If you love Star Trek, you’ll love Star Trek: Resurgence. That could be the entire review, but I’ll say more. Developed by Dramatic Labs, a company founded by former TellTale Games staff, this is a narrative-driven, action-adventure game set around one year after Star Trek Nemesis.
Gameplay
Star Trek: Resurgence is a narrative-driven action-adventure game where you play as both new first officer Commander Jara Rydek and engineer Carter Diaz in a series of episodic chapters that weave you through an epic narrative.
Stationed aboard the USS Resolute and following an accident before the game commences, the ship and her crew are tasked with a thorny diplomatic incident that quickly descends into a gripping story with conspiracy theories and interplanetary politics.
Each short section or chapter plays out a particular scenario of the story. From the first arrival, spacewalking, early negotiations and beyond. In each story-driven moment, you must perform certain actions in time, trigger events and choose your dialogue options wisely. This can also involve some puzzles and mini-games. As a Star Trek fan, these are great because they often involve using all the equipment you see in the shows and movies. I particularly like Diaz’s engineering exploits as it’s incredibly detailed. It’s enough to keep you involved to make it feel like a game. this isn’t, however, a free-roaming action adventure. It’s a narrative game, and as you’d expect from former TellTale staff, it’s a very good narrative game. What you say and do matters as the story progresses, and you can keep track of your relationships with various crew members in the menu.
However, what Star Trek: Resurgence doesn’t have is a morality system. This is unique for a game of this type, but as you play as two Starfleet personnel, perhaps the innate morality of the Federation is just assumed. Either way, it doesn’t detract from your overwhelming dread when making seemingly impossible decisions!
If you’re a fan of interactive, narrative-driven adventures like the games TellTale put out, or things like Life Is Strange, you’ll know what to expect from Star Trek: Resurgence.
Graphics And Voice Acting
Graphically, the game looks wonderful; it’s a joy to explore the starship, interact with the crew and boldly go to many alien worlds. Early in the game, you are walking along the ship’s hull (think that scene from Star Trek First Contact), and my mind was blown. It looked and felt awesome.
If the graphics aren’t enough to convince you, then the voice acting will be. All the cast did an excellent job portraying alien enemies, crew, and other personnel. If they ever want to hire the cast and make an animated show, I’d watch it, and it would be one of the finest Trek shows.
Then, finally, the cameos, with two well-known Trek characters turning up in Star Trek: Resurgence, really do ground the game in the franchise, which helps draw you into the overall narrative.
A special mention must go to the voice actor portraying Spock, one of the franchise’s most well-known and beloved characters. It’s always a brave move, including a legacy character, especially when the original actor sadly dies. But this Spock is convincing, truly wonderful and believable.
Star Trek: Resurgence Is A Masterpiece With One Flaw
While I loved playing this game, it isn’t 100% perfect. There are odd graphical glitches and a little stuttering here and there. It’s not game-breaking at all, but it takes you out of the immersion a little bit when you notice strange shadows on people’s faces or artefacts around characters.
That’s my only complaint; hopefully, it can be patched out.
Final Thoughts On Star Trek Resurgence
Star Trek: Resurgence is a fantastic game that allows players to feel like they’re part of the Star Trek Universe. Through great storytelling, fun mini-games and puzzles and many action-triggers, you’ll be taken on a journey where you’ll fall in love with the crew, cheer at anything recognisable and marvel at the details. If you like narrative-based games and are a Star Trek fan, boldly go and play it right now.
