Our review of Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown, developed by Gamexcite. Available now for PS5, Steam Deck, Xbox X/S, Switch 2, and Windows.
WHAT IS IT?
A low-budget digital reimagining of beloved 90s Star Trek series Voyager, and, incidentally, the second “unofficial” Voyager sequel this year (after Starfleet Academy, of course).
IS IT GOOD?
Surprisingly, yes, though its complex systems – and deep love for obscure Trek lore – make this one only for the diehards.
WHO SHOULD PLAY IT?
Annika Hansen. Icheb’s Ghost. Mirror Harry.
FLASHBACK
It’s an interesting time for Trekkies. The dreadful Star Trek Discovery is finally behind us, even as its pseudo-sequel, the Toronto-shot (and occasionally Toronto-set) Strange New Worlds, has shown it’s still possible to deliver some good old-fashioned Trek.
Meanwhile, Disco’s other sequel, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, has offered up a weird hybrid of the two, doling out fan service – hello, Voyager’s The Doctor! – alongside occasionally excruciating YA melodrama. The jury’s still out on Starfleet Academy, though there’s no denying the power of its DS9/Benjamin Sisko tribute episode last month.
Into the fray enters a legacyquel of its own, Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown, which essentially functions as a “what if” scenario for fans of the TV series, which ran seven seasons during the era of Peak Trek. While never as popular as fellow 90s Treks The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine, Voyager remains a beloved entry in the canon, no doubt bolstered by the enduring popularity of its two female leads, Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), both of whom have popped up in recent projects like the cartoon Star Trek: Prodigy and the Next Generation “coda” Star Trek: Picard.
Those projects, supported by a Hollywood budget and investment in returning characters, can’t really be compared to Across the Unknown, an avowedly “budget” title from an unknown studio, with relatively simplistic graphics, iterative design, and mostly lacking voicework (though both Robert Duncan McNeill and Tim Russ are on hand to lend voiceovers to the occasional cutscene). Just to give an idea of how budget this game is: until release, it wasn’t even clear if it had cleared the rights to Voyager’s wonderful theme music. (Spoilers: it’s here, even if the rest of the soundtrack is fairly bland.)
Colour me surprised, then, that after some admittedly confused opening hours, I’ve found Across the Unknown to be an overall enjoyable experience, revisiting key moments from the series in the guise of an engaging (if hopelessly complicated) spaceship-management sim.
YEAR OF HELL
Star Trek: Voyager, which ran from 1995-2001 as the flagship series of the UPN network (rip), follows the crew of the USS Voyager (callsign NCC-7465, but then you knew that already), stranded halfway across the Milky Way galaxy in what Trek lore refers to as the “Delta Quadrant”.
A relatively unknown area of space – and home to the horrifying Borg, villains of the best Star Trek movie – Voyager’s unique setting allowed its writers to explore (at least in theory) new species, new conflicts, and new tensions, with the stranded ship attempting to balance the desire to return home against the responsibility to uphold Starfleet values. (Early on, the show also attempted to make a big deal of the fact Voyager “absorbed” a crew of anti-Starfleet “Maquis” revolutionaries, though the Maquis folks honestly settled into their Starfleet uniforms a little too well, and too quickly.)
Across the Unknown, which draws on such popular sci-fi video game series as XCOM and FTL, is a game about exploration, and about decision-making, in line with the challenges a starship captain would face while stranded 70,000 lightyears from home. Play alternates between management sim – explore systems, collect resources, upgrade systems – and a relatively simplistic choose-your-own adventure campaign, which mixes up new storylines with those remembered (or, in some cases, only half-remembered) from the TV series.
Much of the tension in Voyager comes not from the life-or-death decisions found in the story – sorry, Seven/Chakotay stans – but in your ability to manage the crew’s ever dwindling morale. While it may be tempting, for example, to invest all your resources in weapons and shields, turning Voyager into a bullying warship (abandoning your Federation principles along the way!), you’ll still to ensure Neelix’s mess is up and running, and there are enough quarters to house your unhappy crew. It is, in other words, a balancing act, one that you’ll constantly be managing throughout its approximately twelve-hour runtime. (Or, if you prefer, half a 90s Trek season.)
COURSE: OBLIVION
Even with – or possibly because of – its surfeit of tutorial-style assists, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by Across the Unknown, with its confusing array of rapidly dwindling ship resources, systems to manage, research trees to unlock, “work teams” to deploy. This is probably the worst thing about the game, this persistent feeling that you’re overlooking something, that some system you’re not even aware of is about to fail. Even after so many hours with the game, there are still times when “my” Voyager will suddenly collapse into “Grey Mode”, life support systems offline and systems in crisis, because I’ve failed to carefully manage my energy use or Deuterium reserve.
That said, there’s an undeniably appealing rhythm to Across the Unknown, one in which you learn to always have a research project on the go (pro tip: develop the plasma torch early), always have a new room under construction (another pro tip: Engineering Offices are the main way to increase your “work teams”), always have a pending trade deal (last tip: pay close attention to what’s going on in the Aeroshuttle Hangar), even as you pursue the immediate mission lines to progress the story.
About that: one of the best things about Across the Unknown is how organically its stories unfold. The game does a lot of work to make you feel like you’re merely stumbling into scenarios, even if (obviously) the game has them pre-programmed and waiting. You might, for instance, come across a wormhole, only to discover it’s a teeny-tiny wormhole, only to discover that on the other side… well, Voyager fans know already what’s there, but let’s refrain from spoilers for now. You might also, to give one more example, be out on a seemingly random away mission, only to encounter an organ-harvesting operation, which then unfolds into a larger mystery (and throughline from the early seasons of Voyager).
What’s also lovely about these scenarios is that they’re a chance to depart from Trek canon, gleefully disregarding the show in order to cultivate your own Voyager experience. To offer a prime example: on a lark, I disregarded Starfleet protocol and left the Ocampa to their own fate during the “series premiere”, using the Caretaker Array to blast home and short-circuit, well, the entirety of Voyager seasons 1-7. (Don’t worry: the game offered me the chance to “reconsider” my option and do the right thing.)
At other times, you might be tasked with ferreting out a traitor – the canonically wrong answer letting you embrace a certain “Bajoran” as a permanent member of your crew – or deciding how to resolve an infamous ethical conundrum (#justicefortuvix).
Even though many of these boil down to multiple-choice options, it’s still fun, for a certain kind of dork, to fool around in the canon this way. Bear in mind that these choices are meaningful – you’ll gain and lose crew members in occasionally shocking ways, and there’s a good chance that the Voyager at the end of your story will little resemble the Voyager of “Endgame”. Personally, though I’ve largely played the “good guy”, there have definitely been moments when, plagued by dwindling resources and plummeting morale, I was awfully tempted to just go all Equinox on the Quadrant.
And that’s Across the Unknown in a nutshell. If any of those choices, those references, made you smile in recognition, you’re bound to have a fun time in this game. If you’re looking for a digestible, bite-sized experience – Across the Unknown is very Steam Deck-friendly, with its discrete and easily interruptible mission structure – you’ll appreciate this opportunity to experience yet another episodic Trek, whether at home or on the go.
And if the prospect of minutely managing a Federation starship’s complex interconnected systems unnerves you, rest assured there’s an easy mode. Just please do me a favour: don’t activate that godawful “Fair Haven” holodeck program.
***
Final score: 8/10 operatic doctors.
Visit the official website for Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown here.
