Star Trek: Legacy Q&A - The Mad Doctor on the Return of Trek Gaming

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.

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.

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!

Shields!

GS: How in-depth will ship-to-ship combat be? The focus on tactics and commanding a squadron of starships in Legacy reminds us a bit of the Starfleet Command games, which were essentially a real-time translation of the famous Star Fleet Battles pen-and-paper war game. Will the game go after a serious simulation of starship combat that models all the different systems on a ship, or more action-focused gameplay?

ID: Legacy is designed with two goals. The first is that you feel like you're really in charge of this fleet of ships, and the second is that it's easy enough to play that you don't have to go diving to the manual! Nobody will mistake this for a translation of a pen-and-paper board game, but you will feel that it's the exact right level of control that a captain or admiral would have. You can control each ship's energy allocations, movement, firing, repair focus, special maneuvers, warping, cloaking, targeting, and more, and you can do it all with an easy-to-use control scheme. This is not a spaceship simulator, it's an action-based game with the appropriate amount of realism to make sure everything looks and feels like it should.

GS: And how will this gameplay be adapted to work on both the PC and the Xbox 360? Is the overall game itself planned to feature more action-heavy, "twitch" gameplay? How is the strategic gameplay being adapted to work with console gamepads? Will both versions be identical aside from control schemes, or will there be differences to take advantage of each platform?

ID: The PC and the Xbox 360 are clearly different platforms, but I think that you will find a game tuned to each platform in terms of pacing, the amount of micromanagement, and user interface. We're fans of both platforms and have enough experience with both to know that the final product may tell the same story and give the same overall experience, but it will be tuned correctly for each platform.

GS: We understand that the Xbox 360 version of the game will take advantage of the persistent statistics kept by Xbox Live. What kind of stats will be kept track of in Legacy?

ID: The game will offer a robust multiplayer experience with full Xbox Live support: from small-scale engagements to all-out war involving multiple systems, with matchmaking, stat tracking, and player rankings on Xbox Live. Players will also be able to view a comprehensive history of every ship in their fleet as the years pass; when it was commissioned; the number and variety of opponents it has destroyed, the upgrades it has undergone, and when. Your Starfleet rank will also be tracked!

GS: What can you tell us about the technology that powers the game? Will the game use an all-new engine that Mad Doc has created from scratch, or an enhanced version of your existing technology from previous Mad Doc titles, like Empire Earth II? We imagine that you'll need to push the limits in terms of graphics, especially to take advantage of the Xbox 360's power.

ID: We've actually been working on the core graphics engine for Legacy as its own new engine since 2002! Finally we have the platforms powerful enough to give us a result that looks downright cinematic, and that's why we're doing the big push on this game and game engine now. It's its own glorious beast!

GS: Any details on multiplayer that you can share at this point, like the approximate number of players you'll be able to support? What about modes that will be available to play?

ID: Single-player will focus solely on the Federation, with multiplayer enabling you to command the Romulan, Klingon, and Borg war machines as well. Full details on the races aren't available yet, but you can rest assured that these fleets will be comprehensive, allowing players to really assess the strengths and weaknesses of each race and develop new tactics accordingly. And it'll be fun to see each of those races in eras you might not have seen a lot of them in before!

We're still finalizing player numbers and modes, so I can't give you more info on that right now.

GS: Finally, the eternal question: Who would win in a fight? Kirk or Picard? Or how about the Enterprise-E versus the Defiant? On a more serious note, where are you in development of Legacy, and when can we expect to see it on store shelves??

ID: Ah, a good captain never speaks of where his allegiance lies, and in what light he holds a leader. But you've got to love the Enterprise, right? I mean come on, it's the Enterprise! The Defiant has its uses, for sure, and for lots of missions, I'd want to be at its helm, but head-to-head against the Enterprise-E? I don't think that was in its design specs!

Regarding captains, you'd have to say it's a bit of a toss-up. Picard would probably be more adept at managing a larger fleet of ships, but Kirk has a burning love for his ship... Nobody knows how to work a ship, or a lady, like Kirk. I'd love to have Kirk and Picard side by side (on my team of course!). Perhaps we can make that happen...

As for the game, we're currently deep in the throes of production (think pizza and late nights). Star Trek: Legacy is slated for release this September, to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the franchise.

And if I may, I'd just like to thank you for allowing me to check in with everyone--it's been a pleasure. I also have to thank the fans as well for their support and excitement. I hope they all know that we're here pushing hard to bring them something really special.

GS: Thanks, Ian!