Star Trek: Infinite Preview

If you’ve read any of my past articles, you’ll know that I’ve played an unseemly amount of Paradox’s Crusader Kings III and may have a completely normal love of Star Trek. Thus, when I saw that Paradox was going to publish a game for Star Trek alongside Nimble Giant Entertainment, I had to take a moment. A few moments. Several moments. Perhaps my heart stopped. Who knows?

Digressing from my personal problems (and possibly heart palpitations), Star Trek: Infinite is an upcoming grand strategy game for the PC, the first of its kind for the franchise if Steam’s blurb reads true. I was lucky enough to play a preview (and I didn’t hyperventilate once!) over the last few days and I am here to report my findings.

The game begins in 2340. For timeline reference, we are bang on in the later half of Cardassian-occupied Bajor, 83 years after the Federation-Klingon War, and 23 years until the Enterprise-D first embarks. It’s also the year Worf was born.

Happy birthday, Worf.

Upon starting, you’re given the choice of four factions to play: the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, and the Cardassian Union. As the head of whichever one you settle on, you’ll make all the major (and minor, it’s a grand strategy game, after all) decisions for your people going forward. That stated, whatever protocols you make will create waves throughout the galaxy, and other factions will react accordingly.

The main issue that kicks off a whole new wave of political turmoil is the Ashes of Khitomer: Romulans have just attacked a Klingon colony and killed 4,000 people. This has caused tensions to skyrocket between basically everyone.

Decisions you’ll have to make include approving or denying proposals. These involve setting up embassies on other planets and whether to be allies with another species at all. Each alien race will have a certain attitude towards you that can change based on your decisions and how they align with their core beliefs. On a similar note, you can also issue edicts. Where proposals are ideas sent to you, edicts are major laws that can completely change the entire running of your people.

As well as running your faction, you’re also in charge of making sure you have enough resources to survive on and, if you don’t, finding another way to get them. You can build mining stations, starbases, and other vessels like research ships. Each of these has a different job that will help your faction and its people thrive. Research ships, in particular, allow you to develop new technologies as more discoveries are made.

There are five different map modes: military, exploration, galaxy, expansion, and exploitative. Each one of these will show you a different snapshot of the Milky Way, ranging from just your solar system (i.e. Sol) or all of the quadrants. These each help you keep an eye on certain tasks and implement orders.

And what would a grand strategy game be without battles? Even if Earth is a Utopia, the rest of the galaxy isn’t quite at that point yet. Defend your own planets and territories or attack as you see fit, as long as you have a valid reason to do so. Just be careful because both losing and winning will have diplomatic ramifications.

If this all sounds overwhelming, don’t worry your cute pointy ears off. There’s a mission tree in the upper left-hand corner that breaks everything down into smaller tasks. Once you finish one mission, the next will be unlocked. As I played as the Federation, they ranged from tutorial-level stuff to building the Enterprise, to establishing a Federation presence on Deep Space 9 or helping Section 31 be a bigger pain in the ass. You can choose which branch you want to go down and which you’d rather avoid, depending on your flavour. Given the start date of the game, players will be able to have a hand in a slew of important canon events and bend the galaxy to their will.

Lastly, there’s the Empire Score — this is the basis of determining not only your standing in the galaxy but the victor of Star Trek: Infinite. The simulation will run for 300 years, with events firing as you go. After this is up, whichever faction is the widest reaching will be considered the winner.

Star Trek: Infinite is a massive game, and believe me when I say I’ve given you the tiniest glimpse into the basics. Given the branches of choices you can make, plus the different factions you can be, any Trekkie will be able to throw themselves into this for hours.