page_title: Star Trek (2013 video game)
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Star Trek (2013 video game) / Development
caption_attribution_description: English: Roberto Orci speaking at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego, California.
context_page_description: Star Trek is a third-person action-adventure Star Trek video game. It was developed by Digital Extremes and co-published by Namco Bandai Games and Paramount Pictures in association with CBS Studios International. The game was released in North America on April 23, 2013, for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows platforms. It took three years to produce, and was the first in-house video game development by Paramount Studios, who opted not to license development to a third party. The production team aimed for it to be a collaboration with those working on the Star Trek films to avoid the typical pitfalls associated with film tie-in video games. Video games which influenced Star Trek included the Mass Effect series, Uncharted and Metroid Prime, and certain elements of Star Trek reflected episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series such as "Arena" and "Amok Time".
  The game is set in the Star Trek Kelvin universe, between the events of the films Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, and follows the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Starfleet starship USS Enterprise.
context_section_description: Production of Star Trek began three years before release under Tom Lesinski at Paramount Digital Entertainment. Lesinkski had a background in video game production, having previously worked at companies such as Crystal Dynamics, Ion Storm and Kuju Entertainment. He made the decision to produce a game in-house, rather than licensing it out to a third party as had previously been the case under the previous ten-year Activision contract. As a result, the game was the first to be produced and released by Paramount Studios directly.
  Lesinski was terminated by Paramount in September 2011 and the project was passed to Brian Miller, Vice President of Paramount Digital Entertainment. Miller later explained that he wanted the production to avoid the mistakes typically made in movie tie-in games involved a lack of time devoted to the production, and excluding the people working on the film from work on the game. Miller hoped that they had rectified these issues with Star Trek, and explained that they had not produced a similar game to tie-in with 2009's Star Trek film because it would have suffered from those problems. He expressed disappointment at the quality of previous in-universe games and wanted the new Star Trek to be "a triple-A game" and something that the franchise deserved.
  The idea for the game came out of a brainstorming session in which it was decided that the game should allow the gamer to play as Kirk and Spock, and therefore should featuring co-op style gameplay. During his E3 pitch, Steve Sinclair described the game's genre as "bro-op". It was created by Digital Extremes, who had previously created video games such as Unreal and BioShock.
  The plot of the game was written by Marianne Krawczyk, who had previously worked on games such as God of War and Shank. She developed the plot in conjunction with the producers of the film, Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci, as well as writer Damon Lindelof. In an interview in 2011, Orci explained that the storyline of the game was designed to be canon for the new Star Trek universe. He clarified in 2013 that it was "as close to canon as any Star Trek game will ever come" as the mission described by the game could have taken place between 2009's Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness. Concept design work for the game was created by artist Fernando Acosta.
  While developing the game, the production team sought to use elements of other games as influences on how to create a Star Trek based game that was along the same lines as the 2009 film. Digital Extremes creative director Sheldon Carter described this as "It's like someone spliced Metroid Prime into my Uncharted". Miller explained that it was due to the success of the Mass Effect series of games that allowed for space-based adventure games such as Star Trek to be made, although they were not seeking to include the role-playing elements seen in that series. Miller explained that there was a "circular influence" with each franchise influenced by the other. Further influences were found in The Original Series, as one level which pits Spock against Kirk was inspired by a similar scene in the episode "Amok Time", originally broadcast on television just under 47 years before the launch of the game. While it was intended to be a cross platform launch, the producers decided not to incorporate hands free gaming using either Kinect or the PlayStation Move.
caption: Writer Robert Orci was involving in the production of the plot of Star Trek.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 5D Mark II", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2017:04:20 22:02:19", "Image Artist": "", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "980", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1094", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3629", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:07:24 13:02:21", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:07:24 13:02:21", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "300", "EXIF SubSecTime": "52", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "52", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "52", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2120", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2647", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "5616000/1459", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1872000/479", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}