Star Trek: Resurgence review
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need to know
what is it? Single-player choice-driven action story in the post-TNG era.
release date May 23, 2023
expect to pay $39.99 / £35
developer drama lab
publisher Bruner House
Reviewed on Intel i7-9700F, RTX 2070 Super, 32GB RAM
steam deck Unverified
associate Official website
“The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to know the truth” is one of Captain Picard’s most iconic lines, and the team at Dramatic Labs – a group of self-confessed recalcitrant Trekkies – embodies that in their Telltale-esque adventure That tagline, Star Trek: Revival. The story is a perfect blend of classic Star Trek and Telltale choice-based narratives: goofy humor, tender moments focused on care and affection, and dramatic phase battles with lots of unnecessary dives.
Telltale’s powerful narrative formula combined with morally ambiguous decisions — and plenty of QTEs — seemed like a perfect fit for Star Trek’s style of storytelling. But Dramatic Labs has much more to offer: complex puzzles, cryptic sequences, time-sensitive quest objectives, better cinematics, and a completely different feel from Telltale’s default, like you’re watching an interactive movie. Resurgence is not an episodic story, at least not in the traditional Telltale sense. Instead of five different acts or episodes that arrive separately, you can play everything simultaneously while switching between the two player characters, each with their own unique title episode, much like you’ll see in Next Generation Same.
Star Trek: Resurgence is meant to represent about three full-length films, and ties in nicely with the series and movies in the post-TNG era. It’s set in the year 2380, 16 years after the events of Nemesis and the start of The Next Generation. Plus, everyone’s wearing DS9-style uniforms, so you know it’s going to be good. It’s a balanced blend of the bridge crew’s antics—an admittedly Star Trek approach—with the inspirational, comedic side of Lower Deck that we’ve seen in the latest animated series. It’s just that the characters on the lower deck become the true heroes and villains of this story, showing that three pins on uniforms aren’t everything.
I have principles
(Image source: Drama Lab)
…she had to make some life-changing decisions, like whether to commit genocide. twice!
You can switch between First Officer Jara Rydek and Petty Officer Carter Diaz. Both are loyal Starfleet officers with no real options to go rogue, other than a few scathing comments. With Jara, you can choose to be a rule-abiding type loyal to her captain, or more of a character who plays haphazardly with the rules. She is a Kobliad, an endangered race that lives on infusions of Deuridium. Star Trek captains often make tough decisions that affect the rest of their crew, sometimes even making sacrifices for the greater good. Resurgence begins with that theme, and Resolute has just been repaired after a catastrophic “breakdown” at the hands of Captain Solano. Jara joined Resolute as an outsider and realized from the start that she would have to work extra hard to gain the crew’s trust, but the captain demanded absolute loyalty from her. I’m not one to bend the knee on demand, and I opted for a more “sure, but my allegiance is to Starfleet” approach – needless to say, the captain wasn’t happy.
Another player character, Carter, is introduced more gently; he’s part of an engineering team led by Engineering Director Chovak, a deeply sarcastic Vulcan. He gets on well with a noncommissioned Trier NCO, Nili Edsilar, a brilliant young engineer. I chose to keep a go-ahead approach to Carter with the Starfleet good vibe as his moral, though I did choose to start a romance with another officer… well, I’ll get back to that. At first, his character appears to be a joker who finds himself in tricky but hilarious situations, but he quickly proves himself to be an officer to the core and makes bridge-level life-and-death decisions . His storylines are far more compelling and exciting by far, and without him, Revival would be just another rehash of XO making one morally gray choice after another. Still, Jara’s story is a complex one, challenging leadership and loyalty, and she must make some life-changing decisions, like whether to commit genocide. twice!
While Resurgence gives you the freedom to take various approaches, there’s no real option here to play as a renegade version of a Starfleet officer. While some decisions seem more neutral or noncommittal, most exist as classic Starfleet options – you can choose to take the advice of your colleagues in an emergency and do exactly what your captain tells you, or you can follow Do it your way. Either way, Jarrah and Carter remain committed to the principles of Starfleet.
made up
(Image source: Drama Lab)
Resurgence introduces two new species: the hotari, a hard-faced, tenacious and submissive species previously mined on their planet’s moon Tau, and the alydians, a tall Kelpian/Kamino-looking species with their staunch militarism , once seemed to control the hotari by forcing them to work in mines they technically owned. The crew of Jara and Resolute are tasked with arbitrating between the two races as they each seek control of the mine and the Dilithium within. It’s just that there’s old, advanced Tkon technology and tricks at play here, and not everyone is what they say they are.
To catch you up, Tkon is an ancient civilization first mentioned in The Last Outpost of The Next Generation season 1, and for the uninitiated, it’s the season of a beardless Riker who has a unique sitting way in the chair. In it, Riker is challenged by the Guardian of Tkon, Portal 63, who frees the Enterprise and a Ferengi ship once Riker defeats the Portal’s puzzles and proves humanity’s worth. The episode ends with Portal declaring, “I’ll sleep until someone needs me again,” a hellish prelude to an episode that aired in 1987.
Luckily, it took more than bombastic side-eyes to keep me away from Trek gaming.
While it’s always fun to see familiar faces from Star Trek, I’m excited to see two new species created specifically for Resurgence. Coming up with a species name is one thing, but how do you create two races that fit seamlessly into the Star Trek universe—especially when most of Star Trek’s alien presence is the result of heavy use of prosthetics? Instead of prosthetics, we get detailed alien faces powered by Unreal Engine, but while Aldyians and hotari’s facial animations are certainly emotional and dynamic, the faces have a lot of mass effect 1 stray eyebrow energy, everyone Are constantly looking a little confused, a little annoyed. Luckily, it took more than bombastic side-eyes to keep me away from Trek gaming. While the final frontier looks lovely, Resurgence has a decidedly last-gen look, with some objectionably low-quality textures popping up throughout its environments. The running animation in particular is pretty awkward, not to mention painfully slow.
With the help of Tylas the Firefly, Jarrah discovers a terrible secret – the Fireflies discover a Tkon artifact and use it to seize control of the mine, but not before their minds are replaced by the Tkon through a process called biogenesis. Now everyone is at risk of becoming a Tkon, whether they are hotari, alydian or from Starfleet. If you think this sounds a lot like the Borg and their attempts to assimilate everyone, then you’d be right – the word “futile” has been uttered more than once by Tkon Overlord leader Galvan.
petty (official) quarrel
(Image source: Drama Lab)
In addition to saving the galaxy, Jara and Carter must overcome some relationship challenges. Jara has the unenviable task of winning over her crew and choosing who lives, dies and advances. Meanwhile, Carter has to decide whether he’s going to shoot his girlfriend, put his best friend in the line of fire (several times), and make the old Telltale choice of “do I bother saving this guy?” ?” Well, standard Trek storytelling. Big decisions come up everywhere, whether it’s during a shootout or a meeting of bridge officials. In the corner, a small box with a character’s face glows gray, red, or green to indicate whether they liked what you said, which you can choose from the main menu.
Since it’s based on the post-TNG era, you can expect a lot of easter eggs. Spock clearly plays the role of ambassador, setting the tone for much of the opening, but as the episode deepens and deciding who to trust becomes more challenging, Resurgence becomes real A Star Trek Story. By true story, I mean obviously a cameo appearance by Jonathan Frakes, who reprises his role as Commander Riker, but according to canon, he’s now Captain of the Titans. I also have to say a cheeky “engagement!” when ordering the servos to take off, which you’ll be issuing anytime you’re in charge of the Resolute, which obviously makes the Trekkie in me very happy.
Press the button
(Image source: Drama Lab)
What disappointed Resurgence was the overuse of QTEs. In some sections, you’re bombarded with them every few steps, and many of them are as mundane as simply pressing a button. When a failure causes the game to end, you’ll have to replay the entire section again, and you won’t even be able to skip dialogue. While the QTEs undeniably add more tension, even if it’s just climbing ladders, I’d love the chance to move around a bit more. The controls for the phaser fight scenes are clumsy, but if you’re like me and die all the time, you have the option to play in story mode, which negates any damage, which is a welcome relief. Not every failed QTE is game over though, and as I learned at a few key moments, I had to live with the consequences of my indecision.
Having said that, the mix of dialogue choices, QTEs, teleportation puzzles, shuttle flights, and phaser combat is exciting and very arcade-like, but it’s all a little crude. Shuttle flying is boring and a bit too easy, and flying in loop sequences is laborious. Trying to aim with the phaser during shootouts is also a pain due to the sluggish controls. There’s no option to adjust mouse or controller sensitivity, and panning the screen or aiming is too slow and time-consuming too often. However, the invisibility sequences are actually fun, and save progress at the right point, so there’s less rework to do – I’m looking at you, Library Restricted Areas of Hogwarts Legacy.
While Star Trek usually had excellent musical accompaniments, The Revival’s soundtrack left something to be desired–it sounded a lot like midi tracks on cellphones from the mid-2000s, a bit out of touch with the usual orchestral accompaniments of shows and movies. It does get a bit frustrating to hear the same melody over and over again when I have to redo parts that fail, but it says more about my need to be a game master than someone who writes scores.
(Image source: Drama Lab)
Disappointingly, there are no real options to configure Resurgence to your liking. There are no accessibility options — not even the sensitivity I mentioned — and very limited screen resolution options. There’s no option to rebind controls or turn off motion blur, which sometimes caused me a bit of motion sickness, or to unlock the frame rate. While past Telltale games have also lacked personalization and accessibility options, it’s frustrating to see Dramatic Labs choose not to include these as it would make the…
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