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Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown: Final Thoughts

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown and for Star Trek: Voyager.

After I wrapped up my review of Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown (which you can find by clicking or tapping here; don’t miss it!) I went back to the game for another run! That’s something I almost never do; re-playing a game so soon after finishing it usually doesn’t hold much appeal. But I think that alone is testament to how enjoyable Across The Unknown was for this old fan of Voyager.

That second run unfolded quite differently, as I made some deliberate choices that I hoped would lead to completely different outcomes. I ended my first run through the game without having unlocked some optional hero characters; I went out of my way to grab some more of them this time. And I tried to set up the USS Voyager differently, too – different rooms, different weapons arrays, and so on, having run through the tech tree in a different order.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing the main menu with sectors — I’m back for round two!

And that’s really my first point about the game: it genuinely plays very differently depending on how you set up the ship and which heroes you have at your disposal. In my first run, I found myself struggling with crew morale quite a lot, so this time, I went out of my way to try to unlock more morale-boosting options. I subbed out emergency quarters for officers’ quarters, upgraded the holodeck, built an observation lounge, and upgraded the quality of meals in the Mess Hall. My morale was hampered this time because I chose to keep Tuvix – meaning I lost Neelix – but those other upgrades and unlocks were fun. Though I had to swap most of the officers’ quarters for standard crew quarters and Borg alcoves later in the game!

Unlocking different heroes was fun, too. I noted in my original review that some decisions – like keeping Tuvix instead of restoring Neelix and Tuvok – lead to “worse” outcomes, and I stand by that to an extent. But, having deliberately tried to unlock more heroes this time around than I did in my first run, I think at least *some* of that can be offset. For example, my first run through the game utilised Tuvok in almost every combat encounter for his unique ability; I found that Tuvix, while weaker, was an okay substitute, especially when teamed up with other heroes. And although I managed to save B’Elanna this time, her unique combat ability (recharging shields) could be replaced in a way by one of a couple of other heroes who also have defensive powers.

Not a retraction, then, but an amendment!

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing prepare for combat screen — Selecting a hero for a combat encounter.

I encountered a bug this time that forced me to re-play part of a side-mission. The mission based on the episode Child’s Play, which can result in Icheb being unlocked as a hero character, bugged out in its final act. After racing back to the Borg Cube to rescue the away team, I managed to convince Icheb to stand down, allowing me to beam everyone out. But rather than getting the final cut-scene in sickbay, after the dialogue box popped up telling me what was happening, I was back to the system screen with the Borg Cube still intact. I had to re-play that final section of the mission, complete with random rolls of the digital dice, and at the second time of asking, it was fully completed. I don’t know if that’s a common bug, but I hope it can be fixed.

Let’s stick with the digital dice for now – also known as “random number generation,” or RNG for short.

On one occasion, I think it was in Sector 6 or 7, I was soft-locked and unable to progress any further because of a roll of the digital dice. In short, in order to complete the main mission of that sector – which is essential for moving on to the next one – I needed about ten dilithium crystals (one of several in-game resources that you can spend on ship upgrades, tech unlocks, and so on). I didn’t have enough dilithium to unlock the required technology or build… whatever it was that I needed to build. But, as luck would have it, there was *one* remaining planet in the entire sector that contained dilithium. So I warped over to it, chose the option that has the largest chance of a positive outcome… and got fucked over by the digital dice.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing a terrible outcome — RNG can really mess things up, sometimes…

In a game about balancing and managing your resources, you have to keep on top of things to make sure you have enough of everything, that you aren’t wasting resources, and so on. I get that that’s how the game is designed. But mission-critical technologies and unlocks shouldn’t depend on resources – especially not rare ones like dilithium, which only have a few available points of interest per sector. Something like this is inevitable in that case.

This example hammered home how reliant the game is on RNG because of how annoying it was to get to this point of interest and come away with zero dilithium when I needed it to progress. But really, this kind of thing could happen at any point in that sector’s main mission. Suppose I’d decided I wanted to unlock the next tier of the combat tech tree, which requires dilithium, or that I’d wanted to upgrade main engineering, which also requires dilithium. I could’ve used up my available supply well before I even knew I’d need that resource to progress the main story, and I could end up ruining my playthrough of that entire sector completely by accident. Even if these mission-critical technologies or builds normally require certain resources to progress, I really think there should be a way around this for players who literally cannot get those resources. Otherwise the game is effectively soft-lockable every time this arises. And to add insult to injury, Across The Unknown autosaved as soon as the digital dice failed to deliver my dilithium – meaning my *only* choice was to re-play that entire sector.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing a Class Y planet — The system view.

RNG also plays a role in away missions – and again, this can lead to some pretty silly outcomes. In the mission based on Dark Frontier, which is another main quest, I ended up at the Borg Queen’s unicomplex to rescue Seven of Nine. I chose three heroes for the away team based on what the game suggested I needed: a pilot, most notably, and then someone with engineering skills. I made it to the final dice-roll screen, and I had what looked like a relatively good two-thirds chance of success. But, of course, RNG did its thing and that final dice roll ended up as a failure.

That’s fine, you might say, that’s how it goes. But this particular dice roll leads to an instant game over if you fail it.

In this case, I’d manually saved right before the trip to the Borg base, so I could re-load and try again. But it really didn’t feel good, or like the game was reacting in any way to my choices or the way I’d set things up, by randomly deciding that I’d failed that final hurdle and that that was going to be fatal to *the entire ship and everyone aboard*. If I’d been defeated in a real-time combat event, then sure. Or if I’d had some other way to feel like I was in control of events. But because it was literally just a roll of the digital dice – a roll that had a relatively high chance of success, too – it just felt wrong that it should lead to an instant game over.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing game over screen — It’s annoying to lose because of an unlucky roll of the dice.

I noted earlier that, on this run, I was deliberately making different choices to try to see some different results. Many of these were fun, but one… well, it really wasn’t. And I think it makes the story significantly worse and less comprehensible, especially for anyone new to Voyager or who doesn’t remember the episode in question. The mission based on the episode Equinox – which is a main mission and must be played – can go one of two ways: either Janeway and the crew are able to uncover what happened aboard the Equinox, revealing the truth behind why Captain Ransom and his crew are under attack by aliens from another realm, or… they just never find out anything at all.

Ransom’s actions in the second case make absolutely no sense. You make one choice, relatively early into the mission, and begin working on defensive measures to protect against the aliens. Then, for no reason at all – not just a reason that doesn’t make narrative sense, but literally no reason whatsoever – Ransom’s crew attack Voyager, steal the technology, and warp away. The rest of the mission plays out similarly – you face off against the Equinox in combat, beat them, and then you can either try to save some of their crew or not. But there’s still no explanation at all for what happened… and it just felt pretty unsatisfying, and like a way, way worse version of the story of that episode.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing a cut-scene — The Equinox.

I think, in this case, a combination of factors came into play. Firstly, I didn’t have the Doctor’s mobile emitter for away missions, so he couldn’t go to Equinox’s lab (I think). Then, I didn’t have Tuvok to lead an investigation, as I had Tuvix instead. And finally, I made a different choice at the beginning of the mission, which set me on that path.

I’m really in favour of the game plotting out different outcomes to key events in Voyager’s story – that’s the whole point, and I think it’s pretty fun. But when one of the main stories you get to experience has one canon outcome that makes sense and a non-canon one that’s just incredibly random… it makes it less fun and less interesting. It would be neat, for example, if you uncovered the truth, arrested Ransom, made peace with the aliens, and got to keep the Equinox as an allied ship to join you in combat. Or if you never uncovered the truth, you’d maybe have to sacrifice the Equinox but unlock Ransom as a hero character. Just a couple of examples of how this mission could unfold differently from how it did in the show, but in ways that would make narrative sense based on choices which players can make.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing Capt Ransom — Encountering Captain Ransom.

Next, I’d like to talk about a few absences that I felt more strongly this time around.

It’s odd that Janeway can *never* go on away missions. Even away missions that, canonically in the show, Janeway did take part in, she can’t go on in Across The Unknown. I’m sure there’d be a way to make this happen – maybe Janeway cannot die no matter what, if that’s important to the way the game works. Or maybe if she does die, Chakotay steps up to be captain with Tuvok as second-in-command? I’d love to have the freedom to pick Janeway for *all* away missions, but I understand if that’s difficult for some reason. Still, I think making her available for *some* specific away missions, those we know she canonically went on, would be a huge improvement.

Secondly… where’s the Delta Flyer? I thought I’d just missed this, or not unlocked it, on my first playthrough, because I wasn’t using the shuttlebay very much. But this time, I went out of my way to keep the shuttlebay functional all the time, and unlocking upgrades and everything. But… no Delta Flyer.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing the shuttlebay — The shuttlebay… with no Delta Flyer option.

A game like Across The Unknown, where you have a tech tree, upgrades, resources, and literally already have buildable shuttles, would’ve been *perfect* for including the Delta Flyer! I just cannot fathom why it wasn’t included, especially given its prominence in later seasons of the show. The Delta Flyer appeared in 29 Voyager episodes from Season 5 onwards, and I just find it very strange that it’s not part of the game at all.

As an example of how it could work, the Delta Flyer could either function like an upgrade to the standard shuttle, increasing the chances of successful outcomes for shuttle-based missions/points of interest. Or it could be its own thing entirely, unlocking different pathways to progress through certain missions – like the way the Vidiian Surgical Device or Pralor Shield Technology can be used to bypass certain checkpoints in some missions, or grant 100% successful outcomes. It could be a fun thing to unlock, too, requiring its own side-mission and a lot of resources to construct. Just… an odd omission. And no, I don’t think the trading-only aeroshuttle makes up for it in any way.

Still frame from Star Trek: Voyager Extreme Risk showing Tuvok Paris and the Delta Flyer — Tuvok and Paris designing the Delta Flyer.

I mentioned this in my review, but the game’s finale still feels pretty underwhelming. You get a text-only log, told from Janeway’s perspective, as the ship is seen cruising towards Earth… and then that’s it. In Endgame, the final shot showed Voyager being escorted by several other Starfleet vessels as she finally made it home – that would be a huge improvement. And I’d love – *love* – to see the ship swooping over the Golden Gate Bridge. That would really be a perfect way to end the game.

It would be great if that final log entry could be fully-voiced, too. I know that the developers went out of their way to recruit Robert Duncan McNeill and Tim Russ to reprise their roles and record log entries, and those logs have been a ton of fun. I don’t know whether getting Kate Mulgrew is in any way realistic – especially if it’s only for one scene. So maybe Tuvok and Paris could narrate that final scene between them? I don’t think it would be so glaring or so notable if we hadn’t had those logs from Paris and Tuvok throughout the game, but I think it does feel like something is missing from those final moments. At the very least, I’d like to see updated cut-scenes depicting Voyager, accompanied by more Starfleet ships, and ideally, that shot of the Golden Gate Bridge, too.

Still frame from Star Trek: Voyager Endgame showing USS Voyager coming home — How incredible would it have been to get this scene as the final ending?

There are a few memorable episodes from the show that I feel would’ve made for fun inclusions. I know that, with 168 episodes, Across The Unknown couldn’t possibly adapt all of them! That’s fine – some episodes wouldn’t really suit a game like this, anyway. But some genuinely would, and while I’m not surprised that they’re missing, I think adding them in would be a great way to improve the game.

Let’s start with Year of Hell. This would, in my view, work best as a new main mission with a whole sector entirely built around Voyager’s conflict with the Krenim. Imagine slowly having to deactivate entire decks, seeing heroes die, rooms destroyed, and eventually having to make a final, consequential choice: sacrifice this version of the ship and this version of Janeway, who you’ve spent the whole sector with, to potentially restore an earlier version of the ship and the timeline, or try to escape the Krenim having basically lost everything. Making the canon choice would reset Voyager back to the way it was before the sector began – all your unlocks and collected resources would be gone, but the ship and any dead heroes would be restored. Alternatively, trying to press on could mean the ship is permanently crippled – unable to increase the warp core cap, or perhaps with entire decks permanently destroyed and unusable. It could be an *incredible* inclusion if handled well.

Still frame from Star Trek: Voyager Year of Hell showing the USS Voyager — The badly-damaged ship in *Year of Hell*.

The 37’s could see you gain Amelia Earhart as a hero – or else lose half the crew to staying behind on the colony, if you don’t play your cards right. Dreadnought could put B’Elanna at risk, but could unlock torpedo upgrades, perhaps. False Profits could unlock a Ferengi hero. Future’s End would be a fun blast of ’90s nostalgia with an away mission to Earth! The Omega Directive could be another, like Juggernaut, that has potentially run-ending consequences, but which could unlock a powerful new technology or something of that ilk. Relativity would send Seven to the future, building on the events of Future’s End, and could unlock Ducane as a hero. Pathfinder could unlock Barclay as a hero, and that would be a lot of fun. The Haunting of Deck Twelve would be a fun, spooky nebula story that could unlock a new tech to help make navigating nebulae easier. Prophecy could net you a classic Klingon D7 Battlecruiser as a combat ally. And so on – I’m sure you have your own examples.

Maybe, given the game’s success, some of these ideas will be considered for free updates or even as paid DLC. I’ve had a blast with Across The Unknown so far… and I genuinely wouldn’t mind paying for DLC if it expanded the game significantly. I said in my review that the “deluxe edition” felt a bit steep for what it was, but an expansion which would add one main story mission in Year of Hell, half a dozen side-missions as suggested above, a few new characters, a couple of new techs, and more… I mean, I’d buy that.

Still frame from Future's End showing the away team in the 90s — Imagine getting a mission based on *Future’s End* with all its ’90s nostalgia!

I’d like to see some potential late-game upgrades to both the transporter and the ship’s combat abilities. In short, I think it would be a lot of fun if you could work your way up to being able to have *four* heroes, instead of three, for both away missions and combat. There are a few heroes who I didn’t really get to use very much, and I just think it would be fun to add that in as an option.

Sometimes in games like this, I scout out the tech tree and decide which prizes are worth racing to get! And in Across The Unknown, it could be worth speed-running something like a transporter upgrade if it meant you could send four people on away missions, increasing both your chances of success *and* the XP those characters would gain. It would need to be balanced carefully, so that other aspects of the game don’t end up feeling too easy, but I think it’s achievable. And, again, it would be an improvement – as well as something for players to work towards.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing an away mission — Three heroes on the transporter pad.

Something I didn’t mention in my review, but really should have, pertains to balancing. In short… I kind of feel like Across The Unknown is a game divided into two halves. You have the early missions, leading up to the conflict with Seska and Culluh, and then after that… you have the rest of the game. The early game is much, much harder, and I would personally rate the fight against Culluh as the toughest boss battle in Across The Unknown. That entire sector beats you up, with random Kazon encounters a near-constant threat, and it comes at a point when you won’t have had time to either properly build up the ship or unlock all of your capabilities.

But after beating Culluh (which took me two attempts even on my second run), the game kind of eases off – or at least, it feels like it does. The result of this is that you kind of have a game of two halves: before and after the Culluh fight. A tougher early game culminates in a very tricky boss fight, but then things seem to let up and you get what feels like an easier ride through the remainder of the game. I don’t think that’s a criticism, necessarily – more of an observation. But if you’ve been struggling, wondering if it’s worth sticking with the game because of how difficult it feels at first… definitely persevere. Once you’re past Culluh, I found it got a lot easier (and more fun!)

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing Culluh and the viewscreen — The game gets easier once you get past Culluh and Seska.

I really like the artwork used to depict away missions. I like the “painted” style, and how these images give each away mission a unique flavour. But if I could make one request, it would be this: please make new art assets that depict a variety of different heroes taking part in these missions! It feels a bit immersion-breaking, sometimes, to have sent Chakotay, Tom Paris, and Harry Kim on an assignment… only for all of the art to depict Seven of Nine and B’Elanna. These are static images, and I’m sure it’s possible to make more of them to depict different heroes in different missions. I’m no graphic design expert (clearly), but I’m sure that, with a combination of transparent layers and such, the same character models could even be re-used.

I just think it would be more fun and more immersive if away missions genuinely reflected the characters I’d assigned to them. Not *every* scene needs to be remade from scratch – there are plenty of moments where artwork depicts a villain, a landscape, or a hero who is mandatory for the assignment in question. But it’s a bit disappointing, sometimes, to see the “wrong” characters depicted in the artwork, especially when, sometimes, the characters who *are* shown aren’t even the recommended ones for the mission in question.

So that’s it.

I think I’ve *finally* said everything I wanted to say about Across The Unknown!

If it’s not clear from my review and this piece… I really love this game. It’s 100% a “game of the year” contender for me, as it brings one of my favourite parts of the Star Trek franchise to life in a new and unexpected way. I had a blast playing – and re-playing – Across The Unknown, and I may very well jump back in for a third run later in the year. If you’ve been on the fence about the game at all… I really think it’s worth trying out.

When making suggestions for improvements or potential DLC, I tried to be realistic. I don’t think the game needs to be fully-voiced by the entire main cast, nor do I think that would be a realistic request. I don’t think the game needs first-person, Doom-inspired away missions… nor is that a realistic ask, at this stage! But I think there are a few things that need to be tweaked, a few ways the game could be improved, and some additions that could make for an incredible DLC bundle, if developers GameXcite are interested in going down that road. Across The Unknown seems to have sold really well, which is great news. So maybe DLC is a possibility.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ve enjoyed my coverage of Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown. If you missed my original review, you can find it by clicking or tapping here. And I also have a gallery containing more than 180 screenshots from the game, which you’re free to use in your own reviews or other projects. You can find that by clicking or tapping here.

As Star Trek’s landmark 60th anniversary year rolls on, I’ve got plenty of other things planned right here on the website! There’ll be a review of Starfleet Academy Season 1 later in the month, episode re-watches, and more. So stay tuned. And… Live Long and Prosper!

Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown is out now for Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series consoles. 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.

Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown: Video Game Review

Tue 24.02.26Dennis

Spoiler Warning: Beware spoilers for Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown and for Star Trek: Voyager.

I’ve been getting acquainted with the brand-new Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown over the last few days. Last year marked Voyager’s 30th anniversary – which is insane to think about, by the way, and makes me feel oh so very old! But it also made it the perfect time for a new Voyager game’s announcement, and with Across The Unknown looking like my kinda thing, I was excited to give it a try. I picked up the “deluxe edition” of the game as soon as it became available, and I’m ready to share my thoughts with you today.

Firstly, though, a couple of important caveats.

Everything we’re going to get into today is the entirely *subjective, not objective* opinion of just one person. If you have a different perspective on Across The Unknown or Voyager in general… that’s okay. I offer my take to the Trekkie community based on how I experienced the game. And in addition, Across The Unknown is a deceptively big game, with some procedurally-generated elements, luck-based mechanics that play a role in determining outcomes, and multiple pathways and even multiple endings. I have not experienced all that the game has to offer, and I’m basing this review on one “run” through the game, plus one abortive “half-run” that ended too soon.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing Voyager — Ready to get lost in the Delta Quadrant?

So let’s talk Across The Unknown – or, as I keep mistakenly calling it, Into The Unknown. Remember that song? The one from Frozen II? It’s stuck in my head now.

Big-picture talk: I like Across The Unknown. I think it’s a game designed from the ground up by Trekkies, with Trekkies in mind, and it really leans into all aspects of Voyager, coming across as a true celebration of the series. Gameplay-wise, though? There are some flaws and deficiencies which hold it back a little as things stand. I’m buoyed by developer GameXcite’s commitment to acting on feedback, but there is one basic missing feature that even a first-time amateur developer should’ve known fans would want to see included, and it’s a shame it’s absent from Across The Unknown at launch.

There are also a handful of bugs that impacted my experience, including one that stopped me from navigating between the game’s three main menus, effectively soft-locking me out and forcing me to reload my most recent autosave. Again, GameXcite seem willing to continue to work on the game post-launch, with a couple of patches having been rolled out for the PC version already. Hopefully, these issues (and any others I may not have encountered) will be resolved – but it’s something to keep in mind if you’re sitting on the fence about the game right now. Perhaps waiting as little as a couple of weeks will mean the version you download and install will be a tad smoother and better across the board.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing a minor bug — An example of a minor text bug.

Across The Unknown is missing an incredibly basic function of video games that I almost can’t believe wasn’t included at launch: a proper save system. The game relies on an autosave, with the intention of playing like a “rogue-like” experience, complete with permanent, run-impacting choices.

The problem with that is the sheer *randomness* to too many of the outcomes. To give one example from my first run, I encountered a mission based on the episode Faces, which involved the Vidiians splitting B’Elanna into two separate people. This mission, despite me having an upgraded sickbay, the Doctor being present, being fully-equipped with resources, and – for want of a better term – doing everything “the right way,” resulted in B’Elanna’s death. This came in my first run through the game, at a relatively early stage, leaving me without one of Voyager’s main characters. I’d have wanted to go back and undo that, but doing so meant either restarting the entire sector or starting again from scratch.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing B'Elanna dying — Some outcomes feel very luck-dependent.

I admire the intention to go for an “old-school” style of gameplay. But I’m someone who believes games should give players options. I’m on the record supporting the practice of “save-scumming,” at least in single-player experiences like Across The Unknown. A game like this, which demands hours of your time, should be customisable to an extent, and should be able to be tailored to the way you want to play. By all means, do what Baldur’s Gate 3 does and have a mode where save-scumming is disabled and players have to rely on one single autosave only. But for folks who either don’t have a lot of time to play, or who want a more relaxed approach to the game? A proper free save system is *essential*, and I find it hard to believe that no one at GameXcite didn’t raise this as an issue before launch.

Responding to this exact line of criticism, GameXcite has pledged to “find a solution that brings you there,” to quote one of their recent updates. I don’t know what the time-frame might be on something like that, but it will be a *major* improvement to the game, assuming the developers can find a way to get it over the line. I sympathise, to an extent, because this is clearly not the way the game was envisioned or originally designed. But the ability to freely save – or at least to have multiple autosaves to choose from, perhaps – is something so incredibly basic, something that has been part of video games for decades… the fact it’s missing is a glaring omission. The sooner this is fixed, the better Across The Unknown will be.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing a bad ending — Having to re-play whole sectors because you got a bad outcome (that was impossible to predict)? Not a lot of fun for me!

In my playthrough of the game’s demo version last year, I made note of the lack of voice acting, and how it was text-only. I didn’t mean that as a criticism, really, but I wanted folks to be aware of the kind of title Across The Unknown was before jumping in. Since then, however, GameXcite managed to recruit two of Voyager’s original cast members – Tim Russ and Robert Duncan McNeill – to reprise their roles and record a series of logs. These logs are played at the beginning of each new sector (assuming the characters are both alive and part of the crew), and it’s a nice addition.

Unlike a proper save system, I don’t think Across The Unknown would’ve felt incomplete without these logs, but it’s an example of GameXcite responding to the feedback they picked up from the demo version of the game, and it’s nice that they chose to expand the title to include this extra feature. The logs are a lot of fun, they’re very “Star Trekky,” and it’s always great when a project like this can bring back members of the original cast in some form.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing a log — One of Tuvok’s logs.

In addition to the soft-locking bug I mentioned above, I encountered another, comparatively minor bug. At one point, my ship was afflicted by a “deuterium infestation,” which gradually depleted my deuterium stockpile over time. Despite taking the appropriate actions to fix this problem, the pop-up notification (which is on the left-hand side of the screen) never disappeared for the remainder of that run. I don’t know why it didn’t, and after a while, I just sort of tuned it out. But I’m pretty sure this *is* a bug, and the notification should’ve been removed after the issue was resolved.

A more serious bug soon followed. In short, if you’ve had to re-play a section of the game, or if you’ve been defeated in combat and need to re-load the sector, you have the option to choose to skip chunks of dialogue. That’s fine – good, even, because there’s nothing more frustrating, sometimes, than having to sit through an inspiring speech or villain’s monologue that you’ve heard a dozen times! But choosing to skip dialogue *after* locking in an optional choice seemed to mean that the desired outcome didn’t happen – even if it literally had a 100% chance of happening.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing the main screen — The system view. You’ll spend a lot of time here.

This next part is spoiler-y, so skip this paragraph if you really want to avoid that.

After playing through the Kazon-Nistrim/Seska storyline (which is mandatory), and arriving at the final combat encounter, Harry Kim has the idea to use holographic projections to make it seem as if Voyager has allied vessels fighting alongside her. If you succeed in this check, which, in my run, had something like a 90% chance of success, it removed two of the Kazon vessels from the subsequent fight. But if you skip the remainder of the conversation *after* choosing this option, even if the game told you you’d succeeded, the enemy ships would be present. An annoying bug, if a specific one.

There were no hard crashes during my playthrough, and compared to the demo version (which seemed to be putting a lot of strain on my CPU for some reason, making the fans work overtime to keep things cool), I’d say Across The Unknown ran pretty well on my PC. This shouldn’t be a massively demanding game; it’s less than 9GB in total, and there aren’t a ton of models or animations. But there are still characters to animate, as well as real-time ship battles. It’s nice to see a game that runs well out of the gate – not something that’s always guaranteed any more, sadly, in this age of “release now, fix later” titles and endless patches.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing a boss battle — The climactic battle against Seska and Culluh.

Let’s talk about the “deluxe edition.”

I usually don’t go in for day-one DLC, but I violated that rule for Across The Unknown. I did so primarily as a show of support for the development team, but I think it’s worth saying that this additional content… didn’t really add a lot. The deluxe edition content adds three technologies and five side-missions (all of which are based on episodes from Voyager). I didn’t get to play all of them, but the ones I saw were fun. The DLC also adds two “heroes;” named NPC characters who can be assigned to a variety of different roles. Neither are what you’d call a major character on the show, though.

I’m in two minds about this, really. I don’t really think it’s asking too much for games to be released in a complete state, and day-one DLC – i.e. content that was developed alongside the main game and fully-integrated into it – has never sat right with me. Not every game needs a “deluxe edition,” and when you compare the price of the base game (RRP £29.99 in the UK) to the price of the “deluxe edition” (£37.99 in the UK), I’m not sure the extra content is really worth it. I hope that, *if* any future DLC is planned, it will either be significantly better value, or else have something totally different to offer besides new random characters and a few basic missions. This isn’t to say the content is *bad*; it’s not. But your mileage may vary when it comes to determining the value, and if price is a concern, I don’t think you’re missing out by not paying the extra money on this occasion.

Promo graphic of Across The Unknown Deluxe Edition — The “deluxe edition” content.

Something that came to irk me, a little, was how the game became quite pushy at insisting I advance the story and move on, leaving a sector before fully exploring and encountering everything. As above with saving, the intention behind this may be admirable, in some ways; Across The Unknown’s developers want you to feel the pressure of Voyager’s long journey home, and want you to have to make choices between exploring every corner of a sector and maintaining crew morale.

I get it.

But when, in every single sector, you’re getting pop-up after pop-up telling you that the crew are getting angsty and want you to move on… it becomes more of an irritation than anything else.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing a pop-up warning — Piss off, Tuvok…

This can happen even *before* completing the main objective in a sector, meaning that you can be feeling the pressure to move on when you literally cannot move on, as that option is still locked. And you can argue that I should’ve gotten a move on and prioritised the main story! Fair point. But isn’t the point of a game about commanding a starship that you have *some* freedom to explore? In most games, I’ll try to do side-quests first, then the main mission, and go through each level that way to maximise the amount of stuff I get to explore. Across The Unknown wants to limit this… and I don’t think the way it’s implemented is quite working right.

As with free saving, I’d be fine if this was a toggleable option – if you had the ability to turn this feature on or off. But if I may propose a compromise: why not limit this so it only happens after the main mission in a sector is complete? That would still keep the pressure on, but it would give players a bit more freedom to play the game in different ways.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing engineering — Main engineering.

Speaking of freedom, one thing I was concerned about before Across The Unknown launched was the extent of player freedom when it comes to making key narrative decisions. This is absolutely *crucial* to the game’s potential replayability, and any narrative adventure – even a rogue-like experience – needs to make decisions feel impactful. Moreover, a game based on an existing story that aims to give players the ability to deviate from that story needs to find a way to balance different outcomes.

There were several places where, to be blunt about it, I felt like the game was very much on rails. These two examples are spoiler-ific, so feel free to skip a couple of paragraphs if you want.

At the end of two sectors in the first part of the game – the battle against Culluh and Seska and the Borg/Species 8472 conflict specifically – I felt like the game almost railroaded me into getting a specific outcome. In the case of the Kazon, no matter who I chose to accuse, whether I chose to pursue or let Seska escape, and whatever other choices I had… it still culminated in a conflict and a battle I had to win. And with the Borg, even choosing not to engage and trying to seek an alternate route eventually led to the events of Scorpion unfolding exactly as they did in the show. There are *smaller* differences along the way – it’s possible to recruit Seska after the Kazon war, Kes can survive the events of Gift, and Seven can die, preventing her from joining the crew, to give three examples.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing a choice — This “deal or no deal” moment felt like a false choice.

The real issue, when you boil it down, is that these outcomes *still* feel pretty random. Seska’s choice to join or not join the crew was basically a 50/50. Seven’s survival odds were pretty good, if you’d completed most of the required upgrades, but it still depended on the roll of a digital dice. These storylines were mandatory, which I get, in a game like this; there are limits on how far the game could diverge from Voyager’s actual adventure, after all! But in a way, that makes offering alternate pathways and different endings even *more* important. If, for instance, Seven could refuse to join the crew if you hadn’t done something, or if she could be replaced by a Klingon or Romulan ex-Borg, for instance, there’d be a bit more interest, a reason to do things a certain way, and consequences or rewards that made a run through the game feel a bit more tailored and personal. As it is, the game pushes you down certain paths to outcomes that feel either guaranteed or totally random and disconnected from your choices, neither of which is especially compelling.

Okay, the worst of the spoilers are over for now.

Because the game does have a risk-reward system in place, practically any main character can die during a run. As I noted, B’Elanna died during my first abortive run, and I also did the “meme” thing of keeping Tuvix rather than forcing him to be separated back into Neelix and Tuvok. Both of those events unquestionably shook things up.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing Tuvix — Tuvix.

But… here’s the next issue. Each hero character has a backup. Lose Tuvok, you get Nunez, whose dialogue looks to be word-for-word identical. Lose Neelix, and you get a “wish.com” generic Talaxian. Lose Seven? You get her slightly less useful twin: Nine of Nine. All of these characters are functionally the same as the heroes they stand in for, but slightly worse or less effective in their roles.

This has a double-whammy of an impact: there’s really only *one* ideal set of characters, heroes that have the best skills and the best chance of surviving away missions and combat encounters. And if you lose them, you don’t even get any kind of different dialogue or new storylines involving their replacements. Voyager didn’t have the same kind of expansive secondary cast as, say, DS9 did, but there *are* secondary characters or even one-off guest stars who could and should be able to fill some of these roles – and crucially, do something a little different with them.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing Nine of Nine — “We’ve got Seven of Nine at home.”

Suppose you choose to keep Tuvix, permanently losing Neelix and Tuvok in the process. Tuvix has some skills, sure, but he’s neither the combat expert Tuvok was nor the morale officer Neelix was – he’s demonstrably worse in both roles, *and* there’s only one of him. So, yes, you have the “moral conundrum” of killing Tuvix, as Janeway did in the story… but you can also totally ignore this side-mission, as I found myself consciously doing in my second run through the game. There were basically zero narrative or gameplay consequences to doing so, and I got an outcome that is almost “objectively” better.

And this is true with all of the heroes – at least, all of the ones I encountered during my playthrough.

This leaves the game feeling… well, tense, sometimes, if you’re worried about a hero on an away mission or during a side-mission. But also, more importantly, it feels like there’s really only “one” right way to approach the game: Janeway’s way, the way she did things in the show. This was another thing I was concerned about before launch, and it’s disappointing to see it pan out.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing the bridge/choices — Your choice has consequences…

A game like Across The Unknown absolutely *should* have storylines and side-quests where the TV show outcome is the best one, and there should be irreplaceable characters, whose loss impacts the remainder of a playthrough. But… is it too much to ask that some of these potentially different outcomes are better? Or at least, that their impacts are neutral, with losses somewhere being offset by gains elsewhere? Because right now, Across The Unknown is great if you want to faithfully replicate Voyager’s journey as seen on TV. It’s less interesting if you feel like you could’ve done better, or that there might’ve been other approaches to certain storylines that might’ve led to verifiably better outcomes.

Because of this kind of dual impact of hero losses having a gameplay downside while also being narratively irrelevant… I found it made many side-missions unappealing. We talked about Faces and Tuvix above, where B’Elanna, Tuvok, and Neelix can all be removed from your run through the game. But those are far from the only instances where this happened, and it feels like something that’s just… built into the game at a fundamental level.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing Seven's farewell — Some characters can choose to leave, too.

In any game with both random elements and characters with different stats, there are always going to be more optimal configurations and less optimal ones – that’s unavoidable, and not really the point of this line of criticism. My point is that, for a game that bills itself on putting you in “the captain’s chair,” it then really goes out of its way to push you down one narrative path, to take exactly the same decisions as in the TV show, and just generally feels unwilling or unable to open things up to potentially different and better outcomes.

This is not a fatal flaw. And I still found Across The Unknown fun to play. But I would argue that it impacts the game’s longer-term replayability; unless you want to go back and have basically the same narrative experience again, just with a few resources, planets, and nebulae in different configurations, then you’re kind of out of luck. The relatively minor, roll-of-the-dice outcomes – like a secondary character joining the crew, for instance – don’t make up for the fact that these storylines and practically all of their content unfold the same way each time.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing the main menu — You can choose to re-play sectors if you get a bad outcome.

Sticking with hero characters, I like how the system works at its core – but it is pretty limited. For instance, Janeway isn’t a “hero,” and can’t take part in any away missions. And while you do get some choice during away missions about which characters to use and in what configurations, there isn’t a ton of variety to this. Unless you’re deliberately trying to punish yourself, sending an away team you *know* will struggle to complete a task or mission… the worst you’re gonna get, unless you get unlucky with the digital dice, is a temporary injury to a hero.

Even then, the game pushes certain crew members into away missions, sometimes. Again, there’s that sense of being railroaded; forced by the developers to go down a specific path, even if you might’ve wanted to try something a little different. It doesn’t happen all the time, fortunately, but it happens enough to be noticeable. As above with storylines, there’s a balance to strike between allowing Voyager’s journey home to unfold the way it did on TV and giving players the freedom to explore. Sometimes, that balance has been struck reasonably well. But at other times… I felt it wasn’t.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing the transporter — Preparing for an away mission.

One final point of criticism relates to the final act of the game – so skip ahead a couple of paragraphs if spoilers are a concern.

Upon returning to Earth – in two of the game’s multiple endings that I saw, at any rate – we’re treating to a (text-only) log from Admiral Janeway. And for me… this scene just felt a tiny bit underwhelming. We see Voyager *approach* Earth, but that’s it. Janeway’s log mentions Voyager being escorted home, flying to San Francisco… and I just can’t help but feel I’d have liked to see that. A short, sixty- or ninety-second cut-scene depicting other starships alongside Voyager, and/or the Golden Gate Bridge flyover, would’ve done *wonders* for making the end of the game feel just that bit more special.

I like that there are multiple endings; a game like this needs that kind of diversity to reflect player choice. But as we said above… there’s kind of one “good one,” i.e. the canon ending from the show, and at least two lesser ones. Maybe I didn’t see them all, and maybe there are other ways to make it home ahead of schedule, or with even better outcomes; I’m admittedly not the best player, even on Across The Unknown’s easy mode! But for the endings to Endgame, the ones I saw were either the canon ending, or a much, much darker one.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing the transwarp hub — Voyager approaches the transwarp hub.

With all of that being said, recreating Voyager’s journey home – and tweaking it sometimes, as well as experiencing it in a new medium – was a really enjoyable experience. Saving Seven of Nine from the Borg Queen and Voyager finally seeing Earth for the first time – I won’t lie, I felt myself getting a little teary-eyed, just as I did some twenty-five years ago, when I saw Endgame for the very first time. Although the game was an imperfect experience… I enjoyed it for what it was.

I also adore Across The Unknown’s sense of humour. The game really leaned into some of the jokes and even the memes that Voyager has spawned within the Trekkie community: Paris becoming a “lizard,” in his words, Harry Kim’s lack of a promotion, and yes, of course, Tuvix, too. These little in-jokes didn’t go too far, nor did they feel like they were laughing *at* the show and the Trekkie community – at least, not for me. Instead, these light-hearted moments really hammered home how this is a game made by fans, for fans.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing a joke — *Across The Unknown* has a sense of humour.

And that feeling extended far beyond humour. There were deep cuts to episodes across all seven seasons of the show, with outcomes that felt logically consistent with Voyager, even as the game deviated or made things up. Narratively speaking, it really was a fun time, in spite of some of the negative points mentioned above.

I suppose we should talk about *gameplay* since this is a video game! Across The Unknown has two main gameplay modes: managing the ship and guiding away missions. There are a lot of stats and numbers to keep track of – miss something, and you might have to wait longer to unlock a technology, or even miss out on one of the many missions with a time limit. It can seem overwhelming, especially at first, but in-game tutorials certainly helped.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing resource yields/stats — An example of the game’s HUD, showing resources and yields.

Building rooms and getting Voyager exactly how I wanted it made for a fun challenge – even on easy mode!

Getting the right balance between tactical, scientific, and crew-focused rooms and systems isn’t easy, and one wrong move can lead to morale dropping, the ship being unprepared for combat, or that certain upgrades can’t be unlocked. There are various resources you have to keep on top of, which operate similarly to other resource-management titles, only… Star Trek-themed! You have to keep on top of things like the ship’s power level, battery banks, and even the number of crew members, too – all of these affect gameplay in a big way. At one point in my run, I found myself taking a diversion to any planet or point of interest that had a chance of giving me new crew members! That was a resource I seemed to run out of, especially as crew can be killed, or take long periods of shore leave.

It was really only when I got into the final act of the game that I felt I’d got the ship exactly the way I wanted it. I was generating just enough food from hydroponics bays to keep on top of the food supply, I had two science labs on the go for researching upgrades and unlocking new technologies, and enough quarters and cargo bays to store everything and accommodate everyone. Earlier acts of the game saw me turning off even some important rooms and systems just to keep the ship flying. You may be better at that kind of micromanagement than I am, but for me, it was part of the fun.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing the MSD — Voyager’s star-drive section.

Both random exploration and progressing through missions unlocked combat encounters and away missions, and both of these were fun. Occasionally, I think only really in one sector, I found frequent, repetitive combat encounters that started to get stale, but for the most part, I enjoyed tweaking Voyager’s systems and trying to get the best possible balance of shields and weapons. I installed disruptors and a Borg cutting beam on my version of Voyager – and these powerful weapons made short work of even the Borg, later on in the game!

Away missions were fun, and I especially liked the “hand-drawn” art style that the game employed for these moments. Across The Unknown makes recommendations and occasionally pushes key crew members into away missions, but there’s a decent amount of freedom there, too. Missing a crew member with specific skills can make things harder, but even on easy mode, I never felt that away missions were too easy. That randomness I mentioned? That’s a big part of why, I suppose!

Unlocking new heroes gives you more freedom when it comes to away missions, and heroes can also be assigned to various rooms aboard Voyager, increasing yields and outputs. This was a fun aspect of the game, and I found myself trying to balance which heroes I took on away missions – because that’s how to level them up, further increasing their skills and bonuses. All in all, a fun element of the game.

The key to a game like this is to set your expectations appropriately. This isn’t a big-budget title with the greatest graphics, and there’s a lot of text-based conversations and clicking through menus. But for a Trekkie, and for a fan of Voyager in particular, it’s hard *not* to recommend the title, even with the caveat that updates are coming which should improve the gameplay experience somewhat.

Screenshot of Across The Unknown showing a closeup room — A close-up look at a Borg-ified room.

I was thrilled to see a positive reaction to Across The Unknown’s launch. GameXcite said it exceeded their wildest expectations, and if recent reporting is accurate, the game sold more than 100,000 copies within its first few days on sale. That’s absolutely fantastic news, and kinda crazy, if you think about it! A game based on a TV series which has been off the air for a quarter of a century doing numbers like that? I guess Paramount was wrong: fans *do* want more from Voyager. Something like, oh, I don’t know… a remaster of the series?! The game’s success is, at the very least, proof positive that there’s still an audience for that incredible TV show.

I spent just over thirteen hours with the game – and in that time, as mentioned, I aborted one run after the third sector, I think, and then completed one full run. In my full run, I went back to replay the ending once, to see if I could get a different outcome. So I reckon there’s a solid eleven or twelve hours’ worth of content per run, at the very least – perhaps more, if you do more side-missions and spend more time in each sector harvesting resources and building upgrades. The length of time a game lasts can be important, and for me at least, Across The Unknown lands in that sweet spot of feeling like good value for money.

Most of my criticisms of the game – with the exception of the missing save system – arguably fall closer to nitpicks than anything else. And I always knew, going into Across The Unknown, that there’d be limitations to exploration and that the game couldn’t possibly be all things to all players. I tried to keep that in mind as I bumped up against these limits, and I hope I didn’t sound too harsh. Perhaps, if GameXcite is listening to feedback – and my points of criticism are shared more widely among players – future patches or updates can tweak the experience, at least a little.

I’m glad GameXcite managed to license the official Voyager theme music. When that announcement was made late last year, I kind of rolled my eyes; it didn’t feel like a glaring omission from the demo version, and I felt the developers could’ve spent that time and especially that money elsewhere. But you know what? I was wrong – having the proper theme music, and being careful to use it sparingly, genuinely elevated Across The Unknown in a way I didn’t anticipate, and made some of those emotional moments – Captain Ransom’s sacrifice, Seven’s rescue, and the ship making it home – feel so much more impactful.

Modified screenshot of charts for Across The Unknown — The game has sold well.

At time of writing (less than a week after launch), Across The Unknown has had almost 10,000 concurrent players on Steam, and was number 49 in the sales charts and number 23 for most-wishlisted. Those are great numbers, and with the game also being available on PS5, Switch 2, and Xbox, that won’t be the sum total of its success. I’m really glad that the Trekkie community showed up for Across The Unknown in such a massive way. This game really does deserve all of its success.

It was a blast to return to Voyager, and to experience the long journey home in a totally new way. I loved Voyager when it was on the air, and I’ve pretty much worn out my old DVDs with how often I’ve re-watched the series over the years! I also had a lot of fun with Elite Force, back in the day, so this isn’t my first time playing a game based on this wonderful series. I really did have a good time with Across The Unknown, in spite of a few drawbacks and downsides. And it’s an easy recommendation to anyone who loves Voyager even half as much as I do.

Screenshot from Across The Unknown showing Voyager and Earth — Can you make it home to Earth?

Having completed Across The Unknown, I’m actually contemplating a second run sometime soon – there are side-missions I didn’t explore, several characters I didn’t get to unlock, and more. I’ll keep my ear to the ground about upcoming updates, and I’m not going to *immediately* dive straight back in! But I think it’s testament to the game’s success that I’m willing to go back for that second run so soon after the first.

If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I hope it’s clear that, despite some nitpicks and criticisms, I genuinely enjoyed Across The Unknown and recommend it to Trekkies. I’m not so sure that folks unfamiliar with Star Trek will have as much of a fun time as I did; perhaps management/base-building fanatics will find things to enjoy, though. But some games can and should be made by fans, for fans. And to me, that’s exactly how Across The Unknown felt.

Stay safe in the Delta Quadrant, friends… and Live Long and Prosper!

Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown: My Thoughts on the Demo

Mon 13.10.25Tue 14.10.25Dennis

Spoiler Warning: Beware of spoilers for Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown and Star Trek: Voyager.

A new video game based on Star Trek: Voyager, titled Across The Unknown, was announced only a few weeks ago. I didn’t think we’d see it until at least next year – but to my surprise, I received a notification that a demo version is available on Steam. I jumped into the game as soon as it had finished downloading, eager to try it out for myself, and I thought it could be fun to preview the upcoming title together.

I enjoyed the demo for the hour or so that it lasted, and playing through a modified version of Voyager’s premiere – Caretaker – was generally a fun experience. I think Across The Unknown still has work to do – there were a couple of issues that I picked up on in my brief playthrough – but by and large, the game seems poised to deliver more or less what I’d been expecting.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing the USS Voyager in the Badlands. — Voyager in the Badlands.

That idea of expectations, though, is going to be important to how you approach Across The Unknown. The tl;dr is this: this isn’t a big-budget, high production values, “triple-A” type of game. And if you go into it expecting ultra-sharp graphics, fully-voiced characters, detailed cut-scenes, and the like… you’re going to be disappointed, because this isn’t that type of game. What you get instead is a strategic starship management game, one with a tech tree to unlock upgrades, rooms to build, crew members to move around, and so on. There are no voiced characters; Across The Unknown is text-based. And while there are some starship cut-scenes and a pretty fun combat system, most of the time you’ll be treated to static images to convey key storylines.

I believe that if you set appropriate expectations, there’s going to be fun to be had here. The game’s core premise of “what if you were Captain Janeway and made different choices?” is a genuinely fun and appealing one, and Across The Unknown provided several points at which I could make what seemed to be defining choices for the ship and crew.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing Janeway ordering Stellar Cartography be repaired. — Captain Janeway issues an order.

An appropriate point of comparison is probably Fallout Shelter. The games use a similar point-of-view for managing your base/starship, and you get similar choices for where to construct different rooms, who to recruit, who to send on away missions, and so on. That’s a good starting point for understanding what Across The Unknown felt like to play.

Obviously, when you’re looking at a demo version, there are going to be limitations! So I don’t want to judge Across The Unknown too harshly based solely on the first hour-ish of gameplay. Just from looking at the tech tree and the amount of empty rooms aboard Voyager, there’s clearly a lot more to the game that I didn’t get to try out on this occasion. And I also suspect that, of all the missions/story arcs in the game, Caretaker is probably one of the most linear: certain events have to pan out in order for Chakotay, B’Elanna, Neelix, and Kes to join the crew – and that’s just for starters.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing the aftermath of Voyager's arrival in the Delta Quadrant. — The demo is based on the episode *Caretaker*.

There were, however, some diversions from the story of Caretaker that felt unnecessary to me. Some lines of dialogue – particularly between characters like Chakotay and Tuvok, and Harry and Tom – felt really “off;” I know what these characters sound like, how they talk, and what they said to each other in the beginning – and this ain’t that!

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that some (but by no means all) of Across The Unknown’s dialogue reads like it’s been written by an AI chat bot. I’m not saying that’s what happened – and there could be issues with translation, for example, as the game is being developed in Germany. But that’s how some of these lines felt to me. Subjectively speaking.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing four dialogue boxes. — A selection of the “awkward” dialogue lines.

The tutorial was solid, and I felt that Across The Unknown communicated some of its pretty in-depth systems in a concise and understandable way. I didn’t play the game perfectly on my first outing; I failed one optional assignment when I didn’t build enough crew quarters in time! But that failure helped me learn more about the optional assignments and how the “cycles” (Across The Unknown’s timekeeping) work, so it wasn’t a total loss. And considering that I did fail one of these optional tasks, Across The Unknown was forgiving enough that it wasn’t fatal to my playthrough – which I did appreciate on my first time out!

There are resource limitations, though. At one point, I was running dangerously low on deuterium – which is necessary to keep the ship running. I was only a couple of cycles away from completely running out, and having exhausted all of the planets and points of interest in the two available star systems, there was a bit of a time crunch to get back to the Caretaker’s Array! This is clearly part of the experience – Voyager’s journey home, especially in the early days, was one of scavenging resources where possible, and running close to the line on more than one occasion. It served as a great motivator, I found, to move the story along!

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing the system view (and a tool-tip about cycles). — The system map (and a tool-tip showing details about cycles).

Away missions provide one of the ways to make a lot of different choices. Given that the demo is based on Caretaker, I was surprised that Captain Janeway wasn’t able to join any of the away missions to the Array or to Ocampa, and I wonder if that’s going to be a limitation throughout the game. I hope not, but I thought it was worth mentioning. I tried to use a selection of different characters when I could, just to get a different experience with the away missions that I had available.

Each away mission gives individual characters a chance to gain experience and level up – meaning they’ll be better the longer they stick around and the further into the game you get. The tutorial mentioned that some choices, if they go awry, can be fatal. That wasn’t something I experienced in the demo, but it’s interesting to know that even some named characters can, potentially, be killed off at a very early stage – or at any point throughout the run.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing an away team on the transporter pad. — Selecting crew members for an away mission.

I want to touch on one story point that I’ve seen Trekkies talking about since Across The Unknown was announced. This is spoiler-y, so skip past the next screenshot if you really don’t want to know anything ahead of trying the demo for yourself! When it comes to Voyager and crucial choices… Across The Unknown does give you the option to use the Caretaker’s Array to send Voyager and her crew home seven years early! Obviously, this will cut off the entire rest of the game, but I thought it was a ton of fun that the option to do this was included.

And I think that speaks volumes about the kind of big decisions that we’ll get to experience in the full game. The blurb promises twelve sectors to explore – each of which, apparently, can be comprised of at least three star systems, which is neat. I would imagine each sector will provide one of these key inflection points – perhaps more than one. Being able to send the ship and crew home, though, using the Array… I gotta admit, that was pretty cathartic after all these years!

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing the end of the demo. — Home in time for tea!

There’s quite a lot of random chance (a.k.a. random number generation) in Across The Unknown, which isn’t atypical for this type of game. You can mitigate some of that by choosing characters and actions that have a higher chance of success, or when on away missions, by combining the efforts of more than one character to increase the odds. But it’s still possible that RNG will go against you at any point, and even an option that looks statistically solid could result in a negative outcome. Again, though: it’s that kind of game.

The ship-to-ship combat was interesting. Unlike exploration, which is measured in “cycles,” and away missions, which play out through a series of decision points, combat in space is close to real-time. Phasers fire automatically, but you get to choose when to fire torpedoes and when to issue other orders to members of the crew. There are a limited number of slots for characters to participate in ship-to-ship combat – which feels like a bit of a double-edged sword.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing a combat encounter. — Ship combat.

On the one hand, this adds another element of strategy: do you want to pick Paris for his evasive manoeuvres, or Tuvok for his finesse with the phasers? It also makes each combat encounter potentially different, as you can choose a different crop of people every time. However… part of the captain’s chair fantasy experience, surely, is being able to issue orders to the entire crew in situations like this. Being able to divert extra power to the phasers by calling up B’Elanna in engineering, or telling the Doctor to prepare sickbay for casualties… that’s all part of sitting (metaphorically) in the captain’s chair. By reducing the number of characters who can participate, part of the combat just felt a bit… small, I guess.

That’s not to say it was bad. I actually had fun taking on the Kazon in my combat encounter! And after spending most of my time looking at a master systems display or a zoomed-out solar system, seeing Voyager moving around in real-time, up close… that was something special.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing the USS Voyager, the Caretaker's Array, and Kazon ships. — Voyager and Kazon ships at the Caretaker’s Array.

Across The Unknown needs some more polish. There were a few places where I saw a typo or missing punctuation, and another where Neelix popped up to tell me something before I’d even met him or invited him aboard. My PC also seemed to struggle, with the graphics card working overtime and the game still occasionally lagging – despite the fact that, as mentioned, the graphics really aren’t anything special. Performance when zooming in and out of the MSD could really use some improvement. I wasn’t even running Across The Unknown at its maximum settings.

That being said, I came away from my hour with the demo more excited to play the finished game than I was before I started. Voyager is such a great series, and it feels perfectly-suited to this kind of strategic management title. Being able to make radically different choices to those that Captain Janeway made during the show is going to be a lot of fun, and if the rest of the game is as good as the demo in terms of narrative and gameplay, I can see myself sinking many hours into it when it’s ready.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing a cargo bay. — A cargo bay.

If you want to wait for the finished game, that’s a completely valid decision. I usually don’t play pre-release demos, and there are a few issues with Across The Unknown that I’d hope will be smoothed out before the full game releases. But it’s hard not to recommend a completely free demo of a game like this. It only took me an hour to play through the events of Caretaker and get a feel for what Across The Unknown is like, so if you’re like me and Across The Unknown is a guaranteed day-one purchase for you, I think trying out the demo is an easy recommendation.

I’ll end by saying that Across The Unknown is clearly a game made for fans. And that’s okay. Not every game is going to reach a broad audience; Across The Unknown knows what it is, knows who its target audience is, and seems to be leaning into that in a big way. It’s not going to blow up and win hundreds of awards, nor is it going to expand the Star Trek fan community in a meaningful way. But given that it’s Voyager’s thirtieth anniversary this year, I’m just pleased that a game like this was greenlit at all. Stepping back into that world – even with some last-gen graphics, odd facial expressions, and occasionally janky dialogue – was a lot of fun.

The demo is free on Steam at time of writing… so why not try it? All you have to lose is 6 and a bit gigabytes of disc space and an hour or so of your time!

Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown will be released (in full) in the future. The demo version is available now on Steam. The Star Trek franchise – including Voyager and Across The Unknown – is the copyright of Skydance/Paramount. Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown is developed by GameXcite and published by Daedalic Entertainment. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

A selection of screenshots from my time with the Across The Unknown demo that didn’t fit in the article above:

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing the main view of the ship. — The main MSD/ship display (zoomed out).

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing an away mission. — An away mission.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing the tech tree. — Part of the tech tree.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing the aftermath of a broken promise. — Breaking a promise (a.k.a. failing an optional quest).

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing the sector view. — A view of the sector, including three star systems.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing Neelix's ship. — Neelix’s ship arrives.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing the bridge. — The view from the bridge.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing sickbay. — The Doctor in sickbay.

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing the choice at the end of the demo (destroy or use the Array). — The key choice!

Screenshot of Star Trek: Voyager - Across The Unknown (demo version) showing a construction report. — Completing construction/repairs.

Ooh, A Star Trek: Voyager Game…

Tue 26.08.25Dennis

A Star Trek: Voyager-themed spoiler warning.

Spoiler Warning: There are minor spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Voyager, as well as details about the upcoming game Across the Unknown.

A few days ago, at the video games industry’s big Gamescom event in Germany, a brand-new Star Trek game was announced. I was very briefly excited… then disappointed when I learned it was going to be VR-only. Star Trek: Infection looked genuinely fun… but I can’t get on with VR, so I doubt I’ll be able to play it unless it gets ported to non-VR systems in the future. “That’s a shame,” I thought, decrying that the only new Star Trek video game of the past couple of years was gonna be exclusive to VR. But oh well. Life goes on.

I mean, there’s no way the Star Trek franchise is gonna announce two video games at the same event within days of each other. Not after being radio-silent on video games since Resurgence and that Prodigy tie-in game were released. Right?

Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown has just been announced by GameXcite and Daedalic Entertainment. It’s billed as a “story-driven survival strategy game” in which you, as the player, get to take command of the legendary USS Voyager during its journey home.

Promotional screenshot for Star Trek Voyager: Across the Unknown. — Are you ready to take command of the USS Voyager?

Wow. That honestly sounds like a great premise!

The game sounds like a kind of Fallout Shelter or U-Boat, with some amount of starship management in addition to the narrative choices. And that kind of game – where you get to manage and maintain the systems aboard your ship – has been one I’ve wanted to see Star Trek try out for a long time.

Voyager is a great show to use as inspiration for that kind of game. Being lost and alone, far from Federation space, gave Captain Janeway and the crew a lot of leeway when it came to making changes aboard Voyager: things like the Mess Hall and the assimilated cargo bay come to mind! And the unique community that the crew built – that sense of camaraderie that came from being the only humans in this far-flung part of the galaxy – could give the game almost a “cozy” vibe, perhaps.

Voyager also led to one of the Star Trek franchise’s few games that genuinely broke out of the Trekkie community to go somewhat mainstream: Elite Force. That game was a darling of early 2000s LAN parties, acquiring a good reputation with a wider audience – something very few Star Trek games have ever done, if you think about it. I don’t want to just assume that Across the Unknown will come anywhere close… but there’s precedent, at least, for potentially expanding the Star Trek fan community a little.

With all that being said, there are some caveats. Star Trek games, both recent and not-so-recent, haven’t always been particularly good… and that’s putting it mildly. Star Trek’s corporate overlords have never really seen the potential in video games as an artistic medium, and practically no licensed Star Trek game has been afforded a sufficiently high budget. The result? Compared to other big sci-fi franchises, like Star Wars and even Alien, Star Trek hasn’t made much of an impact in the video game realm, and some titles have been genuinely quite low-quality.

And… to be blunt, I’m getting a bit of a “cheap knock-off” vibe from the trailer and some of the screenshots of Across the Unknown. The graphics look okay, don’t get me wrong. Maybe a bit last-gen, but for a game that won’t have been given a blockbuster budget, that’s okay. But a game like this lives or dies on the quality of its management and sim elements – that’s the appeal of assuming command of the USS Voyager in a game like this. And I’m just not blown away by what I’ve seen, to be honest.

Perhaps, though, that’ll turn out to be a good thing. If I go into a game hyped up to the moon and it doesn’t live up to it, I’ll be disappointed. But if I have low expectations… it’s easier for a game to exceed them! So maybe my Fallout Shelter comparison is apt; maybe that level of quality and interactivity is about right.

I still need to play Resurgence. It kind of released at an awkward time for me personally, when I was feeling a bit burned out on Star Trek as a whole. I bought it, but it’s sat un-played in my Steam library ever since. Hopefully, though, I can get around to Across the Unknown a bit more quickly when it’s ready! At this stage, there’s no release date – but it could be sometime next year, maybe, based on nothing but the timing of the announcement.

I’m not familiar with developer GameXcite. The company seems to be based in Germany, and so far has released two Asterix and Obelix mobile games and one console/PC game. Oh, and for some reason… development of all of their games (including Across the Unknown) is partially funded by the German government. Go figure. The PC version of Asterix and Obelix: Heroes has a “mostly positive” rating on Steam, and I can’t see any complaints about the game running poorly, crashing, or suffering from game-breaking bugs. Which already puts it light-years ahead of 2013’s Star Trek tie-in game!

But you may have heard of Across the Unknown’s publisher: Daedalic Entertainment. If that name sounds familiar, well… it’s because Daedalic was responsible for 2023’s The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which was a broken, unfinished mess, and quite literally one of the worst games to launch that year. There’s a difference, of course, between Daedalic’s now-closed development studio and the company’s publishing arm. And Daedalic has published some genuinely good titles: Partisans 1941, for example, and 2023’s Barotrauma, which is a comparable kind of management/narrative game set on a submarine.

I’m trying to keep my expectations in check for Across the Unknown. The game’s blurb mentioned that there are twelve “sectors” of the Delta Quadrant to explore, which could mean there are basically twelve stages/levels. That… doesn’t sound like a ton of content, though I suppose it depends how detailed these sectors are, whether there are multiple star systems to visit in each one, and how many narrative events there could be. The blurb mentioned familiar faces from the show, like the Caretaker and Borg, returning, too.

One of the most interesting ideas, though, are the so-called “rogue-lite elements” that Across the Unknown promises to incorporate. Narrative inflection points, where choices can lead to completely different outcomes, potentially including things very different from what we saw in the TV show, sound genuinely interesting. If handled well, there could be some replayability here, making each run through the game feel different – assuming you pick different options each time!

The danger here is that there will be one “optimal” run, where, if you do everything just so, you get the best outcome, or the outcome that closest resembles the TV show. Part of the fun of an idea like this – taking the Voyager story but allowing players to make different choices – is that some of these choices could actually lead to better or just radically different outcomes. In short… if every choice except the one Captain Janeway made leads to instant death or the ship being wrecked on an asteroid, that’s not gonna take full advantage of this style of gameplay! So I hope the developers are aware of that and are at least trying to make these choices feel different and meaningful.

So that’s all for now. I shall follow Across the Unknown’s progress with interest, and when it launches – which could be next year – I daresay I’ll pick up a copy and check it out. If possible, I’ll try to write a review here on the website… but my track record with such things isn’t great, so someone might have to remind me if I forget!

Now… with Voyager getting some love in its 30th anniversary year, how about that HD remaster? Hmm, Skydance? HD remaster? HD remaster of Voyager from Skydance? Skydance’s HD remaster of Voyager to stick on Paramount+? Come on… you know you want to!

This was good news, though, and as Voyager celebrates a milestone anniversary, it’s nice to see the series getting a bit of attention from Star Trek’s corporate overlords. I’m trying to keep my expectations at a reasonable level, but if this game manages to make good on its premise, it could be a lot of fun.

Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown will launch for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series consoles at an unknown future time. Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown is the copyright of GameXcite, Daedalic Entertainment, and Paramount/Skydance. The Star Trek franchise – including Voyager and all other shows discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount/Skydance. 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.

Let’s get hyped for Star Trek: Resurgence!

Mon 13.12.21Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There may be minor spoilers ahead for the Star Trek franchise.

I was blindsided by the recent announcement of Star Trek: Resurgence – a brand new video game set in the Star Trek galaxy. Though there have been a couple of crappy mobile games and the ever-present Star Trek Online, it’s been almost a decade since the last single-player video game in the Star Trek franchise… and that didn’t go too well!

On the whole, Star Trek as a franchise hasn’t been especially well-served in the video game realm, despite the fact that there’s always been a significant crossover between Trekkies and gamers. When compared to the Star Wars franchise, which boasts some truly excellent games, Star Trek titles have never really managed to cut through, and with only a couple of exceptions even the best Star Trek games have mostly been the preserve of existing fans.

A new Star Trek game is warping onto our screens!

Here’s hoping that Resurgence can change that! Early indications are actually pretty good: the game’s announcement came at the Game Awards, one of the biggest industry events outside of E3. Resurgence has been picked up by a number of gaming publications and websites, featuring on several lists of the “best announcements” made at the event. Because it’s been a while since there was a Star Trek game, I think that might actually work in Resurgence’s favour to an extent!

One of the main things that seems to have piqued the curiosity of many players is the pedigree of the developer: new studio Dramatic Labs. Dramatic Labs is a studio comprised of former writers and developers at Telltale Games, the studio behind titles like the incredibly well-received The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and the Batman adaptation. Many Telltale titles were exceptionally popular, with fans praising the quality of the writing and the unique branching stories that led to multiple narrative paths and several different endings.

I played through Telltale’s Batman game a few years ago and it was an enjoyable experience that was something different from many other titles. These narrative adventure games put storytelling and dialogue front-and-centre, allowing players to choose what to say at key moments and to influence the direction of the story through the choices they make. When I played through Batman it felt almost like an interactive film: a deep story, well-animated cut-scenes and sequences, but with many different moments at which I could choose what happened and which way the story would proceed.

The choices in games like these aren’t always obvious. In games like Mass Effect or Fallout, for example, there’s usually a “good guy” choice and a “bad guy” choice, sometimes with a neutral option thrown in for good measure. In Mass Effect you can, for example, choose to punch a news reporter or answer her questions, and in Fallout 3 you can choose to defuse a bomb or arm it and blow up a settlement. Both examples show how players can influence the story and shake up the game world, but in both cases it’s clearly telegraphed which are “good” and “bad” options. Telltale/Dramatic Labs titles don’t always make it so obvious!

For example, in the Batman game I mentioned, there are several points at which you have to make decisions that can have ramifications for the rest of the game but where the choice isn’t obvious. Choosing whether to save one character or another can end up creating a new villain to fight, or choosing to attend an event in costume as Batman can lead to a wholly different outcome than if Bruce Wayne attended without his disguise. These are just examples of the kind of branching narrative choices that Dramatic Labs is teasing us with in Resurgence.

We’re also promised third-person action sequences throughout Resurgence, and we saw examples of this in the trailer too. The official announcement also lists “shuttle piloting, phaser fights, tricorder scanning, stealth, and micro-gameplay mechanics” as things we’ll be able to do in the game. I’m not sure what “micro-gameplay mechanics” means in this instance; it sounds like it could be mini-games, and things like picking locks or computer hacking spring to mind as examples from other franchises. But it all sounds like a ton of fun!

From the trailer we got a glimpse of some of these systems in effect. There was a sequence with a character wearing an EV suit on what looked like the outer hull of a starship firing their phaser, a tricorder scanning sequence that looked like a lot of fun, and some sneaking around that was potentially representative of one of the stealth sections.

The idea of having two playable characters is fun, too, and we’ve seen a number of recent games do this to great effect. While we don’t know much at all about either of the playable characters, the fact that one is a senior bridge officer and the other is a non-commissioned engineer should mean we get to see two very different perspectives on the same story. Both characters should be approaching the situation from very different starting places, and that already sounds like something that could be a lot of fun. Aside from Chief O’Brien, we haven’t spent a lot of time with enlisted personnel before, and Resurgence might actually be the first time we’ve seen an enlisted crewperson as a playable video game character.

It was so great to see Spock in the trailer, and I felt that the voice actor did a creditable job at imitating Leonard Nimoy’s iconic performance. Whether Spock will have a major role to play in the story isn’t clear at this stage, but as one of Star Trek’s most legendary characters his presence should be interesting at the very least. Dramatic Labs has also teased that there may be other “fan-favourite” characters included in the game, but no details yet on who those characters could be.

Dramatic Labs promise that players will “make those similar tough choices that iconic Star Trek heroes have been forced to contend with.” This is emphasising the narrative choice aspect of the game, and reinforces what I said earlier about the difficulty of some of the choices in games of this nature. The story seems to involve two alien races “on the brink of war” – I didn’t recognise either of the alien races seen in the trailer. Resurgence sounds enthralling, and I’m really excited to get stuck in.

Players will have to make some pretty tough calls in *Resurgence*…

We need to set appropriate expectations, though, no matter how exciting it may be to finally get a new Star Trek game after such a long time! This isn’t going to be a sprawling adventure on the scale of something like Mass Effect, nor will it be an open-world title like Cyberpunk 2077. It’s a narrative adventure game, and that (hopefully) means that we’ll get a very strong and engaging story with a good degree of choice over how it proceeds. The third-person adventure elements look fun too, and I’m excited to try out things like phaser combat and tricorder scanning.

So keep an eye out for Resurgence when it arrives in the spring. Given the developers’ pedigree, I think Resurgence has the potential to appeal to fans of narrative titles and Telltale Games as well as Star Trek fans, and as long as the game is released in a bug-free state it has a lot of potential. Star Trek feels like a natural fit for a narrative adventure title, and it reminds me in some ways of games like Deep Space Nine: Harbinger and Hidden Evil from the late 1990s/early 2000s.

I’m trying not to get over-excited! I’ve been hoping for a new single-player Star Trek game for years, and hopefully Resurgence will be the first of many as the franchise continues to grow and expand. Regardless, I’m eagerly awaiting its Spring 2022 release! I hope you’ll come back when Resurgence is out for a full review.

Star Trek: Resurgence will be released for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X in Spring 2022. Star Trek: Resurgence is the copyright of Dramatic Labs and ViacomCBS Consumer Products. The Star Trek franchise is the copyright of ViacomCBS. 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.