It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I’ve become close friends with Chase Masterson, and she’s a wonderful person who runs her Pop Culture Hero Coalition charity. And some have been really kind to us and really kind to me. Some have become friends of the company and personal friends. Some of them I’m still starstruck to have had a chance to work with. And then it was just a whirlwind of so many different characters that we’ve brought in. She came back to the game many, many times as Sela and even as Tasha. And Denise Crosby will always be special to me because she was one of the first to really engage with us narratively with her character. But our guest stars weren’t really part of the narrative until we brought in Denise Crosby. Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and Chase Masterson (Leeta from DS9) were two of the firsts. : Who have been some of the most memorable guest stars you’ve had in your game? Any standout memories from the recording booth?Īl Rivera: I’ve lost track, but I think we have somewhere between 40 and 50 Star Trek alumni in Star Trek Online. Kate Mulgrew as a Mirror Universe Janeway in Star Trek: Online: Shadow’s Advance So, whenever we can bring their favorite ships from the show into the game, or now vice versa, that’s just a huge win for everybody. They’re excited about what we’re doing so much that they want to put our stuff in their shows.Īnd that’s just a feedback loop, where players then see that and then they get excited, and they engage with the showrunners and the show artists that they’re excited to see that. I think the fact that we have Star Trek Online fans working on Picard is very humbling and very exciting. We’ve built such a library and we’ve put so much effort and so much thought into our ships that the new shows, Picard particularly, have been bringing our original ships into their TV show. We’ve been taking ships from the old shows and now taking ships from the new shows and putting them in our game. : So, you’ve seen new or returning interest in the game since ships from the game started appearing on TV?Īl Rivera: The new shows have reinvigorated the fans in such a way. And that has really continued to increase the appeal of Star Trek Online because it was back in everyone’s zeitgeist again. We were able to tap into those Star Trek fans and those Star Trek stories. All of a sudden, all these returning fans and new fans came back to Star Trek with the TV shows – Discovery, Picard, Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Prodigy. Star Trek itself had a renaissance, and that revitalized Star Trek Online for us. Fans could see the actors they loved reprise their roles.Īnd then there’s the post- Discovery era. We held the torch for Star Trek for a long time. In those first 10 years before Discovery came out, we were one of the only places where anyone could get Star Trek stories. I think we have two eras in Star Trek Online. We give you that fantasy that you can play Star Trek however you want. We take a lot of stories that really haven’t been completely explored on screen, and we let people explore deeper parts of Star Trek that they always wanted to know about. I think we connect with the fans in that way – I think we honor the stories, and we give everyone the opportunity to play the kind of Star Trek they want to play. We know the franchise, we honor the franchise, and we’re respectful of the franchise. To what do you credit the game’s lasting appeal?Īl Rivera: Probably the number one thing is that everyone who works on this game is a really dedicated Star Trek fan. : Star Trek Online has been going strong for 13 years now, which is mighty impressive. Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher in Star Trek Online: Refractions To talk about the game’s continued success and what it’s like seeing their work in Star Trek canon, we checked in with Star Trek Online‘s design lead, Al Rivera, about how he and his team craft stories for their game, how they attract their numerous guest stars, and carrying Star Trek’slegacy in a big way. Not only is their massively multiplayer online role-playing free-to-play video game still popular 13 years after its initial release (a lifetime or two in the world of games) but a few ships that originated in STO have made their way to live-action - notably, the Enterprise-F (introduced canonically in the Star Trek: Picard episode “ Vox”) actually first appeared in the game back in 2014. Exclusive Interview: Star Trek Online lead designer Al RiveraĬryptic Studios – the folks behind Star Trek Online – are feeling pretty fine right now.
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