Star Trek Online is the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game built on the Star Trek franchise, and that fact explains both what it gets right and where it stumbles. Cryptic Studios developed it. It launched on Microsoft Windows in February 2010, and versions later arrived on OS X, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
The game is set in the 25th century, thirty years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. It has received several expansions and has gotten mixed reviews from critics. The IGDB critic aggregate sits at 6.8 out of 10 across six outlets. That number lands close to the truth.
Trailer, via Justice Gaming.
The Alliance Has Collapsed
The setting does real work. Thirty years after Nemesis, the alliance between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire has collapsed, and the two powers are at war again. The Romulan Star Empire is still dealing with the fallout of losing its homeworld twenty-two years earlier, as shown in J. J. Abrams’ Star Trek film. The Dominion is rebuilding its forces. The Borg Collective has re-emerged as a major threat.
Later expansions widen the field. The Vaadwaur, the Iconians, the Na’Kuhl, the Krenim, the Terran Empire, the Voth, the Undine, the Tzenkethi, the Hur’q/Drantzuli and the non-canon Aetherians all enter as adversaries.
That is a deep bench of villains, and it is one of the game’s clearest strengths. Star Trek Online treats the franchise’s history as a resource rather than a backdrop. The war between the Federation and the Klingons is not a throwaway premise. It shapes who you fight and why.
You Captain Your Own Ship
Every player acts as the captain of their own ship. You control the ship’s engineering, tactical and science systems by keyboard and mouse or through an on-screen console. You can also beam down and move around as a player character, with weapons and specific support and combat skills tied to your class.
The two combat systems are intertwined throughout the game. Away-team missions feature fast-paced run-and-gun combat. Space combat stresses the long-term tactical aspect of combat between capital ships. Both run alongside the Star Trek storyline.
Positioning matters in both. Space combat emphasizes ship positioning to efficiently use shields. Ground combat emphasizes the away team’s positioning, with flanking damage and finding weaknesses to exploit.
The classes break down along familiar lines:
- Tactical, Science, or Engineering specialties
- Command of Away Teams
- Captaincy of your own starship
- The choice to wear the official uniforms of the United Federation of Planets or the Klingon Empire
That structure is sound. The trouble is that the two halves do not carry equal weight. Space combat is where the tactical idea lives. Ground combat is faster and looser, and it leans on the same run-and-gun rhythm that every other MMO of its era used.
Crafting Runs While You Sleep
Crafting in its current form uses duty officers — junior crew members — to make items, depending on the level of the school chosen, such as science or beams. To raise the level of a school, you perform a research project using a crafting material.
Unlike some other MMOs, crafting here is a set-and-forget procedure. You set up the project, click a button, and after a specified time the task is completed. You do not spend time actually performing the craft. Duty officers can be sent on assignments by the same method, and they are not available during that time.
Characters of level 52 and higher can send any ships they have, or have had, on admiralty missions. These work like duty officer assignments but do not use duty officers.
This is the part of Star Trek Online that has aged best and worst at once. It respects your time. It also removes you from the activity. A game about commanding a starship should not ask you to walk away from the console while the work happens.
A Long Road From 2010
The release history matters, because it explains the shape of the thing you download today.
| Date | Platform | Note |
|---|---|---|
| February 2010 | Microsoft Windows | Launch, with game purchase and recurring monthly fee |
| January 2012 | PC | Relaunch with a tier of free-to-play access |
| March 2014 | OS X | Release after public beta testing |
| February 2016 | OS X | Support ended due to technical issues with the port |
| September 2016 | PlayStation 4, Xbox One | Console release |
At launch, the game required a game purchase and a recurring monthly fee. In January 2012, it relaunched with a tier of free-to-play access available. The OS X version arrived in March 2014 after a public beta testing period, and support for it ended in February 2016 because of technical issues with the port. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions followed in September 2016.
That is a game that changed its business model, lost a platform, and added two more. Sixteen years after the Windows launch, it is still being expanded.
Where It Lands
Star Trek Online is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game from Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment. It is published by Perfect World Entertainment and Atari, Inc. It is available on PlayStation 4, PC, Mac and Xbox One — the Mac release being the OS X version that arrived in March 2014. It is a role-playing game with simulator, strategy, tactical and adventure elements, with action, science fiction and warfare themes. It supports multiplayer, co-operative and massively multiplayer online modes, played from a third-person perspective.
The pitch is generous. Don the official uniforms of the United Federation of Planets or the Klingon Empire. Choose Tactical, Science or Engineering. Command Away Teams. Captain your own starship. Avoid Borg assimilation. Breed Tribbles. All of it free.
That last item is not a joke. Breeding Tribbles is in the game, and it tells you something about the design philosophy. Star Trek Online wants to be the whole franchise at once — the war, the diplomacy, the science, the nonsense. It mostly gets away with it.
What The Score Reflects
The 6.8 out of 10 is the right score, and the reason is not that the game is broken. It is that the game is uneven.
The space combat is the best thing here. Positioning your ship to use shields efficiently, trading fire between capital ships, thinking in long arcs rather than quick bursts — that is Star Trek, and Cryptic understood it. The setting understands it too. A Federation-Klingon war thirty years after Nemesis is a better premise than most licensed games get.
The ground game is the weak half. Run-and-gun away-team combat is competent and forgettable. It does not carry the tactical weight of the ship battles. The two systems are supposed to be intertwined. In practice one of them is doing the heavy lifting.
Crafting and duty officers are the stranger problem. Set-and-forget is honest about what an MMO grind is, and it spares players the tedium. But it also turns the game into a queue. You log in, you assign, you leave. A captain should be on the bridge.
What holds the whole thing together is the sheer volume of Star Trek in it. The expansions keep adding adversaries — the Iconians, the Krenim, the Voth, the Terran Empire — and each one is a piece of franchise history that fans recognize immediately. That is not nothing. It is the reason the game still runs.
Star Trek Online is worth playing for the space combat and the setting. It is worth tolerating for everything else. That is a 6.8.
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