These are the voyages…

Star Trek Resurgence is an interactive narrative adventure that is the first game release from developer Dramatic Labs who is made up of team members from former studio Telltale Games. Anyone who plays Resurgence will instantly be able to see that ole magic shining through. Star Trek Resurgence opens with the sweeping shots of starships, inducing all the wonder and awe that I felt when watching Wrath of Kahn all those years ago. The graphical style on display will instantly make any fan feel as though they have been transported to the 24th century, between the late season DS9 federation uniforms with the grey shoulders, to the sweeping musical score the attention to detail on display here instantly made me feel as though this game was being developed by fans. Even the small touch of having the episode title card was reminiscent of old TNG episodes.

Like any good Star Trek tale, Resurgence is more than meets the eye. Players will be introduced to and spend their play time with two characters. Commander Jara Rydek is the new first officer on board the USS Resolute, coming onboard this ship which has been refit after barely surviving a disaster that saw its previous first officer killed in the line of duty (see the prequel comic series for that story) is hard enough. But Jara is also from a race of aliens who requires regular blood infusions for her very survival, making her different from her other crew members. This is something that is explored early on when Jara is questioned by the ship’s science officer about what would happen if she suddenly needed an infusion in an emergency. Conversations and choices matter in Star Trek Resurgence, so depending on how players choose to handle this line of questioning they can brush off the comment, or firmly explain how it’s never been an issue; either option will affect what the science officer thinks of Commander Rydek.

MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $39.99

The other character is a lower decker by the name of Petty Officer Carter Diaz. Diaz works as an engineer and as such he is caught outside on the hull of the ship making repairs when the first emergency test Jara and Carter. An issue with the ion storm has caused the docking clamps to not release the ship, with a highly unstable energy wave headed towards them and with people outside Jara is faced with her first real command test. Bridge officers all give options, but it boils down to either blowing up the clamp, which will push the ship free but will also certainly kill Carter and his co-worker on the hell or use the shields to protect the front of the ship and take the blast, each of the decisions are viable and depending on which is chosen will affect the relationships that Jara has with her crew.

The difference in the two characters is one of the highlights of the game, Jara being a career Starfleet officer who has had it rough due to her species, but she has proven herself and worked hard to get where she is, but it also means she is very aware of Starfleet regulations. The flip side of that having Carter Diaz being a noncommissioned officer gives him more freedom to try things that might not go with all the Starfleet regulations but will solve the problem the crew is facing. Which comes into play on quite a few occasions during the story of Star Trek Resurgence. A mission that starts out as just another diplomatic negation between two warring factions quickly devolves into a prime ‘Star Trek’ like mystery that will have far reaching ramifications than these two species. I was elated to see that the developers managed to use Spock for this game, its always a joy seeing TOS characters, and due to the unfortunate passing of Leonard Nimoy, who portrayed Spock for decades the studio was forced to find a soundalike, and I must say that he does a fantastic job of brining the aging Vulcan to life. And I am delighted to say that there are some other cameos, but I won’t spoil them here.

While I loved the narrative of Star Trek Resurgence, I sadly had most of my issues with the actual gameplay. Being a narrative adventure means that players will have limited interactions with things on screen, for instance when Diaz needed to investigate why Ambassador Spock’s shuttle suddenly stop being able to engage warp drive the game directed me to press a button to pull out my tricorder to being scanning. Upon pressing the button here is a 3-4 second delay before anything happens, and this rings true with every item interaction that I had to make. When selecting between multiple tools, the player will move a ‘mouse’ like pointer over the desired device and press and hold RT to pick it up. Even moving the pointer around the screen is an extremely sluggish feeling process, as if it’s being slowed down by Armus, Skin of Evil.

As a lifelong Star Trek fan, I loved every single moment of my time with Resurgence; and that includes when I had issues. But for those that aren’t huge fans of the source material, I can say that the sluggishness of the controls when you are able to actually *play* this video game may be too much to endure, even if you are down for a good story. But I am guessing that this is going to be a game that only the fans will really pick up, and hopefully this release along with the Star Trek Picard streaming series being in the top ten for multiple weeks will help us see more games in the Star Trek Universe. I just need some developer to give me a game that’s not based on the Federation, come on guys the Romulan Star Empire is right there and they have TONS of stories to tell.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Good
  • Narrative is one of the best Star Trek stories in years
  • VO Cast are all fantastic, special shout out to Spock
  • Sweeping shots of spaceships, epic space fights and more
Bad
  • Actual gameplay is very slow
  • Buttons don’t respond right away
8
Great
Written by
Terrence spends his time going where no one has gone before mostly. But when not planning to take over the galaxy, he spends his time raising Chocobo and trying to figure out just how the sarlaac could pull Boba Fett’s ship with its engines firing FULL BLAST into it’s maw with relative ease; yet it struggled with Han Solo who was gripping *checks notes* SAND!