Star Trek: Resurgence feels like a lost Trek episode, but the game splits critics

Some games open with a gunshot and dare you to keep up. The Star Trek that stuck with me as a kid worked differently. It could turn a briefing room into a pressure cooker, make a diplomatic insult feel more dangerous than a torpedo, and somehow get real drama out of people arguing over protocol, resources, and whether the captain should trust the science officer for thirty more seconds. That memory matters here, because it explains almost the entire split around Star Trek: Resurgence.

If you came looking for a straightforward Star Trek: Resurgence review, here is the honest framing: the brief for this piece does not include fresh hands-on notes, so this verdict is built from the critical consensus, recurring player complaints, and the broad shape of the game’s reputation. And that reputation is pretty clear. Critics largely agree that Resurgence succeeds where many licensed games fail: it understands what Star Trek fans are here for. The catch is that it understands Trek better than it understands modern game feel.

Key takeaways

• Star Trek: Resurgence is a story-first narrative adventure, not an action-heavy blockbuster.
• Its biggest strength is how convincingly it captures the feel of classic 90s-era Trek: diplomacy, technobabble, moral choices, and shipboard routine.
• The dual-protagonist structure, following Jara Rydek and Carter Diaz, is widely seen as the game’s smartest idea.
• Writing and voice acting are regularly praised, with several critics saying the cast helps sell the whole experience.
• The biggest weaknesses are dated interaction, simple gameplay, QTE friction, and controls that some players found unrefined.
• Best for Trek fans who want an interactive episode; less appealing for players who need deep mechanics or slick action design.

This is a lost 90s Trek episode with buttons attached

The best way to understand Resurgence is to stop expecting an action game. Critics consistently describe it as a narrative adventure with the texture of interactive television. The setup sounds exactly like the kind of Trek premise that used to anchor a strong two-parter: the U.S.S. Resolute is sent to mediate a conflict involving dilithium and other contested resources, then an ion storm pushes a difficult mission into outright crisis. That is the right kind of Trek nonsense in the best sense. It starts with diplomacy, procedure, and competing interests, then lets the universe throw gasoline on the problem.

That tone is the reason so many reviewers gave the game a warm reception despite obvious mechanical shortcomings. This is not Trek painted over a generic genre template. The praise keeps circling back to familiar pleasures: command decisions, uneasy alliances, technobabble under pressure, conversations where the “correct” response is not always the most heroic one, and the sense that life aboard a starship is built as much from routine and hierarchy as from emergencies. Plenty of licensed games know the iconography of a franchise. Far fewer understand its rhythm. By most accounts, Resurgence gets the rhythm right.

The dual-protagonist idea is more than a gimmick

The other piece critics keep highlighting is the split between Jara Rydek and Carter Diaz. That structure gives the story two vantage points on the same crisis: one closer to command-level decision-making, the other closer to the people who live with those decisions on the ship’s lower rungs. That matters in Star Trek more than it would in a lot of other sci-fi universes. Trek has always been partly about institutions: who gets listened to, who has the authority to act, and how idealism holds up when the chain of command starts bending under pressure.

In lesser hands, that could have felt like simple perspective-hopping. Here, it sounds like it deepens the fantasy of living on a Federation ship. You are not only attending the big moral crossroads from the bridge-side angle; you are also seeing how those choices look from below decks. That gives the story more texture than a single-protagonist version probably could have managed. It also makes the game feel more like ensemble Trek, where rank, responsibility, and personal trust are always in motion.

There is a useful caveat, though. The available evidence suggests that the game’s choices matter more as roleplaying texture than as an anything-can-happen branching maze. In other words, your decisions seem to shape scenes, relationships, tone, and how events play out in the moment, but not necessarily the whole campaign in wildly divergent directions. For some players, that will sound disappointing. For others, it fits Trek just fine. This was never a sandbox power fantasy. It was always about how you carry yourself under pressure.

Where it wins: writing, atmosphere, and the confidence to be nerdy

One reason critics were willing to forgive the rougher edges is that the narrative side seems to do real work. Reviews repeatedly call out the voice acting and writing as major strengths. RPGFan was especially enthusiastic, praising the cast and calling the voice work excellent, while other coverage singled out how much the performances sell the drama. That matters a lot in a game like this. When your primary verbs are talking, choosing, investigating, and reacting, stiff performances can sink the whole thing. Here, the cast appears to carry the material with conviction.

There is also something refreshing about a game that is comfortable being this unapologetically Trek. Not “space opera with Trek paint.” Trek. Resource disputes. Mediation. Ethical dilemmas. Crew procedure. Technological problem-solving. Scenes where the tension comes from whether a fragile peace will hold, not whether the next hallway has enough ammo. That probably sounds dry to anyone who wants their science fiction louder and meaner. To the right audience, it is catnip.

This is where Resurgence seems to separate itself from a lot of licensed adaptations. It is not trying to turn Star Trek into something else because someone in a boardroom got nervous that diplomacy does not sell. By all indications, it bets on the thing that made the franchise beloved in the first place: people under pressure trying to do the ethical, intelligent thing in a messy universe. When that lands, it lands hard.

Where it stumbles: dated gameplay and too much tolerance for clunk

Now for the part that keeps this from sitting in the top tier of narrative adventures. The criticism is remarkably consistent. The gameplay is simple, sometimes overly forgiving, and often feels dated. Several reviews describe it as closer to a visual novel or old-school point-and-click hybrid than a modern systems-driven game. That is not automatically a problem. Minimal interaction can work beautifully when the writing is sharp and the presentation stays smooth. The issue is that Resurgence apparently adds friction without adding much excitement.

Quick-time events are the recurring pain point. User discussion has been harsher than professional reviews on this front, with complaints that the controls feel unrefined and the QTE-heavy design feels behind the times. That is the kind of criticism I take seriously in a story game, because these systems do not live on spectacle alone. They live or die on whether the player forgets they are there. If every tense scene risks being undercut by awkward prompts or input weirdness, the spell breaks. You stop feeling like you are inside a lost Trek episode and start feeling the gears scrape.

The bigger problem is not that the mechanics are light. It is that they do not always sound elegant. There is a version of this game where the simplicity becomes invisible and everything rests on writing, pacing, and choice design. The criticism suggests Resurgence does not fully get there. It asks for patience. If you give it that patience, there is a strong chance the story pays you back. If you do not, the game part may feel like an obstacle between you and the bits you actually care about.

Why critics were kinder than some players

The review spread tells the story. This is not universal-acclaim territory, but it is not a shrug either. WayTooManyGames landed at a 7.0, which feels about right for a game with clear strengths and equally clear limitations. Other reviews were much more affectionate, with RPGFan going so far as to frame it as one of the better recent Star Trek narratives. That gap makes sense. Enthusiast critics, especially those tuned into Trek’s specific appeal, seem more willing to say, “Yes, the mechanics are old-fashioned, but the soul is right.” Players coming in from outside that lane are less likely to cut it that slack.

Expectation-setting does a lot of the heavy lifting here. If someone buys Resurgence wanting a narrative-heavy, Telltale-style sci-fi drama where conversation, choice, and atmosphere carry the experience, the game sounds like a pretty good fit. If someone buys it wanting deep interaction, big systemic consequences, razor-sharp control feel, or action sequences that can stand proudly on their own, that same game looks much weaker. Both reactions can be honest at the same time. The split is less about reviewers contradicting one another and more about them valuing different things.

Technical notes and the thin state of “latest developments”

There is one area where the evidence gets thinner, and it is worth saying plainly. The supplied material gives high confidence on the game’s premise, tone, and broad reception, but not much certainty on ongoing post-launch developments. Most of the public-facing discussion in the brief traces back to reviews from around release and a later retrospective-style take, not a dense stream of fresh patch reporting. So if you are hunting for a dramatic redemption arc built on major updates, the evidence here does not support claiming one.

What does seem worth watching is narrower and more practical: any post-launch improvements that address control feel, QTE responsiveness, or general interaction polish. Those are the complaints most likely to change the conversation if they are meaningfully improved. Short of that, the game’s long-term reputation is probably going to settle around a very specific conclusion: as a pure video game, it is modest and occasionally clunky; as a Star Trek narrative, it may age better than its launch buzz suggested.

Who this suits, and who should steer clear

Star Trek: Resurgence looks like a strong recommendation for players who miss the measured, talk-heavy, morally tangled feel of 90s Trek. If your favorite franchise moments involve diplomacy going sideways, command tensions, engineering improvisation, and characters trying to do the decent thing when every option is compromised, this game sounds built for you. It also suits people who are comfortable treating a game like an interactive season episode rather than a mechanics-first challenge.

It is a shakier sell for players who bounce off quick-time events, need slick controls in every scene, or want choices to tear the story into wildly different branches. It is also probably not the game to hand someone who thinks Star Trek only works when it pretends to be Star Wars with a policy manual. The appeal here is narrower and, frankly, more old-fashioned. That is part of its charm and part of its limitation.

Bottom line

Based on the available critical consensus and player-facing complaints, my verdict lands at 7.5/10. That score reflects a game with a clear identity, real affection for its source material, and enough narrative strength to matter, but also enough dated design and input friction to keep it from feeling easy to recommend across the board. The longer I look at the evidence, the more Resurgence reads like a game that knows exactly what Star Trek fans wanted and only partially figured out how to turn that into compelling interaction.

The practical recommendation is simple. Buy it for the story, the atmosphere, the dual-perspective structure, and the chance to spend time in a piece of Trek fiction that actually sounds like Trek. Do not buy it expecting elegant mechanics to carry the day. Meet it on its own terms, and there is a good chance you will forgive the clunk. Demand that the game side do all the heavy lifting, and the transporter beam may drop you a few feet short.

TL;DR

• Verdict: A good, sometimes rough narrative adventure that nails classic Star Trek atmosphere better than it nails modern game feel.
• Score: 7.5/10.
• Best part: It feels like a lost 90s Trek episode, with diplomacy, technobabble, moral choices, and strong character work.
• Biggest weakness: Dated gameplay, awkward QTEs, and control polish issues can break the immersion.
• Who should play it: Trek fans, story-first players, and anyone happy with an interactive drama over an action game.
• Who should skip it: Players who need deep mechanics, major branching structure, or consistently slick moment-to-moment interaction.