Since the shock announcement in Janurary that San Francisco based P2 Entertainment would be ceasing devlopment of Star Trek Online, the internet has been ablaze with speculation about who exactly P2 Entertainment were refering to when they mentioned that devlopment rights to Star Trek Online had been passed to another bay area devloper.
Evidence seems to be mounting that it is in fact Cryptic Studios who have obtained the rights to work on this title.
Following the announcement by P2 Entertainment, Hailing Frequency - "The Internets First Podcast Dedicated to Star Trek Gaming" quickly produced a short list of developers in the bay area that might have the scope and manpower to produce Star Trek Online, and then proceeded to start calling these companys.
After an hour of leaving voicemails on answering machines, Hailing Frequency recieved a call from Cryptic Studios. The overall tone of this phone call was along the lines of - "Where did you hear that Cryptic might be producing Star Trek Online, and How did you get (refering to the person we spoke to) my name"
The phone call proceeded, and Cryptic enquired about what Hailing Frequency was and what we did. Cryptic then said categorically that they would like to appear on Hailing Frequency in the near future for an interview.
A couple of days later, the story broke that Cryptic was interviewing former members of the Star Trek Online devlopment team for an unannounced project. When asked if this project was Star Trek Online, they would not comment.
Most recently, Cryptic announced that they were shelving the much anticipated Marvel Universe Online, which was still in the early stages of production. This cancellation effectivly left Cryptic clear, with only one other project in the works.
On Febuary 21st at the Game Devlopers Conferance, Jack Emmert, Chief Creative Officer at Cryptic Studios, gave an interesting talk about using episodic content in the morning's first round of GDC sessions. During this talk, Emmert mentioned the recently announced Champions Online as well as what he called "a secret sci-fi project."
According to sources at the conferance, Emmert was wearing a sweatshirt that read "STARFLEET ACADEMY" across the front. Emmert also emphasized "secret sci-fi project" with some fairly large Air Quotes.
Taking all of this information into account, it is becoming gradually clearer to see a picture - a picture where Cryptic Studios is working on Star Trek Online - and, not wanting to announce anything officially yet, they are dropping tidbits of information here and there.
Of course, there is no concrete evidence that Cryptic Studios is producing Star Trek Online, and until they come out and announe it, there will be none, but with titles like City of Heroes and City of Villains under their belt, one has to hope.
We at Hailing Frequency will be attempting to talk to our contact in the next couple of days, where we can hopefully get some more information for this steadily increasing stack of evidence.
