upgrades. As a reward, you get to see the Delta Flyer in your shuttlebay, and you get to use it to enhance your chances of a successful outcome during some away missions, as well as when scanning planets and debris in the system view. I didn’t spend a lot of time with the Delta Flyer, but I managed to get it built and tried it out – and it definitely increases your chances of nabbing the most resources in a system!
There was also a truly beautiful cut-scene depicting the Delta Flyer’s maiden voyage. One of the best things about Across The Unknown has been the attention to detail in all of the cut-scenes; we’ve been treated to some absolutely beautiful “starship porn!” And, with Voyager languishing in un-remastered DVD quality on Paramount+, the shots of Voyager, the Delta Flyer, and more are quite literally the best-looking official depictions we have right now. The Delta Flyer in particular just looks incredible, and I really want to highlight the developers’ beautiful animation work.
So I think that’s all for today!
If you played and enjoyed Across The Unknown, as I did, or you’ve been waiting for the game to get its first big updates, then the Expansion Pass is the way to go. I don’t think there’s a lot of point in buying Delta Chronicles separately – unless money’s tight right now. But if you didn’t enjoy Across The Unknown, or it just didn’t seem like your kinda game, it’s worth being aware that nothing in this DLC fundamentally changes how the game plays. There’s no additional voice acting, the missions and heroes are narratively distinct from – but mechanically similar to – the content already in the base game, and really, this is just more Across The Unknown for fans of the game.
For its price point, I feel satisfied with Delta Chronicles, and I believe the Expansion Pass will feel like a good investment, too. That’s assuming, of course, that all of the promised content actually makes it to release! But because Across The Unknown was priced appropriately from day one, I don’t mind paying extra for this kind of thing. The base game feels complete enough without it for folks who don’t want to pay extra; none of this really feels like “cut content” in that sense, and the base game is feature-complete. But for fans of the game, I think the additional missions and heroes are worth the price of admission.
I thought I was done with Across The Unknown, but apparently not! When the rest of the Expansion Pass content launches, I hope you’ll join me for another review, as I’m sure I’ll be checking it all out. And if we get news of further DLC content to come, I’ll definitely take a look at all of that, too!
If you missed them earlier in the year, you can find the first part of my review of the game by clicking or tapping here, the second part by clicking or tapping here, and my screenshot gallery by clicking or tapping here. I’ll probably go back, in the next few days, and update my screenshot gallery with some of the DLC content, too.
There’s more Star Trek content to come here on the website, too! Strange New Worlds’ fourth season kicks off imminently, so I’ll be doing individual episode reviews. And as the big sixtieth anniversary nears, I have a few other plans for articles and essays all about the Star Trek franchise! So I hope you’ll join me for some of that. Safe travels in the Delta Quadrant, friends! And, as always… Live Long and Prosper!
Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown is out now for Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series consoles. The Expansion Pass and the Delta Chronicles DLC pack are also available now. Across The Unknown was developed by GameXcite and published by Daedalic Entertainment. Star Trek: Voyager remains the copyright of the Skydance/Paramount corporation. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 