Ubisoft unveiled their upcoming virtual reality game Star Trek: Bridge Crew at E3 on Monday, and got some help from Starfleet graduates to demonstrate it. LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge), Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), and Karl Urban (“Bones” McCoy in the J.J. Abrams films) tried out the game, which uses VR to allow a crew of four to pilot a Starfleet starship. Never mind the age differences—McCoy would have been well past 100 when La Forge was born—or the fact that one of the crew members was part of the Borg—it’s fun seeing Star Trek alums try to manage a starship without a script. Not surprisingly, given his experience wearing a VISOR, LeVar Burton seems to have been the best at the game, but all three cast members really get into it.
The gameplay looks like it is designed to rely on cooperation and collaboration more than most multiplayer games: One player issues orders as the captain and the other crew members manage their stations on the bridge. In other words, it’s a less manic, more story-driven version of Spaceteam, one of the all-time great party games, plus virtual reality, plus Star Trek. If that combination is as fun as it looks, it could be an entryway into VR for people who wouldn’t ordinarily sit around the house in a giant helmet. Star Trek: Bridge Crew is coming this fall to Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Playstation VR, which gives us plenty of time to learn how to reprogram it in order to beat the Kobayashi Maru level.
