We’ve got the lowest end, called the Rushers, which are very animalistic: they run on all fours, they don’t carry weapons, they jump on you and try to rip your face off. Then there’s the initiates, which are the ground troops. We have Brutes, which are more like gladiators. We have lieutenants. We have our commander, who is probably about 12 feet tall. We also have female Gorn, because clearly there have to be females in there.
CGM: How did other third-person sci-fi games, like Mass Effect or Dead Space, influence the project, and what other properties does the game borrow from? BM: You know, it’s hard not to be influenced. We’re gamers; we play all the same games you guys do. Not only did we look at all the Star Trek games that have been done in the past, but we play Uncharted, we play Dead Space and Arkham [Asylum] and Mass Effect. You look at something like Uncharted, which has been just a masterclass in storytelling in a game. It’s not just running around and collecting treasure. They’ve really done a great job creating a memorable character in Drake. And Mass Effect, with its huge universe — the mind-blowing things they’ve done in that game! And down to what Arkham does, which is tell a very contained but very cool story. We looked at Gears of War, which we love from the combat side. Halo is pretty fantastic with what they do story-wise. I think anybody that does this for a living, whether it’s making games or making movies or TV shows or writing, it’s hard not to be influenced by what’s out there and to find a way to make it truly unique. How do we make it feel like it belongs in our universe, instead of, “Oh, that’s what they did. They stole detective mode [from Arkham Asylum]”? Which is interesting, because in our game our tricorder kind of works like detective mode, but I like to say our tricorder beat detective mode by about 40 years.
CGM: What did you learn from previous Star Trek games? BM: There have been a lot of different games, whether it’s Klingon Academy or the 25th Anniversary game or space simulators or you’re coming up as a red-shirt. Some have worked better than others. There are some games where you’re just sitting on the bridge of the Enterprise the entire time, and while not as captivating for myself as it could have been — those aren’t really the types of games that I marvel at — we knew we had to have moments where you could play as the Enterprise and have space combat. We were just really shocked to learn that no one had ever made a game where you play as Kirk and Spock — certainly not using the talent from the films in the way that we did — or that tried to create a compelling story that was really canon. 40 | C&G MAGAZINE