We have enjoyed quite a few Star Trek games in the past like Star Trek Resurgence, which delivered a Telltale-style narrative experience, and Star Trek Timelines, a mobile title that merged franchise lore with light combat mechanics. There is also Star Trek Online, which remains popular more than 15 years after its launch thanks to steady updates and strong community support.
But when it comes to fully realized single-player Star Trek experiences, you almost have to travel back to 1997, the same year Game Industry News launched, to find something comparable. Interplay’s Starfleet Academy remains one of the high points of the franchise in gaming form. You can check out my review of that title from almost 30 years ago if you want, but having to go back in time that far shows that truly exceptional Star Trek games have been rare.
That makes Star Trek Voyager: Across the Unknown, recently released for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch 2 and for the PC via Steam, something special. It’s not simply another licensed product wearing a familiar uniform. Instead, it feels like a thoughtful attempt to capture what makes Star Trek compelling: leadership, exploration, difficult decisions and survival far from home.
Star Trek Voyager: Across the Unknown follows the crew of the legendary starship as they are pulled into the Delta Quadrant by the mysterious Caretaker and forced to begin the long journey back to Earth. Events broadly mirror the television series with recognizable storylines and situations inspired by classic episodes. However, players are not locked into Captain Kathryn Janeway’s exact decisions.
Very early in the game, for example, players can choose to use the Caretaker’s array to send Voyager home immediately rather than destroy it for the greater good of the Delta Quadrant. Doing so ends the game almost instantly, which is both amusing and a clear statement about player agency. Most decisions do not carry consequences that are quite that dramatic, but several do meaningfully shape missions, resource availability and crew relationships moving forward.
Despite the strong narrative framing, this is not a purely story-driven experience. At its heart, Across the Unknown is a deep management simulation. Voyager arrives heavily damaged, leaving players in command of a barely functioning ship. Much like clearing debris in XCOM 2, entire sections of the vessel must be excavated and restored before they become operational. Once opened, these rooms act as a blank canvas for rebuilding Voyager according to your priorities.
You can transform the ship into a combat-focused vessel stacked with shield generators, upgraded phasers and torpedo systems. Alternatively, you might invest in hydroponics bays to ensure long-term food production or research improvements that make replicators more efficient. Nearly every decision ties back to limited resources, forcing players to balance survival against long-term strategy in a way that feels authentically Star Trek.
Four primary resources drive progression, alongside several advanced manufactured materials and the ever-important dilithium crystals. Dilithium functions as both a rare currency and a technological gatekeeper, preventing players from rushing into advanced upgrades too quickly. Even fundamental ship functions like crew quarters or engineering facilities must be researched before construction becomes possible, reinforcing the sense that Voyager is rebuilding itself piece by piece.
Resources are gathered through sector exploration on a large navigational map. Players scan planets and anomalies before committing to travel, and surprises are fairly common. Movement consumes reactor fuel displayed as a turn-based countdown at the top of the screen. If you have just 11 turns of fuel left and a destination that costs four turns to reach, the math becomes immediate and tense. You can make it, but you had better start planning how you are going to gather more fuel, manufacture it (later in the adventure) or what will be powered down (like food replicators) to reduce demand. Exploration always carries risk, and poor planning can leave Voyager stranded with players facing a game over.
These exploration sectors also trigger story missions drawn from the television series. Away missions play a major role, requiring players to assemble teams based on anticipated skill checks such as science, engineering or combat expertise. Characters gain experience during missions, encouraging players to rotate crew members rather than relying on a single elite team. Leveling characters improves both mission effectiveness and ship performance. Assigned heroes provide efficiency bonuses to departments aboard Voyager, creating a satisfying loop between exploration, character progression and ship management.
Graphically, Across the Unknown is outstanding. Players can zoom into ship interiors and watch crew members physically moving through restored rooms, performing duties and interacting with systems. This level of visual detail gives Voyager a lived-in feeling rarely achieved in strategy games.
Voice acting is more limited than expected, which stands as one of the few disappointments. However, Tim Russ and Robert Duncan McNeill reprise their Star Trek: Voyager roles as Tuvok and Tom Paris, respectively, lending authenticity whenever they appear. Russ, whom we also saw in the FMV title Vegas Tales, once again delivers an excellent performance. The presence of Russ and McNeill highlights how strong full voice coverage could have been, but what is included remains welcome.
There are only a handful of notable criticisms. Combat, which appears frequently during exploration, feels underdeveloped compared with the depth of the management systems. Battles occur in real time with pausing available, but encounters often devolve into ships drifting around one another exchanging phaser fire until one side is destroyed or retreats. On one occasion, Voyager simply bumped into an enemy vessel without consequence, unintentionally undermining the drama of space combat. Players can also issue targeting commands and activate hero abilities with cooldown timers, but combat largely resolves itself. While functional, it lacks the tactical excitement found elsewhere in the game.
The other significant issue is the heavy reliance on random number generation. Many away mission actions and dialogue outcomes depend on a sliding meter that darts around and then automatically stops somewhere on a color-coded bar with success, partial success and failure zones. Player input does not influence the result beyond increasing skill levels to widen the success areas. And because these checks occur so frequently, you are always playing the odds and will eventually lose – probably quite a lot. Previous versions of Across the Unknown even lacked manual saving, which amplified the frustration when bad luck struck repeatedly. A recent patch allowing manual saves improves the experience considerably, though giving players direct control over the timing mechanic would add meaningful agency.
Even with those shortcomings, Across the Unknown succeeds where many licensed games struggle. It understands the core strengths of Star Trek. Exploration, leadership and choices all matter here. The title respects the intelligence of its audience and trusts players to think like a captain rather than simply acting like an action hero.
Star Trek Voyager: Across the Unknown is not just another adaptation of a beloved series. It’s a thoughtful, systems-driven strategy game that embraces the core ideals of Star Trek while giving players genuine ownership over Voyager’s fate. Combat and RNG mechanics occasionally fall short of Across the Unknown’s otherwise high ambitions, but they do little to diminish what is ultimately an outstanding experience. For fans of management simulations, strategy titles or Star Trek itself, this is a journey well worth taking.
Developers: Gamexcite
Platforms: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Steam, Xbox Series X