Star Trek Resurgence: Choices, Diplomacy, Exploration

Star Trek fans, Trekkers, Trekkies – whatever you call them, they haven’t had it easy in recent years. A new cinema series that takes some getting used to, but is mostly entertaining (apart from Into Darkness) and two prominent new series that couldn’t be more different and yet equally inappropriate. On the one hand Star Trek Discovery, which turned Star Trek into cheap action cheese, on the other hand Picard, which completely overturns the long-established character of the captain and tramples on the ideals of The Next Generation. Star Trek in 2022 is at least currently dark, dirty, cynical, brutal and hopeless and thus exactly the opposite of what Gene Roddenberry once had in mind: a utopian science fiction world in which humanity largely faces racism, war, poverty and hardship had overcome and is now exploring the universe.

However, Star Trek: Resurgence gives some hope. Announced at last year’s Game Awards, the title takes you to the year 2380, pretty much right at the end of the TNG franchise. The newly founded studio Dramatic Labs, which is made up of around 20 former employees of the adventure developer Telltale Games, is in charge of this. Accordingly, one can guess in which direction the gameplay is going. You embody two different characters, the change between the two figures takes place at fixed points in the story – this is known from various Telltale adventures. The two protagonists Jara Rydek and Carter Diaz are completely new people in the Star Trek universe, so you don’t slip into the role of a well-known series or film hero. The ship you use in Resurgence is also completely new.

New crew members

But that doesn’t mean you won’t meet familiar faces. In a first gameplay video, for example, it was recently seen that Spock, who is currently working as an ambassador, is visiting your ship – it’s nice that the volcanic cult pointed ear was still preserved in virtual form after Leonard Nimoy’s death. In general, the gameplay demo makes you want more, as it was decidedly low-action and story-heavy. Spock has come aboard to help mediate between two alien races, now on the brink of war after a long partnership of convenience. In the Star Trek-typical briefing room, he explains the situation to the crew officers – including one of our characters – while we give our two cents and take a stand at important points. Let’s hope that this approach is followed through consistently and that we can play our character as a Picardian diplomat or a Kirkian daredevil.

Typical Telltale: In addition to the exploration of space, the focus of the game should be the dialogue-heavy narrative. Of course, this also includes decisions. (1)

Source: Dramatic Labs

In addition to these sprawling story sections and the freedom to make decisions, other fields of activity are of course waiting for us. For example, we try our hand at being a shuttle pilot, perform scans with the tricorder, fight phaser battles and sneak through dangerous areas here and there. Hardly anything has been seen so far, with the exception of a few snippets of seconds in the first trailer, back then at the Game Awards. It is not yet possible to judge whether these sections fit well into the overall package or appear rather artificial. But if they are only intended to loosen up the story sections, not too much should go wrong. In addition to the decisions in the story, building relationships with other characters and exploring should take a much larger part of the gameplay – so far nothing has really been seen, on paper it sounds great after all.

As Riker already said in Pointless in Space: “I want to be a captain.” The protagonist Jara is actually only an officer, but is apparently allowed to play boss from time to time.

Source: Dramatic Labs

Graphically no Next Generation

Technically, we can only rate the trailers released so far, and what we saw there was fine. The Telltale games didn’t uproot any graphics either, but still managed to transport the atmosphere well. So far, things are looking similar with Resurgence: The game graphics based on the Unreal Engine don’t look too detailed and full of effects, but so far they have captured the post-TNG mood quite well. The English speakers that have been heard so far do the rest, so that there is an atmosphere even without the noble optics.

It is also positive that the title will not be released in episode format like some Telltale games, but completely in one piece. And: There will be no microtransactions, DLCs or NFTs. In the second quarter of 2022 we should be able to set out into the endless expanses ourselves.