The Star Trek franchise has hit a rough spot of late, as this is the first year since 1987 that we don't have a Star Trek television series in production. Meanwhile, the Star Trek gaming franchise hit an iceberg about four years ago, when the last major Star Trek game was released. Yet after four years in hibernation, it appears that Star Trek gaming is back on track. Bethesda Softworks and developer Mad Doc Software announced last month plans to release Star Trek: Legacy later this year. A combination action strategy game, Legacy will give you command of a powerful Federation starship on the edge of the final frontier. To get the first details, we caught up with Dr. Ian Davis, creative director of Mad Doc, which previously worked on the 2001 real-time strategy game Star Trek: Armada II.

Star Trek is back!

GameSpot: Star Trek: Legacy is the second Star Trek game that Mad Doc has worked on to date. Is it safe to say that there are more than a few Trekkers over at Mad Doc HQ?

Ian Davis: Let's just say our crew knows a thing or two about alien life forces, and our captain knows his way around the galaxy.

GS: What are your thoughts on developing a new Star Trek game, especially since it seems that the gaming, television, and movie series have been dormant? In what direction do you think Star Trek as a franchise needs to go at this point, and how will Star Trek: Legacy bring it along?

ID: We're thrilled to be developing a Star Trek game, and we're especially thrilled to be developing this Star Trek game. Fans have been clamoring for us to deliver another great title for some time... We've been bombarded with requests. We've always wanted the chance to make the Star Trek game fans want, so I'm really looking forward to bringing Star Trek: Legacy to life for them. With Legacy, we want to capture the core Star Trek fantasy, while moving the franchise forward, giving it a fresh spin.

Essentially, our goal is to create a game that pays homage to this beloved series, that puts fans in the heart of this world they've come to know and love, while delivering on our prime directive: focusing on the most powerful and suspenseful events in the history of the series, the ship-to-ship battles.

GS: Give us a basic overview of Legacy. It sounds like a real-time tactical game, but will there be any kind of real-time strategy elements like base-building or unit construction? What's the focus of the game?

ID: The short answer is that we've put in a lot of strategic and tactical elements such as taking over planets, defending and attacking starbases, using nebulas to hide in, and being able to tackle multiple objectives with multiple ships, but we've tried very hard to stay with a unique flavor of Trek realism. That is, I've always wanted to do a game that is faithful to the scale and timescale of the series. The gameplay is sort of like a squad shooter, but with spaceships.

GS: We understand that Mad Doc is working with the unified Star Trek license, which means that you can include ships and content from all the Star Trek television series. Indeed, in one of the screenshots we can see a Constitution-class, Excelsior-class, Ambassador-class, and a Defiant-class vessel. (Yes, as your scanners probably indicate, there are signs of Star Trek geekdom here at GameSpot as well.) How will Legacy tie together these different eras?

ID: With Legacy, in a nutshell, you get it all, and you get it all from the beginning, bound by a solid story. Legacy is literally the first form of media that brings all the generations together in the same place; here you'll see the history of the series from the beginning, in a way that really makes sense. Having a chance to incorporate all the key ships from all the series is something I've been craving since my first Star Trek game. Plus, you'll see the characters, the styles, the races, and the core conceits of the series unfold and evolve. And like pieces in a well-worn puzzle, they fall together to form this amazing world with all the things you've come to know and love, woven together by a rich history and all that it entails.

You'll see starships from every major era of Trek.

The way this all unfolds in the game is that you start in the Enterprise (Archer) era with a small fleet of ships, and as you complete each mission, time advances, new techs and new ships become available, and you can improve your ships and your fleet as a whole. Before you know it, there will be ships from The Original Series (Kirk) available, and your fleet will slowly take on the look of each new era. You may even try to keep a few of your older ships around for a while after you ought to, just out of an emotional attachment!

GS: Will you be able to play as different factions other than the Federation? For instance, we understand that most of the classic Star Trek villains are back, including the Klingons, Romulans, and the Borg. Any other notables? The Vulcans? The "half-black-faced, half-white-faced" humanoid race that erstwhile Batman villain Frank Gorshin (RIP) belonged to in that one episode?

ID: The single-player Federation campaign spans three full epochs: Enterprise, The Original Series, and The Next Generation. And yes, familiar faces like the Romulans, Klingons, and the Borg will be ready for action as foes in that campaign and also as playable races in multiplayer and in the tug-of-war skirmish campaigns. We're not, however, revealing just yet all of the other special races you might see!