star trek resurgence sick bay or brig

Which bridge officer did you choose? - Make your case

It seems the most influential player choice in the game is which of the 3 bridge officers you choose to help you and promote.

Westbrook (science) - He’s been an obtuse stick in the mud the whole game. It seems his only skill is scientific research. I don’t see him in a leadership position. There’s a reason why he was passed over for promotion. He’d be a literal example of the Peter Principle. I didn’t choose him for the mutiny because he’s the captain’s friend and is openly jockeying for my position. It’s not a surprise he went ham at me when I passed him over but at least it made narrative sense for him to respond that way. I read some people had Urmott respond that way to them and that would have come out of nowhere.

Bedrosian (tactical) - She gave me the impression of being really inexperienced. It’s like she’s a green cadet with the amount of hero worship she lays on you. I don’t want a yes-woman. And then there’s the penchant for murder… my 21st century ethics tell me glassing a civilisation in stasis is a no-no, biological or not, and she lives in a universe where digital life is a frequent occurrence. I was genuinely disgusted she decided to resign her commission in the middle of a crisis. And icing on the cake was begging us to let the Tkon die when they had formally surrendered.

Urmott (ops) - my dark horse. I’d pretty much forgotten about him until the mutiny came up, then I realised he was the perfect choice. Calm and competent. Someone who would lay out the facts for me rather than confirm my own biases. It didn’t just look good to the crew if me and someone not already in my corner both suspected the captain, it reassured myself that someone would keep tabs on my paranoia. I chewed out Westbrook for writing him off as a “bureaucrat”.

I choose Westbrook (Science) he’s a good counter to your command. It’s good to have an opposing point of view. He also has the most experience of all the bridge crew, and he was correct this is a science vessel there should be a senior science officer as the first officer. He takes the crews safety ahead of blindly following. During a pivotal moral dilemma whether to save the TKON rebel souls he sided with me that it was the morally correct decision to save lives. Bedrosian wanted to kill them all she is too inexperienced.

Westbrook. He was a good fit for a SCI ship.

Next time I’ll choose Urmott.

I thought Bedrosian was too much of a fangirl kiss ass to begin with - especially after she came to see Jara outside Sickbay. She then turned out to have an anti-starfleet murder streak running through her. Not to mention that she was only a lieutenant - not even a lieutenant commander, so it made no sense to even have her in the line up. In my first playthough I didn’t have her as an option anyway because she had a hissy fit and resigned.

Urmott seemed like he could have been a good choice, but after the meeting with him at spacedock (and a little time on the bridge) we don’t get much time with him compared to Westbrook and Bedrosian, who are going on away missions with us. Not having built-up any kind of relationship with him, I didn’t have the inclination to choose him. I did choose him in my second playthrough, but he didn’t feel like the right fit.

I went with Westbrook in my first playthrough - which I consider my true version. Although he and Urmott were both commanders, it was made clear that he had the higher position on the bridge. That made it seem like the natural choice from the get go. The fact that Solano passed him up didn’t affect my opinion since Solano (even before becoming Tkon) made questionable command decisions based on what he thought was best for his own career. Apparently he didn’t choose Westbrook because of a lack of people skills, but I think it’s just because Solano didn’t want Westbrook questioning his decisions. I saw Westbrook’s prejudice towards Jara as a response to losing his best friend and Solano adding salt to an open would by not making him XO. I don’t think he truly had something against Jara for being Kobliad. It helped that Westbrook is the only one of the three who interacts with Cater. We see his good relationship with the crew and we see him open up, explore his reasoning and begin to question his attitude towards Jara and wonder if he was mistaken. I chose Westbrook for the mutiny for the very reason that they had a turbulent start. Westbrook would be the most difficult to convince, and thus it would mean the most. After the mutiny, Westbrook’s entire attitude towards Jara changed. He was now supportive but would still be a counterpoint to her decisions.

In my second playthrough, I chose the deflector option and it was Wesbrook who came to see Jara outside Sickbay. This felt a lot more genuine than Bedrosian’s visit because he was humbly coming to apologise about his earlier behaviour.

Inexperience can lead to you shaping that person into an ideal First Officer and future Captain. Being able to make the decision to kill or allowed to die is not always easy and can hang up the most experienced officers in a crucial situation that needs a quick decision to save more lives than just the obvious. Giving her a chance might build the confidence the character lacks initially. Those in command positions image shouldn’t matter. They are there to do a job. Not make friends.

Commander Urmott,

choose him to back me during the “mutiny” too, is always level headed and has a good insight about situations. He also gave me the heads up before going aboard the Resolution, so he trusted me without an “advance payment”.

Bedrosian put herself out of the process, cause I did the Starfleet thing and saved the T’Kon mind crystals. Made me fail to understand why she joined Starfleet in the first place.

Westbrook is not stable, he lost so important during the warp experiment, also his only argument is being his seniority, that does not inspire me to choose him at all. I have not choosen his option during ion pulse though, so I have to try if this will give him more facets to his character.

Being really nitpicking, I miss an opportunity to promote someone from the lower decks to work on the bridge. Ok, it happens eventually offscreen, but having Chovak on the Ops, replacing Urmott, as he is my XO now, and then Carter or Edsilar earn some pips, too, would be awesome.

Maybe in the next game

It depends on if you chose the shield or deflector. On my second playthrough I got Westbrook come to Sickbay.

@LordDrakkon No doubt Bedrosian could be shaped into an ideal first officer, but that should be gained through the experience of being a lieutenant and lt. commander first, not fastracked straight to commander and XO. I would, however, be very interested to find out what the results are of picking Bedrosian. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it once you’ve finished the story.

Westbrook was my choice. Everything else aside, he’s not afraid to toss ideas out there. Whether they are right or wrong, at least he’s quick to give options in a crisis. So does Bedrosian, but there was no way I could pop her up two full grades over much more senior officers. At least not on first playthrough. And Urmott’s a good officer, but… uniquely qualified for First Officer? No. He’s good about commenting on the ideas of others, but I don’t recall any pivotal contributions from him in any crisis.

It’s not as much an obsession as making the most logical choice of the three. Which in my playthrough, with my choices, was Westbrook.

First, Bedrosian demonstrated a frightening lack of discipline by resigning in the middle of the mission, after enough actions were taken to preserve Tkon life. Which preserving life, unless directly violating the Prime Directive (which in this case didn’t because Portal makes a direct plea for mercy), is one of those chief tenants of Starfleet. Then she sticks with that resignation if you save the Scions from their imminent destruction. In my view, she didn’t have the proper temperament for Starfleet as a whole, let alone as First Officer of a ship from the moment she abandoned her post. So she put herself out of the running.

That left Urmott and Westbrook for me. And to be fair, there were strong arguments for either one of them. Both had a good amount of time on the ship, with the crew, and were well respected. Both had their good qualities and their hinderances, but at the end of the day, I had to go with my gut choice. And that was Westbrook. Everything aside as even match, I felt he was the best choice to show the crew that Rydek taking over command wasn’t a simple power play, that the command staff was being structured to challenge Rydek if and when needed, should she ever put the ship, crew, and mission at risk.

I may (probably will) feel differently on subsequent playthroughs.

Urmott for me. Had Bedrosian not stormed off with a tempertantrum, that had been a hard decision for me between Urmott and Bedrosian. Yeah, Bedrosian is green and more than a little trigger happy, but part of her character’s quirks stood out ot me. Westbrook, I think others have nailed that one on the head better than I can could phrase it. There’s a reason why he was passed up for promotion to XO before, and those reasons still show to me. He’s too hot headed and finger pointy when he needn’t not be.

Urmott was always calm and collected. With the amount of whisky-tango-foxtrot going on left and right, I valued his calmness and saw that as something the crew of the Resolute needed, something that I would want in times like that. Had it been a different situation, one where keeping your cool wouldn’t have won out on top for me, Wesbrook may have finally made the cut with his experience and seniority.

Westbrook. For the same reason Picard wanted Riker: Because they do not fear to challenge authority where necessary.

I’ve played through the game twice now. In the first run I acted as Jara as I would expect Starfleet officers to behave and let Carter be emotional, in the end he was bioformed but survived. I chose Urmott as an officer because he seemed to me to be the best choice. On the one hand, Bedrosian had quit the job, on the other hand, Westbrook was too emotional for me the whole time and because of the differences from the start, it didn’t feel like a trusting collaboration.

In the second run I felt like I did everything differently. Carter didn’t have a relationship with Maris, sent her to the brig instead of sick bay and shot her, in the end Nili was bioformed and died. Same with Jara, I played her significantly differently. At the beginning I was very dependent on Solano, later I had her to cancel the last transport of the Alydians, destroyed the vault and didn’t save the T’Kon in the end. I chose Bedrosian as first officer because she actually felt right on “that path”, the two have an emotional connection and it was a good fit.

The different game sequences that emerged were astonishing. Especially that Portal 63 works with you or fights against you on the Apellion. That surprised me.

So I’ll start a third run and use Westbrook as an officer and try to choose different answers here and there than in the first two runs.

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Star Trek Resurgence understands what makes great Star Trek

Telltale Games veterans veer away from combat and into philosophy

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Unlike its esteemed counterpart from Lucasfilm, Star Trek’s history with video games isn’t exactly stellar.

There are licensed Star Trek video games going back 50 years, but there’s never been a truly great Star Trek game, one whose appeal outstretches the limits of its existing fan base. Moreover, even the most celebrated Star Trek games, such as 2000’s Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force , 2002’s Star Trek: Bridge Commander , and the long-running MMORPG Star Trek Online , place an overwhelming emphasis on combat, which is only ever a last resort in Star Trek stories. Gene Roddenberry’s cosmic polemic often contains action, but it’s never about action; Star Trek is about compassion, curiosity, and camaraderie. To truly capture the essence of the spacefaring adventure series, a video game should be as much about talking as it is about flying and shooting, allowing players to explore new worlds, build relationships, and confront complicated moral dilemmas.

This seems to be the aim of Star Trek Resurgence , the debut release from Telltale offshoot Dramatic Labs, and the first Star Trek game in ages to be as character- and dialogue-focused as the television series. Set aboard a new ship and starring an almost entirely new cast, Resurgence is a branching narrative whose balance between interstellar intrigue, interpersonal conflict, and explosive space action hews closer to that of its source material than any Star Trek game in decades — maybe ever. As a game and as a piece of software, it leaves a lot to be desired. But as a Star Trek story, it definitely earns its pips.

Resurgence alternates between the perspectives of two player-controlled characters aboard the science vessel Resolute, incoming first officer Commander Jara Rydek (Krizia Bajos) and enlisted engineer Petty Officer Carter Diaz (Josh Keaton). The Resolute is recovering from a recent disaster that cost the lives of several of its crew and the reputation of its captain, Zachary Solano. Solano fears that he’s lost the confidence of his staff, and is counting on Academy protege Rydek to help restore his honor as the Resolute embarks on an important diplomatic mission. Over the course of the story, Rydek takes point on unraveling a mystery with galactic implications, earning the trust of the crew while also evaluating whether or not Solano is worthy of her own. Meanwhile, engineer Diaz deals with more of the nuts-and-bolts problems aboard the ship, as well as navigating a romance with a fellow officer.

As in a good peak-era Star Trek episode, the “problem of the week” is tackled from more than one angle, with some of the crew handling a social or interpersonal conflict while others investigate some related scientific or technological puzzle. Teamwork is an essential ingredient to Star Trek, and Resurgence highlights that it takes a variety of skill sets and perspectives to solve complex problems. There is a two-way relationship between the bridge crew handling the big picture and the specialists below troubleshooting the finer points. Alternating between these A- and B-plots also breaks up the story and the gameplay nicely, and introduces the player to a variety of likable, memorable characters with whom you interact differently depending on your protagonist.

The narrative moves along at a steady clip, with the stakes escalating organically from that of a typical Next Generation episode to something closer to a modern season-long arc of Discovery . Crucially, for a video game and for a Star Trek story, the player faces consequential, difficult, and timely choices.

In contrast to the (still far superior) Mass Effect games, which present players with clear-cut Paragon or Renegade paths to pursue, Resurgence ’s dialogue trees don’t always offer an obvious ethical binary. Will you risk a dozen lives to save one? Will you disobey a direct order to follow the advice of an impassioned subordinate? Which member of your crew do you trust more in a crisis, and will they trust you in a pinch? These decisions are all made on a short timer, forcing the player to think quickly and trust their instincts. This instantly makes Resurgence feel closer to the “real” Starfleet experience even than the expansive open world of Star Trek Online , which dictates most of your objectives for you; nearly every path ends with “fire all phasers.”

More than anything, it’s your relationships with the supporting cast that shape the variations in the narrative. It’s not simply a matter of passing each one’s individual loyalty check, allowing you to achieve some 100% “perfect” ending. You cannot please everyone and you cannot save everyone. (Or at least I haven’t yet in my two playthroughs.) Not only does this place the full weight of duty and command on the player and offer an incentive to replay the 12-to-15-hour game multiple times, but it also underlines one of the essential tenets of Star Trek: It is possible for two parties, in good faith and good conscience, to disagree. Sometimes a compromise can be reached, sometimes conflict can’t be avoided, but no one needs to stay enemies forever.

On the other hand, commitment to the Star Trek ethos does have its drawbacks. Starfleet’s strict code of conduct means that the players are somewhat railroaded. For instance, when enlisted engineer Diaz’s love interest is caught accessing files she’s not supposed to, you, as Diaz, can’t lie to cover for her. In a move typical of the franchise whose reputation for political radicalism is somewhat overblown, its core political conflict between a colonizing empire and their long-suffering protectorate sniffs of some unfortunate bothsidesism. Some of the sci-fi twists that complicate the plot do so at the price of nuance, introducing an overarching threat that forces all parties to work together without ever actually addressing what drove them apart in the first place. It’s a flaw found in a lot of past and present Star Trek, demonstrating the liberal-moderate belief that we can all just get along without committing to any meaningful change in the status quo.

It’s in the non-dialogue-driven gameplay elements that Resurgence truly stumbles. While the stealth and cover shooting portions are smooth and fun, a lot of the other mechanics are sluggish, tedious, or both. This particularly applies to PO Diaz’s engineering tasks, which feel less like puzzles or minigames and more like busywork. (Pull R2 to open this conduit, now LS+R2 to remove this isolinear chip, and then the next one, etc.) Fail conditions of certain minigames or stages can be disabled via a Story Mode option, but there is no way to avoid the game’s more mindless chores.

Star Trek Resurgence also suffers numerous technical glitches at the time of release, at least on PlayStation 4. It’s not uncommon for lines of dialogue to start late or cut off early, costing the scene important exposition or flavor. Keeping subtitles enabled can sometimes compensate for this issue, except on random occasions when the subtitles disappear altogether for a line or two at a time. Busier cutscenes, such as the game’s space battle finale, load sluggishly on PS4, creating seconds-long gaps between shots, killing the momentum of what should be a thrilling climax. These issues may be resolved in future updates, but at launch, they’re an undeniable drag.

Despite these glaring flaws, Star Trek Resurgence offers a space-worthy experience for Star Trek fans. Where other titles have offered a more complete picture of the Star Trek universe — letting players explore the breadth of the galaxy, walk the decks of their favorite starships, or build their own — only a rare few have looked beyond lore toward story . Fans don’t love Star Trek merely for the cool ships or deep mythology, we love it for the friendship between Kirk and Spock, and Picard’s growth from stiff loner to proud patriarch; for Sisko’s impossible moral dilemmas and Burnham’s quest for redemption.

Not even Resurgence ’s nearest spiritual ancestors, classic ’90s point-and-click adventures Star Trek 25th Anniversary or Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity , have captured that essential human element that makes for a great Star Trek story. Resurgence ties a worthwhile cast of characters to an interstellar adventure. Does Resurgence qualify as “great Star Trek”? Probably not, but it’s hard to argue that any video game has come closer.

Star Trek Resurgence was released on May 23 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on PS4 using a pre-release download code provided by Double Fine Productions. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here .

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Star Trek: Resurgence review

Tkon the piss., our verdict.

Resurgence is the perfect mash-up of dramatic Star Trek storytelling and Telltale-style decision making, but with too many QTEs.

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What is it? A single-player choice-driven action story set in the post-TNG era. Release date May 23, 2023 Expect to pay $39.99/£35 Developer Dramatic Labs Publisher Bruner House Reviewed on Intel i7-9700F, RTX 2070 Super, 32GB RAM Steam Deck Unverified Link Official site  

"The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth" is one of Captain Picard's most iconic lines, and the team at Dramatic Labs—a bunch of self-confessed diehard Trekkies—have embodied that mantra in their Telltale-esque adventure, Star Trek: Resurgence. The story is the perfect mix of everything Star Trek and Telltale's classic choice-based narrative: silly humour, gentle moments that focus on care and affection, and dramatic phaser fights with lots of unnecessary diving around.

The Telltale formula of a strong narrative combined with morally ambiguous decision-making—and plenty of QTEs—seems to fit the Star Trek storytelling style perfectly. But Dramatic Labs offers something more: complicated puzzles, stealth sequences, time-sensitive exploration objectives, better cinematics, and an overall departure from the Telltale default of feeling like you're watching an interactive movie. Resurgence isn't an episodic tale, at least not in the traditional Telltale sense. Rather than having five distinct acts or episodes that arrive separately, you'll get to play it all at once as you swap between the two player characters, who each get their own uniquely titled episodes, much like you'd see in The Next Generation.

Star Trek: Resurgence is meant to represent roughly three full-length films and ties in nicely to the post-TNG era series and movies. It's set in 2380, right after the events of Nemesis and 16 years after the beginning of The Next Generation. Also, everyone is wearing DS9-style uniforms, so you know it's going to be good. It brings together a balanced mix of bridge crew antics—a well-established Star Trek approach—and the inspiring, comic-relief side of the lower decks, which we've seen in the newest animated series. Only, the lower decks characters become the real heroes and villains in this story, showing that wearing three pins on your uniform isn't the be-and end-all. 

I have principles 

...she has to make some life-altering decisions, like whether or not to commit genocide. Twice!

You switch between playing as First Officer Jara Rydek and Petty Officer Carter Diaz. Both are loyal Starfleet officers and aside from a few snide comments, there's no real option to go rogue. With Jara, you can choose to be a by-the-book type who's loyal to her captain or more of a character who plays fast and loose with the rules. She's a Kobliad, an endangered race who rely on Deuridium infusions to survive. Star Trek captains often make difficult decisions that trickle down to the rest of the crew, sometimes involving sacrifice for the greater good. Resurgence opens with that theme, with the Resolute having just been repaired after a catastrophic "malfunction" at the hands of Captain Solano. Jara joins the Resolute as an outsider and is made aware straight from the off that she'll need to work twice as hard to gain the crew's trust, but not before the captain demands absolute loyalty from her. Not being one to bend the knee on demand, I opted for a more "sure, but my loyalties are with Starfleet" approach—needless to say, the captain wasn't pleased.

The other player character, Carter, has a gentler introduction; he's part of the engineering team under Engineering Chief Chovak, an ultra-sarcastic Vulcan. He chums along with fellow petty officer Nili Edsilar, an unjoined Trill, and is a talented young engineer. I opted to keep a happy-go-lucky attitude with Carter, with the greater good vibe of Starfleet as his morality meter, although I did choose to start a romance with another officer which… well, I'll get back to that. At first, it seems his character will be the jokey one who'd find himself in sticky yet hilarious situations, but he quickly proves himself to be one hell of an officer and makes bridge-level life-or-death decisions. His is by far the more engaging and exciting storyline and without him, Resurgence would have just been another retelling of an XO making one morally grey choice after another. That being said, Jara's story is still a complicated one that challenges leadership and loyalty, and she has to make some life-altering decisions, like whether or not to commit genocide. Twice!

While Resurgence gives you the freedom to take a variety of approaches, there's no real option to play a renegade version of a Starfleet officer here. While some decisions appear more neutral or non-committal, the majority exist as canon Starfleet options—you can choose to take the advice of your fellow officers in an emergency, do exactly as your captain tells you, or you can just go your own way. Either way, Jara and Carter remain dedicated to Starfleet's principles.

Made up 

Resurgence introduces two new species: the hotari, a rocky-faced, hardy, and previously subservient species who mined on their planet's moon, Tau, and the alydians, a tall Kelpian/Kaminoan-looking species who are staunchly militaristic and who once seemed to control the hotari by forcing them to work in the mines that they technically owned. Jara and the crew of the Resolute are tasked with arbitration between the two races as they each seek control of the mines and the Dilithium within. Only, there's ancient, advanced Tkon technology and trickery at work here, and not everyone is who they say they are.

To catch you up, the Tkon is an ancient civilisation first mentioned in The Last Outpost in Season 1 of The Next Generation which, for the uninitiated, is the season with a beardless Riker who has a unique way of sitting on chairs. In it, Riker is challenged by a Tkon guardian, Portal 63, who releases the Enterprise and a Ferengi ship from its grasp once Riker defeats Portal's riddle and proves humanity's worth. The episode ends with Portal stating: "I will sleep until I'm needed again" which, for an episode that came out in 1987, was a hell of a foreshadowing. 

Fortunately, it takes a little more than a bombastic side eye to put me off a Trek game.

While it's always fun to see familiar faces in Star Trek, I was very excited to see the two new species specifically created for Resurgence. Coming up with a species name is one thing, but how do you create two races that slot seamlessly into the Star Trek universe—especially when the bulk of Star Trek's alien appearances were the result of heavy use of prosthetics? In lieu of prosthetics, we've got detailed alien faces courtesy of the Unreal Engine, but while the facial animations for the Aldyians and hotari are certainly emotive and dynamic, the human faces have a big Mass Effect 1 stray eyebrow energy and everyone constantly looks mildly confused and slightly annoyed. Fortunately, it takes a little more than a bombastic side eye to put me off a Trek game. Though the final frontier can look lovely, Resurgence has a definite last-gen look and has some off-putting low-quality textures appear throughout the environments. The running animation in particular is pretty awkward, not to mention slow as hell.

With the help of a hotari, Tylas, Jara uncovers a terrible secret—the hotari discovered a Tkon artifact and used it to seize control of the mines, but not before their minds were replaced by Tkon via a process called bioforming. And now everyone's 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, you'd be right—the word "futile" is uttered by the Tkon host leader, Galvan, more than once.

Petty (officer) squabbles 

Along with saving the galaxy, there are several interpersonal challenges Jara and Carter must overcome. Jara has the unenviable task of winning over her crewmates and choosing who lives, dies and gets promoted. Meanwhile, Carter gets to decide if he's going to shoot his girlfriend, put his best friend in the line of fire (several times) and make the good old Telltale-like choice of "Do I bother saving this person?" Standard Trek storytelling, then. Big decisions crop up everywhere, whether it's during a shootout or a meeting of bridge officers. In the corner, a little box with a character's face will glow grey, red or green to indicate whether they like what you said or not, and you can follow your choices from the main menu. 

As it's based on the post-TNG era, you can expect many easter eggs. Spock obviously makes an entrance in his role as ambassador, setting the tone for much of the opening half, but as the plot thickens and deciding who to trust becomes more of a challenge, Resurgence transforms into a real Star Trek story. And by a real story, I obviously mean it features a cameo from Jonathan Frakes, who reprises his role as Commander Riker, except he's captain of the Titan now as per the canon. I also got to throw in a cheeky "Engage!" when commanding the helm to take flight and you'll issue that command any time you're in charge of the Resolute, which obviously made the Trekkie in me very happy. 

Push the button 

What lets Resurgence down is the overuse of QTEs. In some sections, you'll be absolutely bombarded with them every few steps you take, and a lot of them are incredibly mundane, like simply pressing a button. And when a failure leads to a game over screen, you'll have to replay the entire section again, without the ability to even skip dialogue. While the QTEs undeniably add more tension, even when simply climbing a ladder, I would have liked the opportunity to do a little more wandering around. The phaser battle scenes had clunky controls, but if you keep dying like I did, you have the option to play in story mode which negates any damage, which was a welcome relief. Not every failed QTE results in a game over, though, as I learned during a few crucial moments, where I had to live with the consequences of my indecision.

In saying that, there's an exciting mix of dialogue choices, QTEs, transporter puzzles, shuttle flying and the phaser fights are quite arcade-like, but they are all a bit janky. The shuttle flying is boring and a little too simplistic, with a laborious flying through the ring sequence. Trying to aim with the phaser during shootouts was also a pain, thanks to the sluggish controls. There is no option to adjust the mouse or controller sensitivity and, all too often, panning the screen or aiming was too slow and time-consuming. The stealth sequences, however, are actually a lot of fun, and progression is saved at the right points so there were fewer do-overs—I'm looking at you, Hogwarts Legacy's forbidden section of the library. 

While Star Trek often has a superb musical accompaniment, Resurgence's soundtrack leaves something to be desired—it sounds a lot like midi tracks you'd find on a mid-2000s mobile phone, which is a bit of a disconnect from the usual orchestral backing from the shows and films. It did get a little frustrating hearing the same melodies on repeat as I had to redo failed sections, but that says more about me needing to get good at games than it does about whoever wrote the score.

Disappointingly, there are no real options to set up Resurgence to your own liking. There are no accessibility options—not even sensitivity as I mentioned—and screen resolution options are extremely limited. There's no option to rebind controls or turn off the motion blur which, at times, gave me a little motion sickness at times, and neither is there an option to unlock frame rate. While past Telltale games also had this lack of personalisation and accessibility options, it's frustrating to see that Dramatic Labs chose not to include these as it would have made the experience that much better.

The complement of the USS Resolute may not be the finest crew in Starfleet—not when Captain Riker is out there commanding the Titan—but Carter especially is now one of my most-loved Trek characters. It would have been easy to have you roleplaying as a well-established captain or officer, but in focusing on new characters and lower decks antics, Dramatic Labs have created something special. Resurgence takes the best of Telltale's flavour, makes it better and smashes it together with an excellent Star Trek story to create something that's fresh. Yes, characters unavoidably die and the story takes a few hours to really take off, but it's worth it—I haven't cried as much at a Star Trek story since Data sacrificed himself in Nemesis, so read into that what you will. 

The first three games Lauren played on PC were Star Wars: X-Wing, Zoo Tycoon and Barbie Fashion Designer, which explains her love of all things space, strategy and aesthetically pleasing. Lauren recently took over as PC Gamer's Guides Editor after three years of writing many dozens of Destiny 2 guides at VG247, as well as casually trying to shoehorn in The Witcher 3 articles wherever possible. When she's not trying to force everyone to play as a Warlock in Destiny 2, Lauren is either mastering her SEO abilities to help smash the competition, or patting one of her red sons.

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Star Trek: Resurgence Is the Best of '90s Trek With the Worst of '90s Gaming

Dramatic labs' adventure game excels at capturing the vibe of star trek 's heyday, but even diehard fans will struggle getting through its awkward mechanics..

Star Trek has an up and down history with video games moreso than most storied franchises. It’s rare for a singular game to properly capture Star Trek as an experience when, at its best, Star Trek debate, diplomacy, and scientific investigation don’t quite line up with gaming hallmarks. But the adventure game genre is one where Trek has succeeded in the past—and for the most part, Star Trek: Resurgence adds to that history... with some significant caveats.

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Out this week, Star Trek: Resurgence is a narrative-driven, choice-based adventure game in the vein of Telltale Games’ episodic gaming series, such as The Walking Dead , Batman , Guardians of the Galaxy , and more (developer Dramatic Labs was founded by several former Telltale staffers after the studio first effectively shuttered in 2018; the revived studio is currently working on a game based on The Expanse ).

Whereas traditional adventure games lean heavily on puzzles, these games are driven by player choice through multi-pronged dialogue scenes, allowing the player to shape the path of the narrative—a perfect fit for a series like Star Trek . Unlike the oeuvre of past Telltale games, however, what sets Resurgence apart is that it is a singular, 12-ish hour story, rather than being broken down into episodic seasons of game slices. The feeling it creates is less like watching an interactive episode of Star Trek , and more like a choose-your-own-adventure novel coming to life.

Resurgence is set in 2380—a year after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis —and follows the crew of the U.S.S. Resolute , a science vessel rocked by a recent accident that resulted in the loss of 20 of its crew, including its first officer. When new XO Commander Jara Rydek is brought aboard, the Resolute is tasked with participating in diplomatic negotiations between two alien species, the Alydians and the Hotari, over a mining world—only to discover the source of the conflict has dire, far-reaching implications for the entire galaxy.

Where Resurgence stands out from prior adventure games of its ilk, and where it plays to Star Trek ’s strengths the most, is in dividing the player’s perspective between two primary characters: the aforementioned Commander Rydek, a Kobliad officer thrust into the politics of not just a new command but a senior staff splintered over the loss of one of their own, and Petty Officer Carter Diaz, an engineering crewperson trying to navigate life in the lowest of the lower decks on a Federation starship with his best friend, a Trill named Nili Edsilar. By making the audience viewpoint cover such a broad scope of Star Trek ’s command structure, Resurgence deftly manages to explore life aboard a starship from multiple narrative and mechanical angles.

If Jara’s sections of the story are driven around establishing herself as a senior officer and the politics of diplomacy, from command of the bridge to staff meetings, Carter’s leans a little more on the practical side of the adventure game genre, problem-solving and puzzling to get his job done in environments where his rank means he’s not often the go-to for big, splashy Star Trek action. Even when things go sideways and the whole Resolute crew is thrust into an epically staked mission to save the galaxy, this divide in perspective remains throughout, capturing the broad Star Trek experience.

This is just one of the many ways Resurgence revels in capturing the vibe of Star Trek —and more specifically the vibes of his heyday in the late ‘80s and the ‘90s, the peaks of The Next Generation , Deep Space Nine , and Voyager defining a modern era of the franchise beyond the original series’ retro aesthetic. Resurgence shows its love of Star Trek not in cameos and references (although their are a few notable characters who make appearances, including Ambassador Spock and Titan captain Will Riker), but in aping classic story elements and structures from those shows, weaving a largely original take through nods and connections to prior stories. Like Star Trek itself, the action is largely sparing, with the most tension and conflict coming from how your characters navigate tough command decisions or debate—and even when things do come to blows and conflict becomes violent, Resurgence more often than not eschews direct combat to instead focus on the decisions its characters are forced to make in those moments, rather than how good they are at firing a phaser.

This is amplified even further by the fact that Resurgence focuses on a completely original crew of characters. The decisions you make, from the mundane to the life-threatening, all feel like they carry a weight of uncertainty, as no character is necessarily guaranteed to make it out of the story in one piece. You’re watching your relationship to these characters grow in real-time as you decide who to put faith in and who to keep at arms’ length, or in how you shape Rydek and Diaz themselves grappling with the morals of Starfleet coming up against the desperation of their increasingly hazardous mission. Resurgence is still largely a story of Starfleet heroes saving the day, but there is a level of tension running throughout that most Star Trek stories can’t quite capture when you know the crew you’re following is going to be largely fine by the end of the tale.

All of this narrative interest, however, often comes into conflict with the other truth of Resurgence : it’s simply not a very fun game to play. The moments you are given control of Jara and Carter are defined by awkward controls, clunky animation, and an erratic graphical consistency where character models look great but the environments they’re in decidedly do not (it’s worth stating that Resurgence will run you $40, under the typical price of a major AAA game but still enough that it feels very rough around the edges for that cost).

Although moments of direct action are rare in Resurgence ’s focus on dialogue choices, that’s not to say they’re absent entirely. But you find yourself thankful that phaser shootouts are few and far between because they’re the most frustrating sequences of the game to play; weightless action and swimmy controls are matched by frustrating fail states that often feel like they’re asking far too much of what Resurgence can mechanically handle. This is further impacted by the simple fact that, for an adventure game, there’s very little actual adventuring to do. Resurgence ’s decision to lean heavily on cinematic dialogue choices for its interactions means there’s little in the way of interesting puzzles or tools to interact with the world around you. There’s one way to do most things, and it’s not about figuring that out as much as it is shepherding you from one dialogue sequence to the next.

That linearity also adds to Resurgence ’s core weakness: it’s linear to the point of frustration. Awkward moments where you’re asked to take control of your character to clunkily navigate a corridor—only for a cutscene to immediately take over—make you feel relieved that for the next few minutes, the game might only ask you to make a few dialogue choices instead of more directly play it. The single-minded thrust of the game also means there’s little downtime between major story beats for you to casually explore your surroundings, or get to know your crewmates better. Every interaction is in the name of driving the main story arc forward, with limited opportunities for reflection and exploration. By the end of Resurgence ’s 12-hour trek, that makes you feel like a lot of those big story choices you’re being asked to influence are mostly impactful on the immediate following scenes rather than the larger story, taking the bite out of the weight and tension the narrative leans on as one of its greater strengths.

Not quite as major but still frustrating is that at least on PC with Resurgence ’s press-build, the game is equally clunky in its bugginess. While it’s nothing severe enough to cause a loss of progress, Resurgence on PC was a pain to navigate with menus not functioning right, certain menus not recognizing a gamepad (which even on PC, is the recommended control option), and, bizarrely enough, the game locking up every time I tried to close it after a session. Although gameplay is largely spared from these issues, there are still some persistent bugs while playing, in the form of dialogue subtitles either not correctly displaying or, sometimes, showing incomplete or totally different lines to what was being said—a pain point from both an accessibility standpoint and a narrative standpoint, where several modified subtitles provided the player with contextual information that wasn’t actually said in the scene, making it hard to tell what mattered.

Ultimately, how willing you are to grapple with the awkward gameplay of Star Trek: Resurgence will depend on how much you really want a new, original Star Trek story, in a time when there’s more Star Trek available in various formats than arguably since its giddy heights in the ‘90s. Resurgence will very much give you a solid Trek tale populated with compelling characters and interesting leads that perhaps comes closest to making you feel like you’re taking part in a classic Star Trek narrative—certainly more than many other games have attempted in decades. But that success is often in spite of itself, a not-quite diamond in the very-much rough of its clumsy, awkward mechanics.

Star Trek: Resurgence launches tomorrow , May 23, on PC (exclusively through the Epic Games Store), PlayStations 4 and 5, and the Xbox Series X, S, and Xbox One.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel , Star Wars , and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV , and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who .

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Review: Star Trek: Resurgence

Tuesday is a big day for Star Trek gamers, as we get a narrative, choice-based game joining the pantheon of franchise titles. It’s a rare event when any Star Trek game is released, as gamers only have had the kid-friendly Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova and the 13-year-old Star Trek Online dominate the franchise’s gaming conversation recently.

Dramatic Labs, a studio comprised of former Telltale Games members, is hoping to shake up the conversation. Telltale Games, after all, was a company that grew to fame for such narrative, decision-based games from popular franchises such as The Walking Dead , Game of Thrones , and Guardians of the Galaxy , among other well-known properties.

Bringing their narrative expertise from their critically acclaimed company to the Star Trek universe is an exciting concept, and we have never had a Trek game like Resurgence. This title allows players to embody two members of the U.S.S Resolute , and the game promises to make player decision-making the forefront of its gameplay. Furthering the hype is that Resurgence was delayed from October 2022 to May 2023, no small space of time in the video game world. Surely this game has had enough time to be baked properly, yeah?

We’ll be upfront: Resurgence has good and bad things going for it – but importantly, the positive aspects of this release reside in areas that truly matter: storytelling, worldbuilding, and embodying the Star Trek ethos. The negative aspects can possibly be addressed by the developers in the future. So, let’s get into the details.

Where Star Trek: Resurgence Shines

We can’t stress enough how cool it is to embody a character in a post- TNG world. The developers must think it’s pretty cool, too, as their attention to Star Trek worldbuilding is perhaps the best part of this game. The opening hours illustrate this point pretty well: players are delivered via shuttlecraft to a Starbase, where they then assume their posts aboard the Centaur -class U.S.S Resolute . Every design we see in these opening scenes seems like they are lifted right out of classic TNG -era Star Trek .

The Resolute , for example, is of a starship class seen fleetingly in Deep Space Nine . The aforementioned Starbase boasts familiar docking areas and architecture, and players catch glimpses of familiar ships like the Steamrunner , Nova , and Excelsior -classes in orbit around it. The uniforms, corridors, equipment, set dressing, and various console user interfaces all adhere to design principles seen directly or inspired by TNG -era television. We especially enjoy the Resolute ’s bridge, which contains console architecture and material reminiscent of the Enterprise-D ‘s, complete with several LCARs-inspired interfaces. Walking around these environments is certainly exciting, and it’s clear Resurgence is made by Star Trek fans for Star Trek fans.

Of course, set detail doesn’t mean much if the game doesn’t have characters and a story to back it up, and on that front Resurgence is satisfying. Dramatic Labs’ Telltale roots are obvious; players are confronted with dialogue choices that govern how the story and relationships play out. It will take multiple playthroughs to determine if the choices players make are actually impactful, or if Resurgence falls victim to the illusion-of-choice style of narrative storytelling.  At least on a first playthrough, decisions do seem to have important implications.

For example, early in the game, an intense ion storm threatens the Resolute , and it’s up to the player to save the ship by blasting the moorings holding the ship to the station — thereby risking two crew members who are on the hull – or using the deflector to direct a pulse at the storm to help dissipate it. Various non-playable characters will react differently to the decision the player makes, to say nothing of what could befall the crew members who are in danger. Based on that scenario alone, it’s clear this is Star Trek -style science-fiction storytelling; isn’t such a decision something one might face in one of the TV shows?

There are members of your crew who opine on one path or another, and it’s up to you to quickly judge the best course of action, and live with the consequences. In this ion storm scenario, we chose to decline the captain’s recommendation, and thus risked his wrath later in the game – but our two crew members were mostly unharmed. In our next playthrough, we’ll make a different choice and see how it plays out. And that’s just one major decision in a game filled with minor and major choices. (Those who liked the ability to stay silent during conversations, a neat staple of Telltale’s games, should know Resurgence does not feature such an option.)

The game doesn’t restrict you to playing as one person the entire time, either, as the narrative stars two newcomers to the Resolute : First Officer Jara Rydek ( Krizia Bajos ) and Engineering Crewperson Carter Diaz ( Josh Keaton ). Each serves different roles on the Resolute and has different relationships among the crew. Ping-ponging between two characters – a change of pace for Telltale-style games – is refreshing and adds welcome narrative complexity. For their parts, Bajos and Keaton bring talented, charismatic performances to their characters, but we wish the character models were animated more impressively to allow the actors’ performance to shine through. That leads us to the game’s most notable downside, which we’ll get to in a minute.

Finally, Dramatic Labs clearly knows what makes a good Star Trek story. The plot here seems like it could fit within any classic Star Trek show. After a harrowing adventure chronicled in the prequel comic series that shook the crew and its captain, the Resolute is tasked with escorting a diplomat to mediate a simmering diplomatic crisis between two alien factions. The crisis turns out to be more than the Resolute ’s crew bargained for, as an ancient alien race (known to those who have watched TNG ’s season one episode “The Last Outpost”) returns in a big way. Sounds like an episode that could fit in any Star Trek show, yeah?

Straying from their previous games’ presentation, Dramatic Labs’ developers have sprinkled a variety of gameplay activities throughout the adventure. Some scenes may have the player scanning objects with their tricorder to advance the story, piloting a shuttle from one waypoint to another, engaging in a firefight with enemies, or trying to complete minigames, such as making sure a transporter lock is established in the heat of the moment. Not all these activities are slam dunks – for example, shooting in this game isn’t as smooth as we’d like, and piloting shuttles are low-risk endeavors – but switching up gameplay in a game where players will mostly be sitting back and picking dialogue options is a welcome distraction.  

A game like Resurgence lives and dies by its characters, and we’re happy to report Resurgence ’s cast embodies the Star Trek ethos recognizably. The Resolute itself has a cadre of officers who react to the playable characters’ decisions; most of these characters were seen in the aforementioned comic series. The two playable characters, meanwhile, are nicely different from each other and have distinct personalities. For example, Jara Rydek is a Kobliad, a species that requires regular deuridium injections to survive. This disability might prevent a typical Kobliad from entering Starfleet, but Jara is determined not to let her disability define her. It’s an inspiring story that fits comfortably within Gene Roddenberry’s original vision for Star Trek. Diaz, meanwhile, is an upstart and excitable new crew member who is finding a home on the ship and has to wrestle with loyalties that are challenged over the course of the story. Suffice it to say, if you enjoy games with thoughtful characterization, you’ll find a lot to love about Resurgence .

What Resurgence Can Do Better

Those who played Telltale games know the limitations of the team’s technical presentation. Telltale games never looked or ran well, which was a shame compared to the narrative adroitness with which the studio won fans. Star Trek: Resurgence , frankly, doesn’t look fantastic, which is a shame for two reasons: firstly, the game is built on Unreal Engine, arguably the premiere video game creation tool, and packed to the gills with modern technologies. (In fact, this game is exclusively on Epic Games Store on PC because of the team’s partnership with Unreal.) Don’t get us wrong – Resurgence is far and away better looking than its spiritual predecessors, but it still doesn’t hold up to our 2023 standards.

Secondly, the game’s lengthy delay roused hope in our gamer hearts that Resurgence could be a true looker; imagine living in a TNG -era world with fantastic graphic fidelity. Alas, Resurgence instead features fairly wooden character animations, low-quality reflections, so-so texture detail, and choppy, although not deal-breaking performance. There are certainly moments when Resurgence looks quite good; these moments are usually in low-lit environments or when viewing the art design for alien surroundings like the moon-turned-mining-zone one of our characters visits a few hours into the game. But overall, Resurgence could have benefited from even more time in the oven to thoroughly polish its graphical presentation.

On this note, however, PC gamers can relax. We know recent game releases, such as [deep breath] Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Dead Space , Forspoken , The Last of Us , Wild Hearts , The Callisto Protocol , and Hogwarts Legacy , among others, have suffered on PC upon release. Resurgence doesn’t have this problem. But because we here at TrekNews.net are tech hounds, we did note some frame rate inconsistencies and performance hitches that really shouldn’t happen in a game this size.

Adding salt to the wound is the fact that the game inexplicably doesn’t have any graphical options in its settings menu, so what you see is what you get. Why a video game in 2023 doesn’t allow players to alter texture quality, depth of field, motion blur, anti-aliasing, or any other number of common graphic settings is beyond us. In our analysis of the game’s technical proficiency, please note we were playing on a press build that may differ from the final release. Some of these issues may be resolved by the time the game is in your hands.

Although technically this game can never be in your hands, which leads us to another downside: Resurgence is digital only. You can’t buy a physical copy of this game; you must download it from your console’s store. This is a shame for collectors, never mind the prospect of future delisting due to license expirations or, as was the case with Telltale Games, Dramatic Labs dissolving. While we’re sure there were sensible business considerations for keeping this game from shelves, we hope Dramatic Labs does release this game physically at some point. Star Trek games are few and far between, and it’d be a shame to one day lose access to this title. (Remember Star Trek: DAC ?)

Our final criticism of this game regards viewing the choices you make. Normally, a choice-driven title will allow you to view your past choices in a separate menu; such was a feature in previous Telltale games. In Resurgence , the menu item called “My Choices” simply directs you to the game’s website, which is where we assume you can view your decisions. This feature was not enabled when we were playing the press build. It’s inconvenient for the player to have to use another device or tab out of the game to view their decisions.

Welcome Aboard, Commander

Taken together, Star Trek: Resurgence has a lot of things going for it, and the developers at Dramatic Labs have tackled a huge project with a small team. Bringing a narrative, choice-based Star Trek game to life in the vein of Telltale’s previous award-winning single-player games is no easy task, but fans should be satisfied with this release. We wish the game looked and ran better, considering its technical foundation, but this is something Dramatic Labs can potentially fix with patches. Sweetening the deal for consumers is the $40 price tag, an easy pill to swallow in a world where new games regularly cost $70.

We are excited about what Dramatic Labs can do next. If they polish their technical presentation and adhere to the guidelines they’ve used to craft Resurgence ’s story, one that’s clearly faithful to the franchise, a potential next Trek project should be something really special. In the meantime, let’s rejoice in a new Star Trek game that is wildly different from anything we have had before.

Star Trek: Resurgence  is available on May 23 for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4 gaming consoles, and exclusively on the Epic Games Store for PCs. 

Come Celebrate!

Want to join the fun and watch us play through the opening hours of Star Trek: Resurgence ? We’ll be live-streaming the game on our YouTube channel on Tuesday, May 23 from 7–9 p.m. ET !

Stay tuned to TrekNews.net for all the news on Star Trek Resurgence , along with Star Trek: Section 31 , Star Trek: Picard , Star Trek: Discovery, S tar Trek: Strange New Worlds , Star Trek: Lower Decks , Star Trek: Prodigy , and more.

You can follow us on Twitter , Facebook , and Instagram .

Kyle Hadyniak has been a lifelong Star Trek fan, and isn't ashamed to admit that Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek: Nemesis are his favorite Star Trek movies. You can follow Kyle on Twitter @khady93 .

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Star Trek: Resurgence is a narrative-driven adventure game created by former members of Telltale Games that delivers all the excitement and wonder of the Star Trek universe. Join the crew of the U.S.S. Resolute as first officer Jara Rydek and enlisted engineer Carter Diaz on a mission to prevent an eons-old and powerful force from engulfing everything in its wake!

You’ll be challenged by tough choices in Star Trek: Resurgence and through those choices, it becomes YOUR story. After playing, see how some of your decisions compare with those of other Star Fleet officers around the world HERE .

Read the comic book series and graphic novel - available from your favorite retailer.

On a windswept planet on the edge of Talarian space, a scientist working on groundbreaking warp technology has gone missing. Captain Solano, First Officer Sutherland, and the crew of the U.S.S. Resolute are sent on a top-secret mission to find Doctor Leah Brahms and retrieve her research before it falls into the wrong hands.

Star Trek: Resurgence was created by Dramatic Labs , a new studio comprised of former members of Telltale Games who have worked on genre-defining and award-winning titles including Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and Batman.

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Planned Release Date: 23 May, 2024

This game plans to unlock in approximately 3 weeks

“This is the best Star Trek game I’ve played in over a decade” 85 – Gaming Trend “Captures the essence of Trek – or certainly a particular era of Trek – better than almost any other game has” 4/5 – Empire “Star Trek: Resurgence gets Star Trek, embracing the optimism and hope that sets the franchise apart, and celebrating humanity at its best” 4/5 – Screen Rant

About This Game

System requirements.

• OS: Windows® 10 64-bit
• Processor: AMD FX-8350 / Intel® Core™ i5-3330
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: AMD Radeon™ RX 5700 / NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 16 GB available space
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT / Intel® Core™ i7 3GHz or higher
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: AMD Radeon™ RX 6700 / NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2080 or higher

TM & ©2024 Bruner House, LLC. 'Dramatic Labs' and related marks and logos are trademarks of Bruner House, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 'Shape Your Story' and related marks are trademarks of Bruner House, LLC. All Rights Reserved. TM & ©2024 CBS Studios Inc. 'Star Trek' and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Published Feb 15, 2015

Doctor to Sickbay! Medical Emergency!

What's the one piece of medical equipment that every Starfleet officer in uniform carries? Hint: it's not a hypospray, a dermal regenerator or even a tricorder.

It's a Starfleet combadge.

Suppose you're on an away team and one of your fellow officers accidently inhales a lungful of methane, but you didn't bring a doctor with you. How do you alert your crewmates back onboard the ship and get them to beam her down? Or what if you are the doctor, you're already planetside, and the situation is beyond anything you can do with your handheld medical kit? How do you get yourself transported directly to sickbay with your patient? Without something as basic as a standard-issue Starfleet combadge, nobody's going anywhere.

Around the fall of 2014, much was made of the public launch of OnBeep, now called Orion Labs , and their announced intent to make a device that would work much like the combadge we know and love circa 2364 (or stardate 41153 if you prefer). But did you know there's a company that already makes one? And what's more, it's already in use in hospitals.

The Vocera B3000n Communication Badge clips to your clothes and uses Wi-Fi to make possible all the interactions we've seen a thousand times on every Federation starship and installation.

• One-to-one. For those times when you just want to talk to one person: "LaForge to Lieutenant Barclay," or "Call Dr. Phlox."
• One-to-many. Sometimes you want to talk to a group of people all at once: "Worf to Security!" or "Call the OR turnover team."
• Location. When there's someone on staff in a specific place but you don't know exactly who it is: "Riker to Transporter Room One," or "Call the nurse in room 407."

Sandra Miley, Vocera's VP of Marketing, recalls the CIO of one of their hospital customers telling her, "There's no faster way to communicate with someone unless they're standing right in front of you."

Vocera's origins turn out to be unsurprising to anyone with enough hours logged in the 24th century: Dr. Rob Shostak of the Stanford Research Institute was looking for something to do 14 years ago and had a fateful conversation with his family. Shostak's wife Nan (a big enough Star Trek fan that she would often be late picking him up from work because the episode she'd been watching hadn't yet finished) and daughter Becca brought up the notion of the Starfleet combadge; wouldn't it be great to just be able to talk to whoever you wanted without dialing? Shostak, who held enough patents and awards in mathematics to paper a wall, thought, "I can do that," and got busy founding the company. In equally serendipitous fashion, one of Vocera's first employees, Brent Lang, had a son who was born close to the start of the company, and it seemed like a natural idea to show their early prototype to a roundtable of nurses. In what might be the fastest proof of product-market fit ever, one of them looked at the presenters and said, "Where have you been? I need this now."

Nurses run all over the place, looking in countless rooms and yelling down hallways trying to find the right person to help with a specific situation at a critical time. Communication gaps in healthcare have tremendous impacts that can result in varying levels of patient harm, not to mention wasted dollars annually estimated to be in excess of $10 billion. By following the Starfleet model, the Vocera system directly solves this problem, delivering instant real-time communication between key players at the tap of a badge.

Vocera's not just sticking to healthcare, either. "We're focused on mission-critical environments where the people working are truly mobile and information is very dynamic," Miley says. "Hospitals are the ideal use case: people are always moving, and information about patients is always changing; highly coordinated handoffs are common." This is also true for places like nuclear power plants, where workers need to take reactors offline while fuel rods are changed; not only is downtime expensive, but communications need to be synchronized so everyone can do their jobs quickly and minimize radiation exposure. Luxury hotels that pride themselves on personalized service also need their staff to be up on their communications game. The results speak for themselves, according to Miley: hotels get better service with fewer staff members, nuclear reactor turnarounds happen faster, and hospitals are quieter, more peaceful places without a constant stream of calls over the PA system. Eventually, she says, Vocera wants to extend its system to the home, starting with healthcare workers who want to be able to connect with off-sight doctors instantly: "It'll be a communications layer that can find you anywhere."

"We're at a very unique time in history," Miley says. "Look at all the innovations that have happened in other industries; healthcare innovation is the last frontier, and there's a tremendous amount of change going on in consumer and patient empowerment. All the technology that's coming together right now is like a perfect storm; how many times in your life are you at the right time and the right place with the right tech to have an impact? That's something we can facilitate."

Though expanding to other markets is part of doing business, Miley thinks healthcare is the most rewarding sector by far. "Most tech companies don't see the benefits of how they impact people," she says. "What's really different about Vocera is that we get stories of how a baby was born or a life was saved because of our technology." She continues: "The people who work here are very mission-driven: they're here because they want to have an impact — they want to collaborate, be a part of something. The badge is all about collaborating better; that's the mentality the people who work here have, and that's the mentality we try to encourage."

You'd be hard-pressed not to find the very same ethos on any Federation starship. It's good to know at least one piece of Starfleet tech is well on its way. Next up, medical tricorders ! After that…who knows? (I'm crossing my fingers for warp drive!)

Jon Sung is a contributing writer for XPRIZE and copywriting gun-for-hire to startups and ventures all over the San Francisco Bay area. When not wrangling words for business or pleasure, he serves as the captain of the USS Loma Prieta, the hardest-partying Star Trek fan club in San Francisco.

XPRIZE is an innovation engine. We design and operate prize competitions to address global crises and market failures, and incentivize teams around the world to solve them. Currently, we are operating numerous prizes, including the $30M Google Lunar XPRIZE, challenging privately funded teams to successfully land a robot on the Moon’s surface, and the $10M Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE, challenging teams around the world to create a portable, wireless, Star Trek-inspired medical device that allows you to monitor your health and medical conditions anywhere, anytime. The result? Radical innovation that will help us all live long and prosper.

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