star trek games – Trekking with Dennis

Outposts Unknown: My Thoughts on the Demo

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.

Still frame from the Star Trek Outposts Unknown demo showing a cutscene — The player’s ship in a cut-scene.

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.

Still frame from the Star Trek Outposts Unknown demo showing beaming down — Beaming down at the start of the game.

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.

Still frame from the Star Trek Outposts Unknown demo showing a bug — This was as far as I could get before everything locked up.

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.

Still frame from the Star Trek Outposts Unknown demo showing combat — I really like the bright colours and the game’s overall aesthetic.

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!

Still frame from the Star Trek Outposts Unknown demo showing construction — A building (the security office) under construction.

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.

Still frame from the Star Trek Outposts Unknown demo showing crew boarding a shuttle — The entire crew just fucks off for several in-game hours, and you’re stuck with nothing to do…

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.

Still frame from the Star Trek Outposts Unknown demo showing the ship menu — The ship menu.

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?

Still frame from the Star Trek Outposts Unknown demo showing April — Admiral April kicks off the game’s 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.

Still frame from the Star Trek Outposts Unknown demo showing a colon — My small colony. The advanced science lab is the building with the blue roof.

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.

Still frame from the Star Trek Outposts Unknown demo showing a resupply — Getting re-supplied gives you a chance to expand your crew roster (or replace dead crew members).

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.

Still frame from the Star Trek Outposts Unknown demo showing a crew member close up — A close-up look at one of the crew members.

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.

Still frame from the Star Trek Outposts Unknown demo showing resource gathering — A crew member gathering resources.

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.

I still don’t know what Star Trek Infinite is supposed to be…

Tue 20.06.23Dennis

I genuinely don’t understand what Star Trek Infinite is. Am I stupid? Have I missed some key piece of marketing material? Or could it be that Paramount and publisher Paradox Interactive haven’t actually done a good job at communicating what this unexpected game is going to be?

I’ve been a huge advocate of the Star Trek franchise when it comes to video games. In the ’90s and 2000s, when Star Trek video game adaptations were at their peak, I bought practically every title on the market. Some of my favourite games of all-time are from the Star Trek franchise, including relatively obscure titles that didn’t sell very well!

Box art/promo art for *Star Trek Infinite*.

I’m also a fan of Paradox Interactive – though some of their games can feel overly-monetised, with vast arrays of DLC that can be incredibly pricey. Paradox Interactive has created such titles as Europa Universalis IV and Hearts of Iron IV, and has a reputation for being the undisputed master of the grand strategy, economy-management genre.

Combining Paradox’s in-depth gameplay with the Star Trek franchise should be something special, and I am genuinely looking forward to what the game might have in store. But I feel that its announcement was poor, and that the game hasn’t been marketed especially well thus far. That could be an issue for Infinite, so I’ll try to explain what I mean in this article… as well as share my thoughts on what Infinite might be.

Of the three Star Trek video games released so far this decade, I want to say that Infinite would be the one I’m most interested in. I adore a good strategy game, and strategy is a genre that the Star Trek franchise hasn’t touched since the days of Star Trek Armada and Armada II around the turn of the millennium. Those games were a blast; I have very fond memories of LAN parties with Armada II in particular! A return to the strategy space is incredibly welcome, then!

But Star Trek Infinite has had a very strange announcement. Initially announced at Summer Game Fest, a brief CGI teaser promised that more information would follow on “Captain Picard Day” – i.e. the 16th of June, which was only a few days later. That already didn’t make a lot of sense to me; why not simply show the real trailer at Summer Game Fest? Surely more eyes would be on Star Trek Infinite at that moment than would be on it at a random date that isn’t actually celebrated by Paramount. No other Star Trek events were planned for the 16th of June… so what was the point of this weird double announcement?

A promo screenshot that appears to show the main map.

Then there was the second trailer itself, which I dutifully tuned in for a few days ago. Actually, calling it a “trailer” is being unnecessarily generous to Paradox, because we saw barely any gameplay and didn’t get much of a feel for the game itself. It was a poor trailer, one that neither generated much excitement nor showed off a significant amount of gameplay. We caught a glimpse of the game’s four playable factions: the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians… but that’s about it.

Hopping over to Paradox’s website, there is a bit more information about the game. We know that Infinite will be a grand strategy game, presumably in the Paradox mould, taking the game Stellaris and its mechanics and systems as a starting point. I confess that I’m not familiar with Stellaris, but it’s a Paradox grand strategy title that seems to have a good reputation among players. A solid start, then!

*Star Trek Infinite* is supposedly built atop the bones of Paradox’s grand strategy game *Stellaris*.

The game promises to put players in charge of one of the four competing factions – so presumably there will be more to the game than fleets and space battles, with some amount of economy management, perhaps planetary and space station management, and other related things, too. Although Infinite claims to have “streamlined” some elements of Stellaris, it still promises to be an in-depth and complex strategy experience.

But there’s still a lot we don’t know. How will fleet battles work, for instance? The first teaser trailer prominently featured the Borg – yet they aren’t listed as a playable faction. The game looks to be set in The Next Generation era, but again I couldn’t find any specific details about this beyond what was implied in artwork and screenshots.

A Federation fleet and Borg vessel as seen in the first teaser trailer.

I’m absolutely on board with the idea of Infinite as a Paradox grand strategy game set in the Star Trek universe. If that’s what it is! But the game’s announcement was poor, with two trailers on different days that didn’t really show off much in the way of gameplay, nor succeed at really communicating what kind of title this is going to be. It’s only because of my familiarity with some of Paradox’s other titles that I even have a vague idea of what I’m going to be in for with this new game.

The Star Trek franchise has long struggled in the video game space, despite Star Trek and gaming being a perfect match on paper. A game like Infinite has the potential to reach out beyond the current Star Trek fandom to fans of these kinds of grand strategy games – potentially bringing a few newbies into the fan community. That’s a great idea… but I fear that Infinite’s lacklustre announcement and marketing is going to get in the way of that.

I shouldn’t have to waste time digging through websites and reading marketing doublespeak to understand what a new game is going to be at its most basic level. I’m thrilled that Paramount is being more open with licensing Star Trek games, and a deal with a successful developer like Paradox Interactive feels like it could be a real coup. Taking the skeleton of another successful space-based strategy title and bolting Star Trek onto it is also a clever concept, one that I hope bears fruit.

But again, the way the game has been teased, announced, and marketed has been poor. And even after doing some digging and reading official announcements and press releases, I confess that I’m still not entirely sure what Star Trek Infinite is going to be like to play. The strategy genre is massive, broad, and varied – and there are many different styles of gameplay even within the grand strategy sub-genre.

A promotional screenshot that appears to show a Klingon starbase and starship.

Still, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for a fun, enjoyable, and perhaps even in-depth experience with Star Trek Infinite when it’s ready. No release date has been announced, though the game is tentatively on the schedule for 2023. That may change, of course, but for now it seems as if we might get to play Infinite before Christmas. If so, I hope there will be a better and more elaborate marketing push in the weeks leading up to release.

I don’t like to be negative here on the website, especially not about a brand-new game that I haven’t gotten to play for myself. But I’m deeply unimpressed with the way in which Star Trek Infinite has been announced, and the difficulty in figuring out just what kind of gameplay experience this is going to be. I’m positively thrilled at the idea of a Star Trek grand strategy game, and the franchise’s long overdue return to the strategy genre. And I will do my best to cover Infinite here on the website if we get a significant update, or to share my thoughts on the title after its release. But for now, sadly, a lacklustre announcement and a lack of clarity have taken at least some of the shine off Star Trek Infinite.

Star Trek Infinite has no solid release date, but will be coming to PC and Mac sometime in 2023. Star Trek Infinite is the copyright of Paramount Global, Paradox Interactive, and Nimble Giant Entertainment. The Star Trek franchise is the copyright of Paramount Global. Some screenshots and other promotional material used above courtesy of Paradox Interactive. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Five ideas for Star Trek video games

Wed 28.04.21Sun 13.11.22Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the Star Trek franchise, including minor spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3.

The Star Trek franchise has not been particularly well-served in the video game realm, especially in recent years. With the exception of Star Trek Online, which continues to receive updates, there hasn’t been a major release since 2017’s Bridge Crew. Both Online and Bridge Crew are somewhat niche titles, too, with the former being a massively multiplayer online game and the latter being a title designed with virtual reality in mind.

There have been a couple of new smaller games released this year, including free browser game Star Trek: Kobayashi Maru and Star Trek Legends for Apple Arcade, but considering the renewed popularity the franchise is currently enjoying, it feels as though there’s potential for ViacomCBS to do more with Star Trek as a video game franchise.

*Star Trek: Kobayashi Maru* is a free browser game. And it’s pretty good!

Star Trek Online was originally launched in 2010, and while the game is still being supported at time of writing, surely its lifespan is limited and it will eventually come to an end. The only other significant release really in the last decade has been the awful 2013 Star Trek action/adventure title, which was so badly-received that director JJ Abrams criticised it, fearing it actually harmed Star Trek Into Darkness when it was released that same year.

In this article I’m going to suggest five potential Star Trek video game ideas, and we’re going to consider different ways that the franchise could make a new attempt to score a hit in the gaming realm – something that hasn’t happened in a long time! Two of the biggest and most successful Star Trek video games that I can recall were 2000’s Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary last year, and the Star Trek: Armada duology of real-time strategy titles which were also released around the turn of the millennium.

As always, caveats apply! I’m not saying that these games will ever be made, and I don’t have any “insider information!” This is just a wishlist from a fan. Nothing more.

Number 1: Star Trek: First Contact

I’ve already proposed a First Contact tie-in once before, but this time I want to hone in on one particular aspect of my suggestion from a few months ago. In short, First Contact – which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year – would make for an excellent first-person shooter title with horror elements. Think Star Trek’s answer to Doom Eternal and you’re in the right sort of area!

Players would take on the role of a security officer aboard the Enterprise-E during the mission to Earth, and this character could be customisable which would be a nice touch. After arriving in the past, the player character would be one of the security officers tasked with holding the line and retaking the lower decks of the ship from the Borg as they attempt to assimilate the Enterprise-E and prevent first contact from taking place.

An Enterprise-E security officer firing his phaser rifle.

Though the main cast of the film would be present at points, the game wouldn’t necessarily have to follow the entire story directly. This would be a looser adaptation, with a focus on the battle for the lower decks of the Enterprise-E while Picard, Riker, and co. are busy with the main plot of the film. This would allow for maximum storytelling leeway, and I think a fun and engaging story could be written depicting the fight between Starfleet survivors and the Borg, which was something we saw parts of in the film but not the entire thing.

The first mission might take place during the Battle of Sector 001, and the player character could be present for significant moments like the holodeck scene with Picard and Lily, or even the spacewalk to prevent the Borg using the main deflector. In addition, the narrow hallways of the Enterprise-E, as well as jeffries tubes, catwalks, and even areas of the ship we haven’t seen like nacelle tubes would all make for dangerous and scary enclosed spaces to battle the Borg!

Number 2: Star Trek: Discovery

As Discovery approaches its fourth season later this year, it’s not unfair to say the series has well and truly established itself in the franchise! As the series which brought Star Trek back to television after a twelve-year break, Discovery has been flying the flag for Star Trek for almost four years now. Some Discovery characters have been included in Star Trek Online, but it would be wonderful to see the series get its own video game adaptation.

Though there are many different ways a Discovery game could go, I feel like a third-person action/adventure title would be a great fit. Think Star Trek meets Uncharted or Jedi: Fallen Order and you’re on the right track! A game with a strong focus on story and with mysteries and puzzles to solve along the way would suit this game perfectly, and while it could be connected to either the Control story or the Burn, perhaps an altogether new and original storyline would work even better.

Michael Burnham would be the game’s protagonist.

Players would, of course, take on the role of Michael Burnham. However, at points in the game it would be possible to assemble away teams, picking up at least two other characters to join Burnham on her mission. Games like the Mass Effect series worked well with three-person squads, and adapting it to work here would be great.

The game could be set in either of Discovery’s time periods, but the 32nd Century naturally allows for the most storytelling options, as there’s nothing in canon to constrain it. The game could bring back familiar Star Trek races that haven’t been seen since past iterations of the franchise, and all of this could be done without treading on the toes of anything the series wants to do on television. Tying a game into an ongoing series makes a lot of sense, and while it isn’t something we see every television show try to do any more, it would still be a fun idea.

Number 3: Star Trek: Armada III

A sequel to this game would be fantastic!

I mentioned the Star Trek: Armada games earlier, and they were great fun to play around the turn of the millennium. The real-time strategy titles – of which there were two – played similarly to games like Age of Empires, and there were campaigns to get stuck into as well as random matches. Star Trek: Armada II in particular became a LAN party favourite for a couple of friends and I, and we played it regularly!

In addition to starships that could fight, part of Armada II involved base-building and resource collecting, with different kinds of ships and space stations required to research, build, and maintain the fighting ships. There were different factions to choose from as well, which is a must for this kind of title.

Armada III could pick up where the earlier games left off in the early 2000s, with a setting around the 2370s-80s. Or it could be set in the 23rd Century to connect with Strange New Worlds, with factions like the Klingons, Tholians, and Gorn. Alternatively, a 32nd Century setting would be an option, with the rump Federation and factions like the Emerald Chain and Ni’Var.

Regardless, I’d keep the real-time strategy gameplay more or less unchanged, with options for deathmatches and a single-player campaign. There are plenty of real-time strategy titles at the moment, with the genre going strong. There’s no reason why a new Armada title couldn’t be one of them!

Number 4: The Dominion War

If Armada III would be a real-time strategy game, I imagine that the Dominion War could be adapted to make a wonderful grand strategy title. If you can imagine Star Trek mixed with the likes of the Total War series, you’re on the right page.

The Dominion War is perfect for this kind of grand strategy game, and players would have the choice of siding with either the Dominion and Cardassians or the Federation Alliance. The game would depict the entire war from beginning to end, starting with the loss of DS9 and concluding with the Battle of Cardassia… or the Dominion conquest of Earth!

Earth seen in *Discovery* Season 3. Think you could conquer it if you were in charge of Dominion forces?

Both factions would change as the game wore on, with the Romulans joining the Federation alliance midway, and the Breen throwing in with the Dominion about two-thirds of the way into the campaign. Perhaps, though, these events would not be set in stone, and failing to achieve certain objectives or keep key characters alive would mean the new allies don’t join.

The game would be similar to Total War titles in that there’d be an overall campaign map, but players would also be able to dive in and participate in individual battles. Pre-made battles or randomly created ones could be available to play in multiplayer as well, though the main campaign would be a single-player experience.

Number 5: An open world title

A map of the galaxy seen in *Discovery* Season 3.

Perhaps the expression “open galaxy” would be more appropriate! It would actually be tricky to create a true open world in a Star Trek game, unless the action was to take place entirely on a single planet. But in the vein of games like the Mass Effect series or Knights of the Old Republic, perhaps a role-playing/adventure game could be created with multiple planets to visit.

Players would have their own starship or runabout to command, along with a variety of potential recruits to join their crew, giving this game a “Mass Effect meets Star Trek” kind of feel. In addition to a main quest, which would see players tasked with defeating some kind of nefarious villain, there would be many smaller missions and side-quests allowing for plenty of opportunities for Star Trek fun.

A Mass Effect-style game in the Star Trek galaxy? Yes please!

I imagine the player character would be a Starfleet officer, given a “covert ops” assignment and sent on their way with minimal interference from Starfleet command, which would account for the large degree of player choice on offer. Though there would be a main story to follow, a big part of the fun of open world titles is exploring the map, discovering fun locations and side-missions, and getting lost in the world.

Star Trek has what I consider to be the best world-building of any franchise, so crafting a game that took advantage of the deep lore that the Star Trek galaxy offers should be something achievable. Giving players a practically blank slate to create a character and take them on their own Star Trek adventure sounds amazing, and I bet a game like this would win the franchise new fans.

So that’s it. Five ideas for future Star Trek video games.

*Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force* (2000).

Star Trek video games, unlike comparable titles in the Star Wars franchise, have never really hit the mainstream in a big way. There have been some successes: Voyager – Elite Force had a moment in the year 2000 where it was popular with PC gamers, for example. But I don’t think it’s unfair to say that most Star Trek games have really only appealed to hardcore Trekkies. Finding a way to reach out beyond that is key to the success of any future title.

That doesn’t mean ViacomCBS should jump on some of the gaming industry’s fads or worst trends, but I think it does mean that, if they’re going to go to the expense of developing a video game, it should be one that has more than just niche appeal. I’ve mostly considered single-player games, because those are my personal favourites in most cases, but as Star Trek Online has shown, there is room for multiplayer experiences as well.

Star Trek is currently enjoying a renaissance, and if this continues it’s not implausible to think that future Trekkies might look back on the 2020s as a “golden age” of Star Trek in the same way fans of my generation look back on the ’90s! Video games aren’t essential to Star Trek’s success going forward, but the medium continues to grow and there’s a huge degree of crossover between Trekkies and gamers, so taking advantage of that and producing a high-quality, engaging game that’s fun and easy for new fans to get stuck into seems like a no-brainer to me. I’d dearly love to see a new Star Trek game some time soon – and I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed!

All video games mentioned above are the copyright of their respective studio, developer, publisher, etc. The Star Trek franchise – including all titles mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.