Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown

Genre: Management Simulation

Players: 1

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Review:

In 2026, the Star Trek franchise is now 60 years old, starting with the original Star Trek series in 1966. And while the franchise still endures to this day, it’s not too often that we see new Star Trek videogames. So it’s surprising when we receive a new entry in the franchise and not only is it not based on one of the current or recent entries in that franchise, it’s not based on one of the most popular or critically-acclaimed entries in the franchise, either.

Originally airing from 1995 through 2001, Star Trek: Voyager has its share of fans – it was, after all, the first show in the franchise to star a female captain, and also featured fan-favorite characters like The Doctor and Seven of Nine. But its impact is nowhere near as profound as the series it was created in part to replace, Star Trek: The Next Generation, nor was it as critically-acclaimed as Next Generation and the series it ran side-by-side with, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. However, an argument can be made that the show’s premise placing the titular starship out of reach of the support of the Federation provides a videogame adaptation with an ideal opportunity to tackle the problem that presents.

Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown, released in 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2, aims to have players manage the inner-workings of the starship Voyager as it finds itself pulled to the far reaches of the Gamma Quadrant, with this game’s story mirroring the series from the very start, and including multiple encounters pulled from the series and even letting players make different choices than the show did. Do you destroy The Caretaker’s Array, as Janeway did, or do you use it to return the ship home? How do you handle encounters with The Borg? Do you mercilessly end the life of Tuvix or choose to accept the loss of Tuvok and Neelix?

While it’s interesting to ponder the “what ifs” of these events from the show, in reality Across the Unknown is not especially concerned with story, and apart from a few instances it’s hard to see a lasting impact from your choices. Most places you visit will be little more than an unmemorable pit stop to collect resources before moving on.

Ah yes, resource management. Early on into the TV series’ run, much ado was made about the ship’s limited resources in the Delta Quadrant, but this ultimately didn’t seem to amount to much more beyond whether or not Captain Janeway was grumpy because she couldn’t get her morning coffee. Here in Across the Unknown, resource management is one of the most central elements of the game. You’ll need to be mindful of your supply of deuterium (essentially the gas fueling your engines), duranium (building materials), and other supplies, as well as keeping track of your crew and their morale level. To this end, you’re encouraged to power off rooms while they’re not in use and carefully determine where resources should be spent.

You’ll mainly be going back and forth between a few different maps – one cross-section map of the ship allows you to plan out where rooms on the ship are being built, powered, and staffed. A map of the current system lets you chart your course, collect resources, and visit points of interest. A map of the sector lets you chart where you’re going over a distance. And amidst all of that you’ll have individual menus to deal with the minutiae of managing the ship.

Of course, as happens on occasion in the show, you’ll sometimes find yourself engaged in battles, and this has to be one of the weakest parts of this game, as not only are you denied the ability to directly control your ship in battle, but what indirect control you have is minimal, apparently reduced to choosing whether to take an offensive or defensive approach to battle, when you use senior staff’s special abilities (each with their cooldowns), and when to make use of torpedoes for extra power. Meanwhile, your ship will be maneuvering oddly and doing its own thing, which doesn’t always make sense.

Another miss here has to be the presentation. While Voyager itself is nicely-rendered with a fair amount of detail, everything else looks off, particularly this game’s 3D character models that look like rough approximations of these characters rendered unimpressively in low-resolution as if their character models were made for the original Nintendo Switch, and with some character models just looking off – since when is Tom Paris silver-haired?

However, while the visuals are ugly, the sound is just inexcusable. You’ll be playing much of this game with a backing of silence. Apart from the title screen, which features the TV show’s memorable theme, and a few cutscenes featuring the voices of Robert Duncan McNeill and Tim Russ reprising their roles as Tom Paris and Tuvok, there’s otherwise a notable lack of voiced dialogue in a dialogue-heavy game, and the music is generic and subdued, making Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown a dour, somber experience.

That’s not to say there’s no enjoyment to be found here – the core gameplay, the Management Simulation elements, is actually quite satisfying. The problem is that it’s not especially deep or varied. Visit planet, get supplies, clear room, build room, research new skill, repeat. And when the game shakes things up and something goes wrong, you’re put through a multi-step process of addressing each step of jumping through hoops to restore your systems or address whatever problem you’re facing.

This lack of interesting variety, tied with the severely lacking presentation, wastes the potential that this game has to offer players a way to manage their own journey through the Delta Quadrant. As a result, while fans of the show may find this a pleasant reminder of points of interest through that show’s run with some enjoyable Management Simulation elements, I doubt anyone will be overjoyed with this. It’s okay, but far from great.

tl;dr – Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown is a Management Simulation that has players managing the titular ship as players play through the events of the 1990s TV series. The core Management Simulation elements are enjoyable, but this game does little to take full advantage of its premise, and the presentation is terrible. Fans of the show who enjoy Simulation games may find this amusing, but it’s far from a great take on the genre, or the series for that matter.

Grade: C+

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