The Star Trek Game We Want

There’s currently a resurgence of Star Trek gaming going on, but there’s still one kind of Star Trek game we want to see reborn.

There’s a brand new Star Trek game coming in Star Trek: Bridge Commander, and it looks incredible. In many ways Bridge Commander is everything we ever wanted in a Star Trek game. It really is the closest we could ever get to being on the bridge sitting in Kirk’s seat, or possibly manning the science station. Everyone who loves Trek is excited about the idea of cooperating with their friends to take on the Romulans and Klingons.

Hopefully this causes a renaissance in Trek gaming and even more Trek games get made. As excited as I am about Bridge Commander there’s one kind of Star Trek game that I’m pinning for… a grand strategy game.

Star Trek has of course had strategy games in the past. The Star Trek: Armada series and my favorite Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. Since BOTF there has been a serious lack of Star Trek strategy games. That’s a shame too, because not only could computers better handle massive and detail oriented games, but because of advances in AI the games could be much more challenging and become more Trek like.

Birth of the Federation was a wonderful game, but it was very detail heavy and that of course scared off many casual players. The learning curve for BOTF was steep, and this was in a time when there was no YouTube to find a tutorial on.

Star Trek: Birth of the Federation tried to use some simple mechanics to make you play as your chosen galactic power, but it lack nuance. There was no real penalty if you played the Klingons as a diplomatic power and the Federation as a world bombing conquering power. Today’s technology could really do a lot to help create a more accurate Star Trek galaxy.

Sure we have Star Trek: Online and there are several quality app games, but as far as grand strategy we are without any luck. So instead of official titles we have to rely on modders to create mods.

Here’s Redshirts Always Die writer Ketwolski playing one of these Star Trek mods.

The popularity of these mods shows that there is a market for Star Trek strategy. So to all the game developers we say, bring on Star Trek: Birth of the Federation II.

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What do you think? Do you want to see a new Star Trek strategy game? Let us know on Facebook or in the comments below.