Online game "Star Trek Online"

There have been periods when interest in the iconic Star Trek series has waned somewhat, but lately Star Trek has been experiencing what you might call a renaissance. New series premieres and sequels to existing ones are being prepared - of particular interest are those released on the Paramount+ streaming service (Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds). Recently, the first big game based on this universe in many years - Star Trek: Resurgence - was released. Against this backdrop, there has been a resurgence of interest in Star Trek Online, a multiplayer RPG that has been around since 2010, still receiving updates and retaining its loyal audience. We tell you more about it in our review.

The iconic science fiction series Star Trek has been around since 1966, and in that time has gained a huge fan base, a well-developed universe, and a bunch of products based on it, which include not only movies and TV series, but also books, comics, and games. It's a huge franchise, one of the most profitable in history, which has generated over ten ten billion dollars in profits.

Naturally, according to such a universe, sooner or later World of Warcraft had to come out. It happened in 2010, when Cryptic Studios, known for the project Neverwinter Online, developed and released Star Trek Online - the first MMORPG based on the cult series. Naturally, the authors staked on the most authentic and accurate (as much as possible in a computer game, of course) reproduction of the large elaborated universe of "Star Trek".

At the start, when creating a character, we are offered a huge choice of almost all existing races in this world. Romulan, Alien, Andorian, Bajoran, Benzite, Betazoid, Bolian, Borg, Ferengi, Human, Klingon, Saurian, Trill, Vulcan, Gorn, Klingon, Lethean, Nausicaan, Orion - there are a lot of options. What's more, you can even create unique alien life forms. There are even more options for customizing your appearance - height, build, hairstyle, horns on your head, and so on. Star Trek Online has one of the most elaborate and rich character editors.

Each race has its own specialties and bonuses, which manifest themselves in ground battles or, more rarely (and therefore especially appreciated) in space battles. For example, Romulans have bonuses to critical damage, and all humans are faster than others at repairing ships and their subsystems in space. Your character, the captain, will be joined by the so-called duty (or deck) officers, who also belong to different races - all their features are combined and summarized with yours.

In addition to race, you also need to choose a side of the global conflict that takes place in the universe of Star Trek Online. The main opposing forces are Starfleet (or the Federation), the Klingon Empire represented by the Klingon Defense Force, and the Romulan Republic. In addition, there are three other factions, two of which (TOS Starfleet and DSC Starfleet) are, as you can imagine, in alliance with the Federation, and the third, The Dominion, is initially neutral and can join Starfleet or the Empire.

It's all realized in a very authentic and accurate way, conveying the spirit and depth of the conflicts and generally uneasy relationships between races and factions in the Star Trek universe.

We also choose the origin and class of the character - he can be an engineer, tactician or scientist. This affects not only ground combat skills, but more importantly, the specifics of how that character conducts space battles.

After all, Star Trek is primarily about big starships. Therefore, the authors also decided to realize this aspect of gameplay as much as possible.
Ships here are also divided into three basic classes, differ in their characteristics (including power, speed, cargo capacity, crew size) and play different roles in battles.

Escorts are best armed, do the most damage, and are designed for offense and defense. Science ships, as the name implies, are best suited for scientific and engineering missions of higher complexity, but they are also capable of standing up for themselves in battles and supporting allies, specializing in hacking enemy subsystems, controlling and applying various useful or, on the contrary, harmful effects.

Finally, cruisers are the largest and most capacious ships, invaluable for transporting cargo and colonists, for supplies and long-distance flights. Well, and in battles they due to the expanded crew are the fastest to repair and perfectly take on board other ships. So, representatives of different classes are more effective at managing different ships. Engineers with high survivability are best at handling cruisers. The most damage-dealing tacticians are best suited for escort class ships. And scientists, who play the role of support and healers in battles, are the ones who should be running the science ships.

Another important task facing Cryptic Studios was to make a primarily story-driven MMORPG. After all, Star Trek Online is based on the cult series. That's why there are a lot of manually made interesting quests, which are not reduced to "kill 10 enemies and bring their heads to us!", but involve branching adventures - they are accompanied by numerous and at the same time voiced dialogues, as well as numerous videos and cut-scenes. In this sense (as well as in many others) Star Trek Online is very similar to another big MMORPG in space - we are talking about Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Here we also perform missions and fight both on the surface of different planets with their unique climatic features, and fly in space. The only difference is that in Star Trek Online, as you have already understood, battles on spaceships are realized as the most important part of gameplay.

Similarly, we travel in the company of loyal companions (in this case deck or duty officers), whom we choose for each mission. They have their own opinions, biography and character, they can and should be upgraded and equipped. And they periodically participate even in dialogs, where many lines and opportunities are available only to representatives of one or another class.

Finally, as in Star Wars: The Old Republic, the representatives of different factions start the story differently - in different locations and with other tasks. But the essence comes down to the fact that sooner or later, as a result of dramatic events, a novice fighter or a cadet suddenly becomes a captain of a large spaceship and gradually, through the fulfillment of various extended missions, gets involved in the epic showdown between the aforementioned factions.

The situation is just right for this. The action of Star Trek Online starts thirty years after the events of the movie "Star Trek: Nemesis", just when the alliance between the Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire due to the secret interference of Undine and Iconians broke up, and they were again at war. At the same time, the Romulan Empire was splintering after the destruction of their homeworld, the Dominion was just regaining its influence, and the aliens from the Borg Collective were starting to pose a pretty serious threat again. All in all, the galaxy is in turmoil, and now it is up to the player and his team to save it.

Naturally, over the years since the game's release in 2010, the plot has advanced significantly, expanded, grown with different arcs and additions, which, unlike other MMORPGs, just focused on new storylines. So, in 2022, the Stormfall add-on was released, where we went on a rescue mission to the Mirror Universe to stop Captain Killy from awakening a dangerous enemy. And more recently, there was the Star Trek Online: Unraveled update, where a scientific mission to stabilize the Na'kul sun led to a shocking space-time-related discovery.

In addition to the story ones, there are also many additional quests and missions available. Some of them are large, others are mini, some are designed not for battles but for diplomatic or research tasks, others are focused on battles. There are also open world missions that activate themselves within a certain time interval and can be completed by all nearby players.

The game features special large adventure zones, where you can find a variety of quests - many of them allow you to earn especially valuable currency and raise your reputation with the factions. And there are combat zones, where players fight together against strong opponents for control over certain parts of the map - to do this, you need to perform certain tasks at a certain time, and then defeat a mini-boss.

There are also regular raids and dungeon analogs, designed to be completed by groups of 5 to 20 people. And they can be both terrestrial and space, and some assume that players will pass the tests, competing with each other.

In general, the battles between players in Star Trek Online are not given as much time as in many other MMORPGs - it is still a story game. But there are enough PvP-activities here too. In war zones, the Federation and Klingon factions fight not only with themselves, but also with the Borg. And in the combat zones, they focus only on each other. Quite unique is the "indirect PvP" mode - these are different combat scenarios, in which players in teams of 5 do not directly fight each other, but compete to see who can defeat computer enemies faster by passing tests and solving some puzzles.

As we have already said, everything is played in the same way as in Star Wars: The Old Republic - a lot of story and side adventures, well voiced and staged, there are battles both on the surface and in space. And the combat systems on the ground are similar in many ways - outdated animation and somewhat primitive firing process is compensated by the ability to tactically, on the pause to manage your squad. But in space everything is extremely serious - you need not only to maneuver deftly and correctly in all planes, but also competently distribute the energy of shields on this or that board, decide what to bet on right now - speed, damage or protection.

For victories we get experience, different types of equipment, currency and pump up our captain and his officers. Their abilities are respectively divided into two groups - for ground battles and for space adventures.

Gradually we are joined by new partners, which open up new skills. Duty officers are allowed to exchange with other crews. In general, they are very useful - for example, officers can be used for the difficult process of equipment crafting, as well as for sending them on special resource extraction missions - at this time they will be unavailable. And from level 52 we are also free to send our own ships on such expeditions without distracting the officers. Naturally, the ships can and should be pumped up, installing both functional (different subsystems, weapons and so on) and cosmetic improvements. In addition, we gradually expand our fleet by acquiring new starships.

It is interesting that up to level 50 you can develop your character for free, and buying ships using in-game methods (that is actually free of charge too) is allowed up to level 65. So there is no need to talk about any hard donation in Star Trek Online. Although, of course, as in all freetuple games, there is a built-in store and microtransactions.

Even after 13 years Star Trek Online is interesting to play. Yes, the graphics and animation here, like in Star Wars: The Old Republic, are somewhat outdated. But it's such a pleasant old-fashioned and nostalgic for real role-playing adventures - as you've already realized, the game puts a special emphasis on the story. Moreover, you can even use special tools to create and develop your own brand new missions and whole episodes to share them with the whole Star Trek Online community. So if you're a fan of Star Trek and similar science fiction works about space, you simply can't miss this opportunity.

Zarium. July 2023