Star Trek: Online
Early this morning, Perpetual entertainment of San Francisco announced that it has secured the rights from Viacom to create a Star Trek Massively Multiplayer Online game. The license permits the developer to use elements from nearly every Trek intellectual property including all 5 of the long running franchise’s television series.
Perpetual’s press release states that the gameplay will be a unique experience compared to today’s persistant world gaming. “The scope of the content license is extraordinary for a game of this kind, giving us the opportunity to immerse fans and players in the incredibly rich, diverse and exciting universe of Star Trek,” says CEO of Perpetual, Joe Keene.
Fans however shouldn’t place their pre-orders quite yet. The game is expected to enter a public beta in far off 2006 and launch early 2007. Whether the Star Trek franchise can hold up for another 2 to 3 years could be a concern for developers, as is the popularity of the MMORPG genre. Not much else can be said about the project as the FAQ page linked from the press release was down at the time of this writing. Something noteworthy about this project is that the game was originally announced in 2000 and cancelled later that year with explanation. Activision had been the publisher at the time and the game was rumored to be out fot he PC, PS2 and Xbox, to the point where preliminary box art was created for launch.
Adding fuel to the skeptics’ fire are the so called screenshots placed on the official Star Trek: Online Universe website. Nothing more than teaser ads the images looked quicly and shoddily put together, complete with incorrect grammar. Quoted from the image: “Who will be?” Who will be what?
