Star Trek: Resurgence – Is The New Game Actually A Game?

There’s a new Star Trek video game on the block, but you might not have heard of it. Oddly for a franchise that usually does such a good job of letting its dedicated (and notoriously enthusiastic) fans know when there’s something new to purchase, Star Trek: Resurgence was released towards the end of May. It’s available on almost every platform you could conceivably want to play it on, including PC, Xbox and PlayStation, but most fans appear to be finding out about it through word of mouth rather than through advertising.

We appreciate that some of our readers are Star Trek fans. Perhaps you’re one of them, and these words are the first you’ve read about the new game. If so, you’re probably wondering whether it’s worth paying £35 to acquire it – and so we’ll do our best to tell you.

Point, Click and Chat

We suspect that most of you noted the headline of this article, in which we invited you to speculate about whether Star Trek: Resurgence is actually a game or not. There’s a good reason for that; this “game” plays out more like a digital version of one of those old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books you might have owned as a child.

While you’ll spend some of the playtime of Star Trek: Resurgence having phaser battles, piloting ships and doing other Star Trek-suitable activities, a lot of the action plays out without any need for you to direct your character’s movement. All you need to do is choose answers to questions. The action will then unfold depending on your answers.

If you think that this sounds familiar to you, it might be because it was the modus operandi of the old Telltale games, which include a well-thought-of Game of Thrones title. It’s no coincidence that Star Trek: Resurgence feels like a Telltale game, albeit smoother and better looking.

When Tellgame temporarily closed down in 2018, a lot of its former employees and designers moved to Dramatic Labs. Star Trek: Resurgence is a Dramatic Labs game. The reason it feels so much like the old Game of Thrones game is that it was made by the same people, even if those people now work for a different employer.

The “point and chat” nature of Star Trek: Resurgence will be a disappointment to some players. If you’re a fan of action games, this absolutely won’t be a game you’re going to want to pick up and play, no matter how much you might love the Star Trek franchise. However, if you were a Telltale fan or you’re a little older, and you have fond memories of the old “point and click” games of the 1980s and 1990s, there could be something in this for you. It might be simple – but it’s immersive.

Actions have Consequences

Players in Star Trek: Resurgence take control of two characters; Jara Rydeck, a recently-promoted Commander in her first post as First Officer, and Carter Diaz, a rookie engineer. Both are posted aboard the USS Resolute, an experimental Starfleet vessel which has just re-entered service after six months of repairs following a serious accident in space.

How much was the Captain of the Resolute involved in the accident, and how “accidental” was the incident? These are questions you’ll want to investigate as the game goes on, plus a whole lot more. The answers you give will determine the strength of your relationships with the other characters in the game, and those relationships will ultimately determine your success or failure.

It might not be out-and-out action, but it’s immersive. To all intents and purposes, this “game” is a movie in which you get to dictate some of the dialogue and a handful of the actions.

In among all of this is the inclusion of what’s likely to be a controversial element for some hardcore Trek fans – the presence of Admiral Spock, including facial and voice acting. This isn’t the Abrams-universe Spock or the version of Spock from Star Trek: Discovery – this is the original Leonard Nimoy version of Spock.

The issue with that is, of course, that Leonard Nimoy passed away several years ago. Piotr Michael pulls off an utterly astonishing impersonation of him – both vocally and facially – but it’s still someone else attempting to play Nimoy’s version of the legendary character, and we suspect that might ruffle a few feathers out there in the Star Trek world.

Pass or Purchase? 

The question of whether or not you should buy this game will come down to a few basic factors. One of them is simply how much you love Star Trek – because if you’re a dedicated “Trekkie,” we suspect you’ll buy it anyway. It’s set in the post-TNG, pre-Voyager time period, which is the most popular period for new content among fans, and that will enhance its appeal further.

On the other hand, if your version of a perfect Star Trek game involves doing a lot of running around and blowing things up, you might be better off sticking with Star Trek Online, which involves very little other than that, and is still going strong in all formats despite being more than thirteen years old.

In the end, this is an experimental Star Trek game – and we think that’s fine. It’s not like Star Trek has ever been shy of experimenting with formats before, which is why Skywind Group’s Star Trek: The Next Generation and WMS’s Star Trek: Red Alert are still available at so many online casinos even though they’re also a little long in the tooth.

When a casino or slots game sticks around for long enough to remain available at the likes of the Double Bubble Bingo sister sites – hardly a natural environment for such a casino game based on the name and theme of the sites – it’s a sign that there’s a paying public behind it who are willing to keep supporting it.

The Star Trek casino games have likely attracted Star Trek fans to online casinos for the first time, just as this game might attract people who don’t usually go for this genre. We suspect that for all these reasons and more, Star Trek: Resurgence will do just fine, even if those who prefer action games choose to stay away from it.

Does Star Trek: Resurgence boldly go where no Star Trek game has gone before? Probably not – but it boldly goes to some very familiar territory, and that’s probably enough for the game’s intended audience. Try before you buy if you have the option to do so.