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In 2002, Totally Games in association with Activision released what would go on to become one of the most modded Star Trek Gaming Experiences of all time.

In fact, according to one website, since Star Trek Bridge Commander was released, over 4600 mods have been released for the game and those mods have been downloaded over 9 million times;  so if that does not make this game one of the most popular Star Trek Games of all time, then we do not know what does.

But Alas, Activision we’re never able to follow up on the huge success of the game with a sequel, and while for a short time, it looked like Star Trek Legacy might be the answer to the prayers of thousands of Star Trek Gamers – it failed to impress and failed to attain the status that Bridge Commander did.

So the task fell to fans and independent developers to attempt to create a sequel, and while over the years a few projects have popped up, using the name “Star Trek Bridge Commander 2” and promising to deliver a free, independently made “fan” game of the same calibre – most of them have fizzled out (though one project continues today, over at www.stexcalibur.com).

Now, another independent developer is working on a Bridge Commander 2 – and this one looks like it may just make it to release.


Being developed by Second Star Entertainment, this iteration of Bridge Commander 2 has been in development for around six months, and is being developed using a closed source $1500 dollar engine – which in itself, features an impressive array of modern features such as real time shadows, PhysX, support for 3 scripting languages and more.

All of these engine features will be fully utilized in Bridge Commander 2 and added to, says project lead Kenneth Emerson.

“I have added in light mapping, detail mapping, bump and gloss mapping, speculars, lens flares onto the core engine features.”

Speaking to us about the game, he said:

“So far I have around 40 ships added into the game, from factions including the Federation, The Romulans, Klingons, Dominion, Ferengi and many others.   In addition, I already have the functions in the game for Bridges, External views, dynamic lighting and planet surfaces.  The planets have atmospheres and you will be able to land on them seamlessly. 

Lately, I have been working heavily on the weapons, projectile weapons and damage system, though beam weapons have been giving me some issues.  That said, at the moment I do have a lot of fun testing the physics system by firing torpedoes at Asteroids and watching them react in real time to the force of the explosion”.

If that isn’t impressive enough, he also excitingly reports that two styles of gameplay will be available – outside of your ship in the Bridge Commander style view that we all know and love, and inside the ship with full ship interiors which will be explorable in an Elite Force, first person style.


In addition, he also promises that features such as point defence weaponry, 3 types of shield effects including bubble and skin shields will be available, and that he is working to expand the interiors that he already has so that they are fully explorable, ala virtual voyager in Elite Force’s expansion pack.

Of course, all of these features do not come without a price, which is apparent in the form of a 2012 release date which he is currently aiming for.    He also admits to having gotten off on the wrong foot with some of the existing Bridge Commander communities – who were not impressed with what he was planning to do with Bridge Commander 2, several months ago, but this is something that he hopes time will repair.


Hailing Frequency was sent an early pre-alpha build of the game to review – and while many features are currently incomplete and need a lot of work – we are impressed with what we see.

The current build of Bridge Commander 2 runs seamlessly at 1920 x 1080 resolution on maximum (ultra) graphical settings on our test computer, and even achieves an impressive frame rate on our much lesser test laptop (AMD x64 2.2ghz, ATI HD4570 512mb, 3gb RAM) achieving above 30fps at 1374 x 768 on high settings.    It looks beautiful and once a few more core features are added in, we really will have the core things needed to have some fun.


As development of the game continues, Hailing Frequency will be sent new and updated builds to test and review on behalf of the wider community – and when asked about a public demo, Mr Emerson had the following to say:

“Wow – you’re asking about demos already – well of course i plan on releasing a demo! Once I get Phasers working properly, I will package up an alpha demo and who knows – the game engine natively supports multiplayer so I may be able to enable some crude multiplayer and launch a demo with a test multiplayer server!”


Of course, like any fan or independently developed game, Bridge Commander is being developed in spare time and all volunteers or help are more than welcomed.

“I’m by no means a jack of all trades – I’m a coder, and an ok modeller, but I need artists, UI designers, sound artists, writers to help develop a story driven campaign, texture artists and pretty much anything else a normal game development team might need – otherwise we are going to have a game with all of these features, but no campaign, or bad sound effects, and we don’t want that do we?”.

As mentioned before, Bridge Commander 2 is tentatively aiming for a 2012 release, but like all fan projects, this could be move forwards or backwards depending on real life circumstances.   Until that time, Hailing Frequency will continue to provide updates, regular screenshots and a variety of other updates, in addition to the updates that will be posted on the soon-to-launch website for the project.

Hailing Frequency is hosting a forum section for the game, which can be accessed via a holding page at http://bc2.hailingfrequency.com – and here is one final screenshot to wet your palates until the next update for Bridge Commander 2.

I believe that at the moment, some models are placeholders and others have had permission secured for use.   

Regarding the name usage - as a fan / independant game, its not nessesary to secure any permission to use the name, unless you plan to sell the end product (in which case a license is needed too).

Many fan games use the name "Star Trek" (Star Trek: Excalibur, Star Trek: Supremacy to name two) without any issue and there is no reason to assume there would be any issues in this case.

Anyway - as far as I can concerned, the more fan games, the merrier - I am happy to have this on the scene, in addition to Excalibur.

P.S.  How is it that some people can "look" at a model and instantly know who created it?   Looking at this Galaxy, compared for example, to the one used in Excalibur, I don't see any differences except for lighting, which is engine related.

Quote from: Zach on 19 June 2010 04:04 PM

P.S.  How is it that some people can "look" at a model and instantly know who created it?   Looking at this Galaxy, compared for example, to the one used in Excalibur, I don't see any differences except for lighting, which is engine related.

While I don't know for sure, I have seen both the SNS Galaxy and P81 Akira enough times over the years, to be able to recognize them. And the ships on these images look uncannily like the SNS Galaxy and P81 Akira :)

You are wrong about both ships actually... the Galaxy is DJ Curtis's, the the Akira is Home made.

Wrong again, there are multiple textures applied to the ship.

Also, i dont aim to compete with anyone, if i were invited to the excalibur project i might help but i haven't been so i'm doing my own thing.

EDITED BY ZACH

Darkthunder we know this guy remember?  I showed you his other projects and screens from them that he showed me on a few occasions.

Glad to see you found an Engine to work with Kenneth, good luck on your many projects that you have!