After a long wait, Star Trek’s first venture into VR gaming has arrived. Today, Ubisoft releases Star Trek: Bridge Crew on the Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, and HTC Vive platforms. The game immerses you in the bridge of the Kelvin Universe U.S.S. Aegis, where you are tasked with exploring an area of space known as The Trench in order to help the Vulcans find a new home after the loss of their home planet in Star Trek (2009). You can play as one of four positions: Captain, Tactical, Navigation or Engineering. The game is playable on your own or in co-op mode with friends online, and will also be playable cross-platform, so if you and your friends all have different VR gear, you can still play together. If you can’t get together a full crew the game fills in the other positions with AI players.
As an extra bonus, you can also play missions on the bridge of the original U.S.S. Enterprise while using the game’s “Ongoing Missions” mode, which randomly generates new missions to play. Luckily all those colorful buttons and switches have labels to help you figure it all out.
First Reviews (Mostly) Positive
Early reviews for Bridge Crew are just showing up, and so far they are positive. As of now the game as a 78/100 rating on Metacritic, and is being praised both for pushing the boundaries of VR gaming and for the immersion in the Star Trek universe. Here is a sampling of what early reviewers are saying:
The magic of Star Trek isn’t the ship, but in the crew, and Star Trek: Bridge Crew nails that mechanic perfectly.
– Gaming Trend
The game is excellent in its current form, but with a little bit of tweaking it could be the system-selling VR game that we’ve all been waiting for.
– Attack of the Fanboy
Star Trek: Bridge Crew is probably the most authentic Star Trek experience to date.
– Mic
But there are some critiques of the game, with a number of reviews noting the shortness of the campaign and the difficulty of playing single-player. For example while UploadVR rated the game 8/10 and ‘Great,’ they noted the following:
Playing alone is tough, but doable. The bulk of your time will likely be spent with the randomized Ongoing Voyages mode since the [main] campaign is brief and shallow. If you’re searching for a game that captures the esoteric and cerebral nature of Star Trek, though, then you’ll be a bit disappointed.
– UploadVR
Bridge Crew bundled free with HTC Vive
Starting today all purchases of an HTC Vive VR system will include a free copy of Star Trek: Bridge Crew. The Vive turns your computer into a VR system complete with headset, two motion controllers and two base stations to track your movements. In addition to Bridge Crew systems include Everest VR, Richie’s Plank Experience, and one free month of Viveport Subscription. More details on the bundle at vive.com.
HTC has also announced a special event on Thursday June 1st in Seattle where you can demo Bridge Crew on the Vive. Reserve a spot here.
Buy it now
Star Trek: Bridge Crew is out now and retails for $49.99. You can order it at at Amazon for PlaystationVR, PC/Occulus Rift, and PC/HTC Vive.
Star Trek: Bridge Commander is probably the most memorable star trek game to me and Bridge Crew looks basically like a 2017 version of it. All it needs now is TNG-era ships and it’d be perfect!
GearVR support would make it an insta-buy for a lot of people. Sadly this game has a ~$700 buy-in price…
I picked up my copy at lunch; may not be able to spend and quality time with the game until the weekend but I’ve heard there’s a really nice opening sequence in VR that I hope to at least view tonight.
Turn around in the shuttle pod. There’s a bottle of Saurian Brandy.
In reply to hooch’s comment above, it is steep, but it’s like getting a console. You can play more than just Bridge Crew. Played Elite: Dangerous for about 2 years in VR.
I saw that, very cool; there’s also some nice little touches in the lobby where you assemble the team. You can see a 3-dimensional chess set to your right and a TNG style wall of ships behind you.
Also briefly visited the TOS bridge; got to sit in the captain’s chair and take in the view from there and the other stations. I’m still picking my jaw up from the floor; it all felt so real and authentic.
Yeah this bugs me too, they made a niche game for a niche hardware setup. If I want to play on PC I have to spend $700 on VR hardware and I don’t have a PS4, so there’s another several hundred for the console + the headset. Would be nice if it had a regular non-vr mode…
Did HTC sponsor this? Guessing so judging by the tie in. VR is cool but I can’t choke down the cost of admission for now, oh well.
Regular mode doesn’t do it justice. I bought the whole shebang PS4, VR, controllers, camera, cost me 1k Canadian, with the 10 games plus today’s purchase of Star Trek bridge crew, and this game makes this whole binge worth while! Believe me!
The game was designed with VR in mind from day one; that is why there is no standard PC release.
The game was also designed with online support in mind and unfortunately mobile VR solutions just don’t fit in with Ubisoft’s cross-platform support strategy.
The game was not sponsored by HTC; they signed a licensing deal after the fact.
The cost of entry can be a bit steep but getting a PS4 Pro plus a PSVR Bundle costs about $900; not chump change but a fraction of what a PC based VR solution would cost. And of course, the PS4 Pro can also play standard games and stream video in 4K, so it is a pretty versatile piece of equipment.
We are still in the very early days for VR; in time costs will go down and performance will get even better.
Yes it’s has a 600$ Canadian price tag on it, but boyyyyyyyy is it worth it! It’s like I’m on the new Star Trek alternate universe bridge! Wow.
Microsoft better get in the game for XBOX…
Sadly, MS seems to have little interest in VR right now. Their upcoming Scorpio Xbox can comfortably run VR but, at least at launch, MS seems more concerned with promoting it as a 4K gaming machine. Maybe they’ll have some surprises at E3 but I have a sinking feeling they won’t have any tangible VR news until next year.
Actually, there’s been strong talk that Scorpio will have a bundle option with a Oculus headset since Oculus has already had the tie-in on PC. If they don’t do it, it’s a HUGE missed opportunity because I’d love to get my hands on the Arkham VR, Star Wars Battlefront VR missions, and this but I’m an XB1 owner so…yeah…
Oculus does have a PC tie-in but from what I’ve been reading, MS seems to be more interested in promoting their own Windows 10 certified headsets, which are being manufactured by several companies including Asus, HP and Dell. The headsets are supposed to be less expensive, use “inside out” technology which means you don’t need any external devices for tracking, and have better resolution than Oculus (2880×1440). On the downside, they use LCD screens instead of OLEDS, which people who have tried them claim leads to pretty noticeable motion blur issues.
Like you, I hope MS has something to say about VR at E3; the last time they underestimated Sony the PS4 ended up selling twice as many consoles as the Xbox One before MS could stop the bleeding.
I honestly bought the VR PS4 just for this. I couldn’t be happier. The game looks great and plays great. Great job by the Ubisoft Team.
Wow!
Watched a couple of online play throughs on YouTube I’m about 3 seconds from buying a Playstation VR just for this game. Haha
If you’re into videogames VR takes them to another level. Star Trek aside, games like Resident Evil 7 and Farpoint really succeeded in planting you right in the middle of their worlds.
Eve watching BluRay movies thru the headset is quite the experience as your brain is tricked into thinking the screen is about 20 feet across. Works with 3D BluRays too so there is more to it than just gaming.
Will this work on my Atari 2600?
You need an adapter
Only tng universe would interest me really… but good looking game
You could play Bridge Commander then. It’s TNG only.
The developers visited the TOS set in Ticonderoga, NY, and made the TOS Enterprise in the game. Hopefully, they’ll do an Enterprise-D version some day.
I’m willing to bet we’ll get a Galaxy Class bridge eventually.
Really hoping this game is a success. Maybe Bridge Crew will be to VR what Breath of the Wild is to Nintendo Switch: reason enough to spend the money on the console just to play the game. In other words, exactly what Attack of the Fanboy said.
I really enjoy multi people VR like VTime and BigScreen but as a Trek fan this was an impulse purchase like no other and one where I was astounded at the immediate fun and teamwork involved in flying a Starship, such role playing presence as there never was in 2D video games of the past. The action absorbs your attention in each role and suddenly you forget you are even in VR, completely intent as you become in the reality of the situation! Halodeck technology has come of age, amazing too for me with an Oculus Rift to be in a crew made up of Vive and Play Station participants. XLNT and ground breaking VR.
I finally got a little free time last night so I installed my PS4 version a played around a bit.
The game begins in breathtaking fashion as you are in a shuttlecraft, doing a flyover of the USS Aegis. Quite honestly it was so mesmerizing I just sat there for about 10 minutes as my shuttle did laps around the ship letting me take the view in from every angle.
I also started the tutorial and the controls for each station are very deep. You can perform a ton of functions and you really need to do do each station’s tutorial a few times to really get comfortable. This is not the kind of game you can just fire up, drop in and start playing.
As is the case with most VR games, the sense of “being there” is quite strong. The PS Move controllers worked well for the most part but the game did crash on me once while I was scanning an alien vessel.
Really looking forward to hopefully spending some quality time with the game this weekend.
Took 35 years to move from Atari 400 star raiders to this wonderful engaged experience :) played it with my son and enjoyed every moment of replaying childhood memories.
I mostly enjoy being a hard-as-nails captain most of the time barking orders in command of the Aegis, which I’ve told my crew – she’s cooler than the Enterprise (the 1701 reboot version – and she is too).
It’s a real treat to game with other Trekkies/Trekkers. Entering battle, I quoted Shakespeare, in the original Klingon. Show a little nerd cred.
Out needed by our captain, as he started singing a Klingon battle song, in Klingonese of course! That was epic (we also fulfilled all mission objectives).
taH pagh taHbe