Abandoned Star Trek Games Finally Playable Again

Yesterday, September 8, was Star Trek Day, because the original series debuted on this day all the way back in the groovy year of 1966. As you might expect, a bunch of Star Trek news happened, including some new seasons of ongoing shows. But more importantly, some classic Star Trek games, like Elite Force and Bridge Commander, were added to GOG.com, making them easily purchasable and playable on modern systems for the first time in nearly a decade.

GOG.com has partnered with Activision to bring these classic Star Trek games to its storefront. And look, unlike with the recent Call of Duty, Activision is actually putting its name on this re-release event. The publisher is currently facing a lawsuit that was filed on July 20 by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing after a years-long investigation turned up stories of multiple women suffering terrible, daily harassment and abuse while working at Activision Blizzard.

Here’s the full list of classic Star Trek games now available on GOG.com for the pretty hefty price (given their age) of $US10 ($14) each:

• Star Trek: Bridge Commander

• Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force

• Star Trek: Elite Force II

• Star Trek: Away Team

• Star Trek: Starfleet Command III

• Star Trek: Hidden Evil

GOG also lists two games — Star Trek Armada I & II — as coming soon, so even more classic Star Trek PC gaming action is on the way.

Games like Elite Force and Bridge Commander have been missing from digital storefronts for years and years, with folks pleading with GOG to bring the games back for nearly a decade. It is fun to revisit the wishlist pages for these various Star Trek games and see the excitement from fans who have finally realised their wishes were granted. For $US10 ($14) you can now easily download and play these games on modern Windows computers. Most of these re-releases even support online multiplayer!

While I’m happy to see all of these old games return via GOG, thus making it easier for folks to play them without needing to pirate or mod old versions, I’m particularly excited to see Elite Force back on the digital menu. The Elite Force games are first-person shooters built using the Quake engine and were a lot of fun for younger Zack. I’ll be revisiting those titles for sure later tonight.