Star Trek Online Review: Trekkies in the Free-to-Play Universe

Star Trek Online is three games in one: A spaceship simulation, a crew management mini-game, and a classic MMORPG. We take a look at what aspects of the free-to-play online game are convincing and which wouldn’t even lure a Ferengi away from the Dabo table.

Rights to Almost All Star Trek Sources

The disappointing part upfront: Star Trek Online has the rights to almost everything related to Star Trek, but unfortunately not to the trendy movie reboot of recent years featuring Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto.

Star Trek Online picks up where the last Star Trek television series left off. It involves battling the Dominion in the south of the map with the various races known from Deep Space Nine.

The Borg with their assimilation frenzy also play a major role. They were primarily known from Star Trek Voyager and The Next Generation. Additionally, the Klingons are on a crusade against the Federation.

The story from the latest Star Trek film featuring the Next Generation crew led by Captain Picard has also been adopted. In fact, it was that successful franchise that nearly got killed and necessitated the reboot. In any case, Romulus has been destroyed, and the remnants of the formerly proud empire are looking for a new home.

In addition to the Federation and the Romulans, the Klingon Empire is also playable. There are a whole range of races to choose from when customizing the main character, though it has little more than cosmetic effects on the gameplay.

How Much Star Trek Is in Star Trek Online?

Like many others, I did not grow up with Captain Kirk, but rather with Picard, Data, Worf, and the rest being a key part of my youth.

In contrast to the usually more calm and philosophical episodes and the important questions of the series (How does Data become a human? How important is Worf’s honor and can he submit? Will Picard and Dr. Beverly finally get together? And how much longer will it take until Wesley Crusher dies in a transporter accident?), Star Trek Online focuses heavily on action, space battles, and phaser duels. In two hours of Star Trek Online, the average player will experience more phaser fire than even a rough character like Worf in a good year of the series.

Although Star Trek Online continually strives for intricate quests and coherent dialogues, and especially in story quests, the game also succeeds in hiding clever references (one encounters Scotty and Bones during a typical time travel mission), it is probably not particularly suited to such a combat-heavy concept as that of an MMORPG.

Space, the final frontier…

Star Trek was relatively pacifist compared to Star Wars. However, in the later series and the storyline, the source material became significantly more militaristic, so the game cannot be faulted for that. A real Star Trek feeling comes primarily from the well-developed mini-game (the Duty Officers), while it is least pronounced in the outside missions.

This brings us to the individual game modes.

The Space Game

Star Trek Online has clear strengths in this game mode. After the first missions, every player takes command of their own ship, which can then be equipped, specialized, and controlled like the character in other role-playing games.

The ship designers put a lot of effort into their designs; almost every ship known from the series has received an in-game counterpart. The actual fights take place like in a classic MMORPG: Skills are unlocked and distributed through bridge officers, the weapons have a certain cooldown, and in space battles, everything is fired that can be fired.

There is even a classification of the ships into the classic trinity of Tank, Healer, and Damage Dealer. Destroyed enemy ships can be looted – these are familiar mechanics in a new and interesting variation.

Similar to a dungeon run in other games, players can search for a space scenario through a robust group search tool, and usually within a few minutes, one hears: “Full power to shields” or “Target the weapons!” Clearly the best part of the game.

The Outside Missions

The outside missions are just as you would imagine: A group of up to 4 crew members beams down somewhere, phasers drawn, the captain is controlled, and there is a lot of phaser blasting. Medical officers (the blue shirts) are the healers, technical officers (identified by their yellow shirts) take on tank functions, and the redshirts (who always die first in the series) are mainly responsible for taking down the enemies.

Unfortunately, the maps and tasks in the outside missions often seem somewhat lacking in detail, the controls are clunky, most of the action is based on relatively dull ranged combat, and only a few keys are needed for controls.

Especially because the outside missions visually resemble those of other well-known MMORPGs, there is little atmosphere here. Anyone used to the hectic pace of a typical round in Tera or Guild Wars 2 will not be jumping for joy at the sight of Star Trek Online’s outside missions.

More than that: Even offline games like the Bioware classic Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic look significantly more agile than the outside missions in Star Trek Online.

The Duty Officer System

While in normal gameplay one only deals with their own bridge officers that they take along on outside missions and who stand in for various skills during ship battles, the Duty Officer System involves the entire ship’s crew. Although one shouldn’t expect too much here, it’s more of a text-based mini-game in the player’s imagination than a graphically detailed masterpiece.

Still, it surely appeals to the Star Trek fan and collector when they can send a personally selected security officer (a grumpy, defected Klingon deserter or even their own Borg drone freed from the Collective) on a mysterious mission involving participating in an illegal Bat’leth tournament.
This is an aspect of the game where Star Trek Online has an edge over many other games, yet it does not seem fully integrated into the main game.

How do you assemble your crew?

While the officers provide small advantages in combat and the rewards brought back from missions are important for large projects in-game guilds, I would have liked to see this innovative element of the game developed further.

It’s certainly atmospheric to unload one’s heavy captain’s heart to the bartender in the ship’s bar and be rewarded with a small skill bonus for the next hour – if the player’s imagination does 60% of the work.