28 days until the launch of the PS VR! We’re counting down to the release of Sony’s VR headset on October 13th by highlighting one game a day for its anticipated release. Today we’re writing our very own Captain’s Logs and making it so with Star Trek: Bridge Crew.
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Space may be the final frontier, but it’s made in a VR dev’s office. At least Star Trek: Bridge Crew’s version of space is. Ubisoft’s Red Storm studio is hard at work making what may well be one of VR’s most exciting upcoming games right now. In fact, early previews of the game impressed us so much that we crowned it as our favorite multiplayer VR game at E3 2016, and I was similarly amazed when I saw it at Gamescom last month.
Bridge Crew isn’t some planet-exploring, Klingon fist-fighting, alien romancing adventure, though. Instead, it focuses on the core, arguably most iconic Star Trek experience: a captain, his crew, and his chair. You’re assigned one of four crucial roles on the bridge of the U.S.S. Aegis. It’s the first ship of its class, though it could be lifted out of the set of any of the series of films from the popular sci-fi universe. Simply sitting down and exploring the various gadgets and gizmos is a sheer delight, but Bridge Crew lets you do far more than that.
You can either take the role of Tactical, Helm, Engineer or, of course, don the Captain’s seat and issue orders. Each role gives you an essential task such as defending yourself against enemies, bringing lifeforms on board the ship, or actually steering the massive space ship on which you reside. Working as a team will get you great scores and mission results, but arguments and insubordination might result in lives lost and, even worse, ships completely and utterly blown up.
What’s brilliant about Bridge Crew is how it provides a completely immersive VR experience without brushing up against many of the constraints of current VR. You keep your butt firmly in a seat at all times and just use your hands to interact with the board in front of you. There’s nothing to interfere with the experience, nothing to remind you that really you’re sitting in your living room back on earth. The game is entirely immersive in this sense, which makes it such a brilliant idea for VR altogether.
What we have here is a potential recipe for one of the most compelling multiplayer games on PS VR. I’ve sat in Bridge Crew‘s seats and I’ve waved to friends next to me. I’ve pulled on a headset and, in the process, people transform in size, shape, and even gender. If you know three other people that you can get together for a couple of voyages every night, then Bridge Crew could well be your definitive PS VR game.
What remains to be seen about Bridge Crew is just how varied an experience it can provide. We’ve played missions in two of the four roles and had a great time, but it remains to be seen how often we’ll be enticed to come back and resume active duty. We’re hoping that missions will mix things up enough to provide intense, challenging experiences in the long run, while serving as a great introduction to VR for first-time players.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew will be available on PlayStation VR on November 29th while the headset will be launching on October 13th. We’ll see you on board, Captain.
50 Days of PS VR Countdown
- 50: Rez Infinite
- 49: Battlezone
- 48: Volume: Coda
- 47: The Modern Zombie Taxi Co.
- 46: Tumble VR
- 45: The Brookhaven Experiment
- 44: Radial-G
- 43: Star Wars Battlefront Rogue One: X-Wing Mission
- 42: Pool Nation VR
- 41: DriveClub VR
- 40: Golem
- 39: Loading Human
- 38: Tethered
- 37: Megaton Rainfall
- 36: Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
- 35: World War Toons
- 34: Eagle Flight
- 33: Classroom Aquatic
- 32: Kismet
- 31: RIGS: Mechanized Combat League
- 30: Statik
- 29: Psychonauts: In The Rhombus Of Ruin
- 28: Star Trek: Bridge Crew
- 27: Windlands
- 26: Wayward Sky
- Additional titles will be added to this list later.
