Senior editor Wes Fenlon mostly liked what he saw when he got a brief look at Star Trek: Resurgence (opens in new tab) earlier this year, mainly because it evoked all that old-time Star Trek bullshit we know and love: Technobabble and simplistic outer-space diplomacy. It’s “the first Trek anything to capture the spirit of the ’90s shows in a long, long time,” he wrote, a statement that, for me at least, makes the game immediately appealing.
Unfortunately, the rest of us are going to wait longer than expected to sample its sci-fi pleasures, because developer Dramatic Labs has elected to delay its release into 2023.
“Production has been advancing steadily all summer, but we have made the difficult decision to move our release date out of 2022 in order to give the game a final coat of polish, and create a truly immersive Star Trek experience,” the studio said. “We are planning to release Star Trek: Resurgence in April 2023 on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
“Our love and admiration for Star Trek is instrumental to this decision. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished so far, and this continues to be a passion project for everyone here. We are incredibly grateful—and excited—to be able to work within a universe that means so much to so many.”
Delays are always a bummer, but in this case it’s likely a wise choice. While Wes enjoyed Resurgence’s TNG-style subtleties and tone, he had concerns about the technical state of the game, including awkward motion and dated, “robotic” facial animations.
“Resurgence isn’t finished, of course, and there’s time left to smooth out the most noticeable flaws,” he wrote. “But the developers said the animation is close to where they want it to be, so I’m not expecting a dramatic transformation between now and release later this year.”
If Dramatic Labs can use the extra six months to bring Star Trek: Resurgence’s technical qualities up to whatever the real-world equivalent of “10,000 teradynes per second” is, I think it’ll be worth the wait.