Star Trek: Bridge Crew (2017), Ubisoft’s co-op space sim that puts you on the bridge of your very own Federation vessel, is now available on Oculus Quest.
The Quest version is being sold for $30, which is $5 more expensive than when it launched on PC VR and PSVR respectively, however it does include the Next Generation DLC, which costs $10 when purchased separately on those platforms.
David Votypka, senior creative director at Ubisoft’s Red Storm, says it has cross-play functionality “with the game’s original platforms.” We would assume this not only covers the Rift version purchased through the Oculus Store, but also includes PC VR versions purchased through Steam and Viveport, and for PSVR through the PlayStation Store—although it’s still unclear at this time.
If you already bought Star Trek: Bridge Crew and The Next Generation DLC from the Oculus Store for Rift (read: not Steam or Viveport), the Quest version of the game is free. However if you have the game but don’t have the DLC, the Quest version costs $10.
Although you can technically play through the game’s missions and procedurally created end-game content on your own, the real fun is in jumping in with three other people in co-op mode. There, you can take on the roles of Captain, Helm, Tactical and Engineer, and experience what it’s like to wok together to beat back the Klingon Empire in the base game, and the Borg in the Next Generation DLC. Check out our review of the PC VR version to find out why we gave it a [9/10] score.
While we did rate it highly (and expect no less from the Quest version), you may want to set your phasers to stun for the time being, as some user reports suggest the game is currently suffering authentication issues, which is thanks to (you guessed it) Ubisoft’s Uplay. One user suggests linking your mandatory Uplay account and then physically restarting the headset. In the meantime, we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled on the Ubisoft forums for more information on the infinite login loop issue for more information when it arrives.
“Star Trekhas always been about pushing technology forward, so in that spirit we are happy to be continuing our partnership with IBM Watson,” said David Votypka, Sr. Creative Director at Red Storm Entertainment, the Ubisoft studio that developed of Bridge Crew, in a prepared statement. “Watson is standing by to await players’ orders in Star Trek: Bridge Crew and will be usable in upcoming content that is currently in development.”
Ubisoft and IBM also explained that the support is planned to continue through 2018 for both existing and upcoming content.
“We are excited to continue IBM Watson voice recognition in Star Trek: Bridge Crew throughout 2018,” said Joel Horwitz, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships & Offerings, IBM Digital Business Group in a prepared statement. “We look forward to our ongoing partnership with Ubisoft and to keeping our communities apprised of updates.”
The IBM Watson voice functionality has never been an integral feature of the game for most players, but it is a crucial facet for those that prefer to play as a solo captain. If you’ve got a full squad of friends on the bridge then you can rely on them for support, but being able to issue orders vocally to the AI is a huge boon when playing alone. Using only menus is frankly a bit cumbersome in a complex game like this. While this news is far from definitive on the future of the program’s support, it at least ensures another eight or so months.
Another great example of voice recognition in VR is with PSVR-exclusive psychological thriller, The Inpatient, in which you speak to NPCs using your real voice. Ideally, this type of support will become commonplace in VR over time instead of an ancillary bullet point feature.
Have you tried the voice recognition features in Star Trek: Bridge Crew yet? Fore more on the game, read our full review. Let us know down in the comments below!
Back in February, Ubisoft announced that its upcoming virtual reality (VR) title Star Trek: Bridge Crew would feature not one but two starships, one of them being the iconic U.S.S. Enterprise. At the time only a couple of images were released, today the studio has unveiled a teaser trailer.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew has been developed by Red Storm Entertainment, which is part of Ubisoft, with David Votypka, Senior Creative Director at Red Storm previously stating about the U.S.S. Enterprise’s inclusion: “We felt it was important to include a part of classic Star Trek with this game, especially during Star Trek’s 50th anniversary.The original U.S.S. Enterprise is such an iconic part of the franchise – it’s the ship that started it all.”
Team work is the name of the game, with players able to take on the roles of Captain, Engineer, Tactical Officer, or Helm Officer. As officers of the Federation every action and decision they make together will determine the fate of the ship and crew. But there is a solo campaign as well.
The title was originally due to be released on 29th November 2016, before being moved to 14th March, 2017. Then Ubisoft confirmed a further delay, putting the new launch for 30th May on PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
Checkout the new trailer below, and for any further updates on Star Trek: Bridge Crew, VRFocuskeep reading.
Before setting out to work on a VR project it’s important to hone in and focus on something specific as a core mission. Do you want to create something that’s simple and fun? Do you want to make people think, or feel something? Or maybe your goal is to recreate something specific with an authentic representation.
That last point — authenticity — is the goal behind Star Trek: Bridge Crew from Ubisoft and Red Storm and from everything I’ve seen thus far, they’ve absolutely succeeded. In the two videos below you might notice a slight echo — that’s just from us recording both in-game voice chat and spoken voices from the room. The actual game doesn’t have any echo problems.
The first time I played Star Trek: Bridge Crew at E3 last year I was blown away (it was named our favorite multiplayer game at the show) and it continued to impress us when we tried again at Gamescom later last year. Last week at a visit to Ubisoft’s San Francisco office we got the chance to play it once again, but this time with 3 of the 4 chairs filled by the Upload team and we flew both the new Aegis and the original Starship Enterprise.
Th great thing about Star Trek: Bridge Crew is that even though it’s an incredibly faithful adaptation of what it means to be on the bridge with your team, it doesn’t actually require any prior knowledge of the show. During the opening Starfleet Academy training I sat in the Tactical Officer’s chair, in charge of combat systems, defenses, and scanning operations, our Editor-in-Chief Tal Blevins was in the captain’s chair, and Upload’s Video Producer, Azad Balabanian steered the ship as the Helmsman. The fourth slot — Engineer – was filled by a member of the Red Storm development team.
My training covered all of the basics that any good Tactical Officer needs to know: how to arm and fire torpedoes, shooting phasers, activating shields, scanning ships, and other related tasks. The UI is much improved from the last time I saw the game with a more intuitive layout and clearly defined tasks for each area of the panel.
All of the crew on the Aegis has a large display in front of them that has various touchscreen sections. Our first mission was to visit a system and scan escape pods looking for signs of life then beam those survivors onto our ship. Just like the game itself it was simple in concept but became immediately more complicated and intense once things started rolling.
In other cooperative games there are strictly defined systems in place that govern how and when players can interact and affect the game world. In the case of Star Trek: Bridge Crew though, it’s a much more flexible environment. When the Captain issues an order to open fire on the Klingons you don’t “lose points” for ignoring him, but may earn the disdain of your comrades when your ship explodes from losing a battle. Every member has to operate in unison to achieve victory and it’s insanely rewarding to successfully complete a mission together.
For example, in the heat of battle the Engineer may need to make sure the shields have power during a fight and the Tactical Officer has to make sure the shields are on to boost our defenses, as well as maintaining fire on enemy vessels. The Helmsman will maneuver the battlefield while the Captain keeps an eye on the objectives and keeps us on track. Even though there was no strict system in place that forced me to wait for my Captain’s orders I found myself inclined to wait and act only when instructed.
While the main focus of Star Trek: Bridge Crew is the new Aegis ship, during our demonstration we also got the chance to go hands-on with the classic original U.S.S. Enterprise from the very first Star Trek show. The game’s campaign mode can only be played with the Aegis, but the randomized mission mode can be played using the newer ship or the Enterprise. For our second mission we fired up the original and took her for a spin.
At first you’d think changing ships wouldn’t result in a major difference in terms of actual gameplay, but it actually ended up feeling like a completely separate game for all intents and purposes. As the Tactical Officer my futuristic AR-esque panel was replaced by a slab with brightly colored buttons that looked more like pieces of candy than tools for deep space exploration. This is of course intentional as the Enterprise in Star Trek: Bridge Crew is designed to look exactly like it did in the original show — 60s cheesiness and all.
Using my Oculus Touch controllers I could press a button to display hovering text over each option to show potential choices, which is a necessity given how complex the new interface is. Instead of sliders and diagrams to arm and fire torpedoes I’ve got individual buttons. Instead of monitoring how long is left to arm and charge weapon systems I just mash them repeatedly until they do what I want. It felt like I was sitting in a cardboard spaceship as a little kid, pretending to be an astronaut. The screens on my right show exaggerated lines and colors, as if it’s a fantastical pretend version of the future.
As a crew, we fond ourselves communicating far more in the original Enterprise than we did in the Aegis and everything just felt more frantic, chaotic, and fun. Information was much more scattered and difficult to decipher with fewer displayed systems and screens. Between myself and the Helmsman, for example, was a single large shared radar panel that the Captain also used.
The difference between flying the new, streamlined Aegis and the clunky, obtuse Enterprise is like the difference between driving a smooth, electric automatic car and an old, stubborn manual transmission pickup truck. They’re both vehicles that are designed to do the same general thing but feel completely different with unique quirks once you get behind the wheel. The Aegis was much easier to learn quickly, but with a good crew of friends, I could see the Enterprise becoming a favorite for repeated voyages. It just feels more authentic.
It might be sporting a simple premise, but Star Trek: Bridge Crew is an absolutely dense and complex game. Between the four different positions, single player and cooperative multiplayer, full campaign mode, and randomized voyages with two totally different ships and multiple mission types, the game has a lot to offer.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew is set to release on May 30th for Oculus Rift with Touch, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR (PSVR) with full cross-platform multiplayer. If you’re itching to see more, check back at UploadVR because we’ll have a full gameplay video of our complete mission aboard the Starship Enterprise later this week.
What do you think of this voyage into the final frontier? Let us know in the comments below!
Legendary Nintendo game developer Shigeru Miyamoto (Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong) once said, “A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever.” Ubisoft is taking that sentiment to heart as they have delayed Star Trek: Bridge Crew a second time, this time to May 30th, 2017. This delay isn’t specific to Star Trek either, as the upcoming non-VR South Park RPG is temporarily moved back as well. As far as we know, this should theoretically coincide with the release of the forthcoming new television series, Star Trek: Discovery.
Additionally, Ubisoft outlined plans to include the original U.S.S. Enterprise in the game when it releases this May. According to the statement, the classic bridge will only be usable in the Ongoing Voyages game mode, which provides randomized missions to tackle either solo or in co-op for added replayability.
“We felt it was important to include a part of classic Star Trek with this game, especially during Star Trek’s 50th anniversary,” said David Votypka, Sr. Creative Director at Red Storm Entertainment, in a prepared statement. “The original U.S.S. Enterprise is such an iconic part of the franchise – it’s the ship that started it all. The adventures and relationships that took place on the ship are a special part of Star Trek history, so we were determined to give players the opportunity to create their own adventures and stories on this classic ship. We’re very excited to see player reactions when they step onto the U.S.S. Enterprise original bridge for the first time, and experience Star Trek: Bridge Crew in a whole new way. We’re also appreciative of players’ patience as we finalize work on the game to bring the Star Trek experience we envisioned to life.”
The extra wait is going to be tough, as Star Trek: Bridge Crew took home the honors of being named our most-anticipated VR game of 2017 during our 2016 end of the year awards. We’ve loved everything about it when we’ve gotten our hands on the experience and can’t wait to sink our teeth into it more to really see how well it performs and whether there is enough content to keep people coming back for extended periods of time.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew, when it releases on May 30th, will be available for Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR (PSVR), and HTC Vive. It will also fully support cross-platform multiplayer, just like Werewolves Within and Eagle Flight.
Looking to play any of Ubisoft’s forthcoming virtual reality (VR) titles online? Your opponent, or partner might not be on the same head-mounted display (HMD). They might not even be on the same base system. Revealed today on the Ubisoft Blog, the games publisher has revealed that not only will Eagle Flight allow Oculus Rift and HTC Vive players to battle each other, but PlayStation VR users will also be able to join the fun. Taking the console VR vs PC VR argument to the battleground that is the skies above the ruins of Paris.
This itself is only a first step however, with cross-platform gameplay coming to Ubisoft’s other VR titles. Star Trek: Bridge Crew and Werewolves Within “from launch”.
Speaking on the Ubisoft Blog, David Votypka, the Senior Creative Director at Red Storm Entertainment (developers of Star Trek: Bridge Crew explained how it all came about.
“Making our VR titles cross-platform has been a goal of ours from the start and we’re happy to announce that Eagle Flight, Werewolves Within, and Star Trek: Bridge Crew will be playable cross-platform on PSVR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive. Our games feature a strong multiplayer experiences, so letting friends play together regardless of which headset they own will enhance the social nature of our games and let them be played the way we envisioned.”
VRFocus will bring you more information about Ubisoft’s VR line-up as the additional platforms and titles are released.
