- Original Release: 2010
- Developer: Cryptic Studios
- Publisher: Atari, Perfect World, Gearbox
- Platform: PC, Xbox One/Series, PlayStation 4/5.
I’ve played a lot of Star Trek Online in the past, so for this playthough I decided to start from scratch on Xbox. The game is still evolving with gameplay changes and new content, so my thought here are based on my original time with the game from a while ago on PC, along with finishing up to the end of the Delta Quadrant on Xbox.
The gameplay for this game is best described as “serviceable”. It’s not terrible, but it also isn’t the most exciting. It gets the job done and is just about entertaining enough to get you to the next part of the game. In space combat, you have to keep an eye on shield arcs and weapon charge while activating powers, while on the ground it plays a bit more like a shooter, but doesn’t have exact aiming (you can also play as a more traditional MMO game on PC).
The main enjoyment I got from the game was the story, having a few dialogue choices (even though they change nothing) and just interreacting with the world. The overall story arc is about a mysterious threat pushing people into war and being discovered before everyone starts banding together to investigate and stop them. Early on, voiced dialogue was rare, but is not much more common, although some missions have sections where the dialogue is just text, which creates an odd mixture of the two. There are lots of references and a lot of characters from the shows crop up, usually voiced by the same actor.
The mission lengths vary a massive amount, and you really have no idea how long a mission will be before starting it. Some just involve talking to one person while others can be a few hours long. Some can be just combat after combat (sometimes massively overstaying its welcome as wave after wave of enemies turn up) while others are more story based with lots of information to reveal, characters to interact with and puzzles to solve – these ones are worth playing the game for.
At certain ranks you get awarded a ship, you can pick a name and registry. I decided to call all mine the USS Saru, adding letters as I got new ships. You only have a choice between a few ships, while the rest you’ll have to grind by collecting dilithium or pay for with their premium currency of “Zen” – there are a lot of different currencies in the game, which kind of goes against Star Trek a lot. By the end of my playthough, I had enough dilithium for one ship.
What is nice about the ships is that you can customise them, choosing different hulls, saucers, pylons and nacelles, as well as some hull designs. Some options are locked behind premium currency, though. I ended up changing all of my ships. I would absolutely love a new game similar to Starship Creator that just let you design ships using all of the options available in Star Trek Online.
There’s plenty of Star Trek Online that I didn’t such, such as the group activities. I do remember doing a few missions in he past, including one where you fly through a massive Voth ships that is so large that it has multiple hangar bays that carry Voth city ships. There’s other kind of repeatable missions to help grind for upgrades, which is something I really don’t enjoy.
I enjoyed my time with Star Trek Online, but at towards the end of the Delta Quadrant missions I felt extremely underpowered (while up until a few missions prior, I felt overpowered) and even buying a new ship didn’t help much. I think I had reached the point of grinding or coughing up money.
You can choose not only different factions in the game (although later missions mostly are the same for all), but different introductions. A major one is the New Romulus faction, who can then join the Federation or Klingons after their starting missions. I tried out the Discovery era missions (you end up forward in time to carry on with the main campaign) and enjoyed it, you get to interact with Lorca. The tutorial mission is just a slightly reworked version of the normal tutorial, but at least you get to meet captain Shran. The ship you use also has one of the nicest bridges in the game (the ship interiors are terrible for the most part). I do appreciate that you essentially get to play a short Discovery game.
I don’t think I will return to Star Trek Online, though, due to the game’s economy and grinding. Once development for the game slows down, I would certainly be very interested in a one-off purchase “Star Trek Offline”.
Where to get Star Trek Online
How to play Star Trek Online on Windows 11
Star Trek Online is compatible with Windows 11.
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Did you played on Xbox Series X or Series S ?
The Xbox Series S, it’s my main console at the moment.
It’s a great game. I’ve been playing since open beta.
Gameplay is fine and still probably the best open world Trek game for now. On PC you do have an option to play as the Romulans and a TOS character with some original stories. It would be interesting to play it offline and able to get everything without events or paying.
Played a bit on PC around 2014.
Fully on Xbox (AceParty) since the release in 2016. Playing almost daily since for events etc as it’s good fun. Now on series X, I wish the game could support higher rez than 1080p, a photo mode would be nice, and I would love a Borg faction too🖖
For a few years that game had a system that let players create their own missions for other people to play. As with fanfic there was crap but there were also many gems, and lots of decent fun. It was the best thing that game ever had, but they killed it.
I can always rely on coming back to this game on PC when I need a comfort game. While I can complain about so many things with this game, there’s a reason I always come back. I really love STO, faults and all. ESPECIALLY the ships😍
There’s a lot of people in the community who will just help a new player get on their feet. Which is nice.
i keep coming back to this game, wanting to play more. but once i reach the grind or pay money part i just can’t continue.
if they had an entry level $15/m subscription that gets you enough to play the all the campaigns, i’d be happy! but they bailed on that ages ago :/