CAUTION: I haven't played enough of the game to know if the free to play part is really worth it on mid or long-term, but for what I've seen (lvl 10) it's pretty okay for the most part. So this is an early impression on the game.

I don't really know a lot about Star Trek, aside from the 4 or 5 movies I saw from the original cast, NG and the recent ones. But as far as I can tell, the game does a good job at representing this universe. The presentation falls right into the science-fiction protocol-loving nerdiness of the lore, which is great. The characters talk to you in the appropriate way and there seem to be a lot of (good) fan service, especially with the ships and outfit stray from the different iteration of Star Trek...if you are ready to pay for most of it. The game still lets you have a lot of free stuf to start of well.


The graphics are find as far as MMO goes, even though I wish the aliasing was less protruding even on highest settings. The models are fairly done, the effects and animations do the job, and some of the skyboxes are simply well made. The only real gripe I might have technically speaking would be the lighting effect that aren't the best. A little bit more god rays and atmospheric lighting would make the cool art direction even better justice. Overall, it's not fantastic, but it can be pretty at time thanks to the art direction.

But what I wasn't expecting really, was the gameplay. The mechanics on land are your classical MMORPG stuff, WoW-style. They tried to had a third person viewpoint to the mix but it doesn't help much: it still is devoided of energy or any kind of excitement in the gunplay. I just don't get why they wouldn't go for a basic TPS approch for that part...You simply click on a box and the character execute the action. Boring. The space "naval combat" on the other hand, takes the same basis, with powers and cooldowns, but put it in a new context. It feels like FTL weirdly meets ACIV: Black Flag. You have to manage your power with different gauges (weapons, shields etc.) prioritizing the task you want to accomplish now, and at the same time you use special abilities from your 1st officers, while maneuvering with your ship, exposing certain parts of your shields, and choosing to fire certain canons while others are in a cooldown...it's pretty fun! I have a lot of fun with that part of the game! And it feels new in that genre.

I hope the game stays good at mid and end-game, and just with the ship combat system, I think there is a lot of place for challenging and fun combat. It's free, it's pretty faithful to the series. A nice scifi f2p to try out!

CAUTION: I haven't played enough of the game to know if the free to play part is really worth it on mid or long-term, but for what I've seen (lvl 10) it's pretty okay for the most part. So this is an early impression on the game. I don't really know a lot about Star Trek, aside from the 4 or 5 movies I saw from the original cast, NG and the recent ones. But as far as I can tell, the game does a good job at representing this universe. The presentation falls right into the science-fiction protocol-loving nerdiness of the lore, which is great. The characters talk to you in the appropriate way and there seem to be a lot of (good) fan service, especially with the ships and outfit stray from the different iteration of Star Trek...if you are ready to pay for most of it. The game still lets you have a lot of free stuf to start of well. The graphics are find as far as MMO goes, even though I wish the aliasing was less protruding even on highest settings. The models are fairly done, the effects and animations do the job, and some of the skyboxes are simply well made. The only real gripe I might have technically speaking would be the lighting effect that aren't the best. A little bit more god rays and atmospheric lighting would make the cool art direction even better justice. Overall, it's not fantastic, but it can be pretty at time thanks to the art direction. But what I wasn't expecting really, was the gameplay. The mechanics on land are your classical MMORPG stuff, WoW-style. They tried to had a third person viewpoint to the mix but it doesn't help much: it still is devoided of energy or any kind of excitement in the gunplay. I just don't get why they wouldn't go for a basic TPS approch for that part...You simply click on a box and the character execute the action. Boring. The space "naval combat" on the other hand, takes the same basis, with powers and cooldowns, but put it in a new context. It feels like FTL weirdly meets ACIV: Black Flag. You have to manage your power with different gauges (weapons, shields etc.) prioritizing the task you want to accomplish now, and at the same time you use special abilities from your 1st officers, while maneuvering with your ship, exposing certain parts of your shields, and choosing to fire certain canons while others are in a cooldown...it's pretty fun! I have a lot of fun with that part of the game! And it feels new in that genre. I hope the game stays good at mid and end-game, and just with the ship combat system, I think there is a lot of place for challenging and fun combat. It's free, it's pretty faithful to the series. A nice scifi f2p to try out!