Star Trek Online

Star Trek Online lets you shape a captain, ship, and crew, pairing space combat with away-team missions. Since the Steam game is free to play, you can try that mix without an upfront purchase; treat $0.00 at Epic Game Store as the offer for the purchase shown. Full controller support is listed. Steam offers a free entry point, while $0.00 at Epic Game Store applies to the displayed purchase offer.

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79%Steam Reviews21.4K reviews66Metacritic/100

Released: Jan 31, 2012

Free to Play · Sci-fi · Massively Multiplayer · Space · MMORPG

Steam·Platform:·United States Steam official priceFreeALL-TIME LOWBuy now

Epic Game Store·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-21~ $0.00ALL-TIME LOWBuy now

All-time low ~ $7.25across Steam & third-party storesat the recorded all-time low

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Price History

Past 36 months · Updated daily

Historical Low~ $0.002023-08Current Low Across Stores~ $0.00Epic Game StoreAt its historical low now

Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.

01About Star Trek Online

Star Trek Online combines starship command with away-team missions: explore unfamiliar worlds, lead your crew, and take on space battles. Customize your captain, ship, and crew, then choose a faction with its own ships, gear, and play styles. The description features more than 160 episodes across multiple story arcs. Steam player rating: 79% from 21,431 reviews. Released January 31, 2012. The Steam version is free to play and supports Windows. Supported interface languages: English and German.

Credits

Developer

Cryptic Studios

Publisher

Arc Games

Voice

Kipleigh W. Brown · J·G·赫佐勒

Steam player reviews

79%positiveMostly Positive21,431 Steam reviews

Lowest recorded in 36 months

$0.002023-08-12 · SteamBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.

Language support

Language	Interface	Subtitles	Audio
English	Yes	—	Yes
German	Yes	Yes	—

Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-22

02Before you buy

Free-to-play MMO

Star Trek Online is free to play on Steam for Windows. Its description presents an MMO featuring starship command and away-team missions.

Controller support

Steam lists full controller support.

03Frequently asked questions

What do you do in Star Trek Online?

You captain a starship and crew, explore unfamiliar worlds, and fight in space combat.

What content and factions are featured?

The description features more than 160 episodes across story arcs and factions including the Federation, Romulan Republic, Klingon Empire, and Dominion.

Is Star Trek Online free?

Yes. The Steam version for Windows is free to play.

Popular Steam reviews

Native-language selection · 10 reviews

Selected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.

RecommendedSteam player

01/02/2014

Damnit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a reviewer. EDIT: Time for a more serious review I think. I would change from thumbs UP to thumbs DOWN but this review is for some reason already highly visible. Delta Rising is a rapidly growing disaster due to several really idiotic decisions. The core content itself is sound. New episodes are fun and creative, with a compelling story and interesting T6 ships and mechanics. However there are a lot of persistent bugs, some over a year old, and swathes of existing content and queues in dire need of overhaul. Instead, Cryptic seem to focus on bringing out new, very poorly QA-tested, content and systems with associated P2W aspects and let the problems pile up. Throw in some very poorly timed nerfs, complete disregard for the sorry state of XP earning, and a total lack of dev communication, and you have a team so far removed from reality that they have the gall to call this the "best expansion yet". One can take a quick glance at the steam player numbers and see how it actually went down. Why not look at the dismal PvE queue numbers while you are there? tl;dr, still a great Trek experience, but some fools in Cryptic HQ seem to be going out of their way to make this game as unenjoyable as possible. "DO YOU RECOMMEND THIS GAME?" - NOShow moreShow less

1,860.1 hours at review723 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

10/25/2014

By all means play this game so long as you don't spend money on it. For those that don't know, Star Trek Online (STO) is an MMORPG loosely based on the Star Trek universe. Canon is not followed that heavily however there are facilities to create your own story, involving roleplay communities and the foundry which is a tool to design your own missions. If you are a Trek fan I would personally leave your Trek canon feelings at the door as you might find they get challenged at regular intervals. That said it is a personal thing, and so work through the story because that is one thing that STO has done reasonably well for. The art in STO has always been very good and so that combined with the story missions has always made good time spent. Now pre-Delta Rising this game was pretty unique in that people who were casual, hardcore, in-between or even super-casual could play the game and be able to enjoy it. You could be competitve on less than an hour a day, and while some things required more commitment, it was something that would get you competitive with others without too much grief. However those positives mentioned I would be negligent to not go over in detail the severe issues in the game, and therefore why I cannot in good faith recommend this game to anyone who wants an enjoyable, sensibly progressive experience or doesn't want a second job. I am now talking post-Delta Rising for the most part, which is where most of the issues that now permeate the game originate from. I'll be talking about the bugs, which has been an ongoing issue anyway, the difficulty settings, the ongoing issue of the degraded state of testing and bad customer relations. STO is riddled with so many bugs it makes an ant colony look small. Two of the top developers have openly admitted to not listening to player feedback any more, which is very apparent. The beta test server is now mockingly called the 'exclusive preview server' as what you see is what you get, broken mechanics, bugs and game-breaking exploits with it. Part of the reason for this is that their QA team for STO is a measely 5 people strong (http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=20853101#post20853101). This has shown through the years as bugs have built up due to there never being enough bugs fixed before a lot more come in to replace them like a hydra's head. Some proof of the developers lack of regard for the player opinion: 1) http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=13321451#post13321451 This link is to the Star Trek Online forums. It has a message from Tacofangs that tells us that by the time they are putting out content it is basically set in stone apart from the odd tweaks here and there, and usually they are just tweaks. 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYsw_GYP8Ok An interview which enraged players when Geko says that there is no actionable feedback on the Duty Officer UI. Suffice to say there was plenty of it and they did back track in a small manner after the uproar the interview caused and did give an option to minimise the UI. 3) http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1224081&page=79 Because a practical case in point is always good, this is the link to the Tribble Feedback post for the Upgrade System. This is by far and away the most recent poignant example of the effort Tribble Testers such as myself put in to be simply ignored. I challenge anyone to go through that thread and find a dev response that addresses the core concerns of that well tested feedback. As far as Cryptic are concerned, money comes first and retaining players second. Feedback is ignored unless something crops up that damages their profits, which is why the game is so badly riddled with bugs. A very recent example is the recent release (Delta Rising) had such a huge content gap that many of us had to run patrol missions to fill the levelling gap, Cryptic even recommend this as the way to do it. However a bug that was flagged up during testing was the patrols weren't all scaling. Of course because this wasn't fixed it made it the easiest patrol and so people used it to get past the absurd gaps. So what do Cryptic do? They roll back a decent sized number of the players, cut experience gains by 70% and call everyone who took part exploiters. As you can imagine, although some would obviously exploit, the vast majority weren't and Delta Rising is becoming a PR nightmare. The reason this turned into a PR nightmare is two fold, firstly and as I have said, they ignored tribble testers. Yet the big issue that started up was that many folks who got hit by the roll-back were innocent of any wrongdoing. Anyone who has had any serious experience with Cryptic's customer services knows their ability to read data is severely lacking. I have personally been quoted inaccurate purchase history, incorrect data on missing items and even had the representative show a critical lack of company knowledge about current events, even about new development blogs that I was asked to send a screenshot of to prove existed. Next thing I want to talk about is the state of the game in terms of how one participates in the end game content and how easy that is to do. As it stands now Ground Combat allows for a lot more build flexibility than Space Combat does. The closer you get to end game Elite level (the top grade) the more you have to build a ship that is focused on damage dealing and little else. So to clarify, Space Combat at end game has become a DPS Race (DPS = Damage Per Second), where having DPS more in the 20-30k range or higher is essentially required to complete the missions, simply because the devs decided ramping up the hitpoints, shields and resistances on enemies exponentially was the way to improve difficulty which has only led to a system where creativity is punished in favour of linear builds. On the other hand we have Ground Combat that is still accessible to build variety so long as the build is sensible and is well fought out, and in fact each profession can run at least 4-5 different base builds and all of them can be effective. However that being said Cryptics idea of making this harder was to increases the numbers of tough enemies in missions and make them hit harder, something that doesn't make the experience reinvigorating or challenging on ground maps. One thing that links both though are the awkward optionals. Advanced queues have timers or objectives that instantly fail the mission if they fail, which is bad from a player progression standpoint as a fresh 50 is going to struggle to get gear they need, as the gear materials come from those missions which has led to a sort of necessity of either having a very competant team or the chance to be carried through, both options of which are poor game design. However the sad part is anyone who has the gear already has a leg up and can finish the missions with relative ease still, however at this point in time Elite Borg queues are missing so using the old favourites as a comparison is not easy, however I will post videos of before and after in case anyone wants to look them over. A comparison: Old Elite Khitomer Ground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWNFn7JdbXA Only 4 Elite Tactical Drones when this was filmed. New Advanced Khitomer Ground (Technically supposed to be old Elite): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhaqdIHtIEo This has 17 Elite Tactical Drones in, slightly weaker but still time eaters for less geared or experienced teams. I will post Elite Comparisons when they become available. Want to play? Go right ahead, but when you start hitting the pay walls, don't ignore the fact you'll be paying literally hundreds of whatever currency you use to get competitive, it's not like before when newer folks had every chance to be as good as the older players. So would I recommend this to anyone? Of course not, play for free but don't be surprised when Cryptic ruins it, again.Show moreShow less

4,783.9 hours at review1,068 people found this helpful

RecommendedSteam player

11/25/2013

The Good: Star Trek Online is a free to play game where you can compete at the highest levels with no cash investment. Purchasing items from the store help's support the game, however this is one of a few MMO's where those with money are not left totally behind. A lengthy story line is included that you can complete solo by filling the rest of your team positions with your bridge officers. Alternatively you can team up with friends and enjoy the experience together. The game contains a rich mix of ground and space missions in both the story line and the Special Task Force (STF) missions. There are also Zones such as Defari, Romulas, Voth and Nukara Prime where you can land planet side and complete a variety of missions. The developers are constantly adding new content, regions and special events. Anything can happen from free ships, a vacation to Risa or a visit from christmas Q. Once you have reached max level there is the repuutation system to earn further bonuses and equipment. Plus Elite STF missions to test you. The Bad: Star Trek Online experience lag when servers are heavily. The interface and options are overwhelming so is the depth of charecter customisation and training. Bugs do exist and most have work arounds, this is not uncommon in a sofware upgraded over so many years. Summary: STO overall for a free to play is robust and has held my interest as a long term game. Main factors in this are the customization you can make to ship and crew and the changing content. We recommend you give the game a try.Show moreShow less

1,380.7 hours at review536 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

05/06/2015

I wish there was a middle-of-the-road option where I could recommend this game under certain circumstances. But since there isn't one, I feel like the most honest thing I can do is not to. I have a few hundred hours invested in this game, which I started to play in 2014. Since then I've gotten my main character to 60, and created a few alts that are on their way there as well. I've pretty much exhausted all there is to do in my main, and finally feel like I can do this justice with a review. So is this a bad game? I am inclined to say no. However, there are many negative things that will hold the experience back for you. The thing is that, mostly, they are not enough to stop you from playing once you've tried it and if you've liked it for what it is. But after a while, dissapointment might start to catch up with you nonetheless. STO is a bittersweet experience. I feel that most of the time, for every three good things this game has, there is also one bad thing to go along. Pros: -The episodes are really good. This game has an interesting story that kept me going from beginning to end to see what happens. -Space combat is not the most deep out there, but its satisfying and fun. Yes it's brainless and a spacebar smasher, but enjoyable. -It feels like a true Star Trek experience, despite some questionable things lore-wise. -Missions are repetitive, yeah, but more often than not many of them can be quite creative and entertaining. -There is a lot of room for roleplaying if you're into that sort of thing. -A good amount of content that will keep you busy for a few hundred hours. -The foundry allows for some welcome creativity and what I consider the most meaningful player run aspect of the game. It helps keep things fresh and going when you are out of episodes from the game's main storyline. -Getting in-game currency is not as painful as in other games, and the Exchange (a.k.a auction house) is great for fattening up your wallet. -There is a sizeable amount of voice acting (many of it from actors of the actual Trek shows) to help immersion. -You can customize your character appearance anytime you want, and as many times as you'd like. -The fleet (a.k.a guilds) system is good and has a lot of things going for it, from your own fleet starbase to many other cool things you can add and customize in it. -There is a decent amount of fan service and the tie ins between the tv shows and the game can be clever from time to time. -There are nice events that let you have neat things, as well as giveaways for the same purpose. -The game is regularly updated with content. Cons: -The game is designed to extract money from you. What I hate is that half of how it's done seems appropiate to me. The game seduces you to buy uniforms and packs from your favorite shows. If the milking would have stopped there, It would have been fine. But nope, the game asks you to pay up for the best ships of the game, or grind dilithium for around 2 months just to get one of the tier 6 ships (currently the best ones). And then theres the whole "pay here for xp boosts, pay here to unlock more inventory slots, more character slots, and this and that, and etc." which isn't as annoying as how it was on SWTOR, but still pretty out there. -Ground combat is terrible. At first, I accepted it for what it was, but after hundreds of hours invested here I have come to grips with reality and had to admit the truth: it is just horrible. Shallow, thin, counterintuitive, buggy, and just an overall mess. The AI of your companions gets the job done, but it is barebones basic. And enemy AI is just laughable. Patrols can be so bugged up, their walk will jitter and flicker around like a bad LSD trip. -The game feels like a singleplayer game that was slapped the MMO label because of some online components. There isn't really any need to group for questing and exploring, and end-game content is sort of shallow to even bother and fully experience it, so that pretty much erases any meaningful purpose to grouping. -Fleet actions (a.k.a. dungeons) are ok when they are space based but horrible when ground based. And even in space they can be boring, tedious and repetitive: fight waves of guys, protect some AI ships, and a small twist here and there depending on the particular one you're doing. There are different difficulties in which you can complete these, but considering you pretty much blow through everything with standard solo gear, the need to come together to get the best pieces seems like an aftertought. Don't expect endgame organized raiding here. -The community is just dreadful. The chat on Earth Space Dock really brings out the worst in humanity. I've actually created a special tab in the chat window that filters it out for whenever I visit. Players are not helpful, and every channel feels full of slander and insufferable banter. In groups, it's the norm to roll need on everything, even if you dont really need the gear at all. -This game is not noob friendly. The UI design is not entirely convoluted, but it can take a while to figure out. The map is a mess that will make your head spin the first time around. It is a labyrinthine disaster that will not be kind to a new player at all. Hell, I'm 60 and I still get confused looking at it. -The exploration factor is virtually unexistant, except for some random missions you can pickup when flying near some planets. -There is a lot of grinding, particularly with reputation, dilithium, stuff for the fleet, credits and many other currencies. -Bugs. Bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs. Little bugs, medium bugs, large bugs, game breaking bugs. Bugs everywhere. Sometimes they get patched. Sometimes they don't. Developers are not as terrible as people often say, but they sure slack when it comes to patching for fixing errors. Not to add content, though; they can profit from that. And despite having much more negative things to say about the game than positive and overall not recommending it, I feel obligated to answer the following question: is there any circumstance in which you would recommend the game? Surprisingly, yes. If you are a hardcore fan of Star Trek and videogames, and you are willing to depart from some money then this is for you. Or perhaps if you are one of those fellows that do not mind to grind for months. If you like roleplaying, this game can be hours of fun as well if you find the right fleet. If you're looking for a deep MMO with complex mechanics, don't bother downloading this. If you're not willing to open up the ol' wallet or grind your way through all the stuff you need, then keep browsing for something else as well. What keeps this game alive and running with faithful players that follow it, is that despite all the bad, it is fun. A lot of fun actually. Many of us stick around waiting for a miracle that might never come: for Cryptic to revamp the areas that need it, and to patch the game so it can be rid of the problems it has. Perhaps a bigger developing team, and a more humane cash shop.Show moreShow less

384 hours at review585 people found this helpful

RecommendedSteam player

07/12/2014

I have a lot of wonderful memories stored within the now 2,000 hours of playtime and have met a lot of friends over the years that I wouldn't trade for anything. Being such a Star Trek fan and also having such fond memories tied with this game, it's hard to come to the only reasonable recommendation that any self-respecting game enthusiast could give Star Trek Online. As a Star Trek fan, you'll find that this game is the singular best form of interactive Trek media out there (as of 2020 at least). If you truly appreciate the source material and can understand and accept this non-canon take on post-Picard lore, whether it be from roleplaying or simply living and playing in the larger-than-life universe, then you'll find yourself enjoying the experience. Maybe. As a game fan, you'll find that this game is sorely lacking in many regards. The ground combat is arguably the worst feature of the game, which is one of its biggest flaws. It should be one of its greatest strengths, but it's not. And you'll find that running theme quite common when you evaluate this game as a whole. The space combat (the flip-side of the ground combat coin) is this game's saving grace. This game wouldn't be on anyone's radar if it wouldn't be for that. As per your typical MMO, the gear-grind and building your perfect build is one of its biggest draws. It's fun, what more is there to say? But much like everything else about this game, there's a dark side to ever good aspect of it. This Free to Play MMO suffers from the infamous Pay to Win plague more than any other game that I've had the privilege of experiencing. Yes, it's possible to save up your in-game currencies and grind it out so you don't pay a cent (which a surprising number of people do). But it's not a realistic expectation and nobody should walk into a game having that thrust upon them. If you care about wanting a top tier quality build to be proud of and have fun with, then you'll be disappointed to know some of the best items in the game will force you to spend potentially hundreds of real life dollars to obtain. There's not much more to say about this game that you can't find somewhere else. The bottom line is this: I can't recommend this game. Yes, I'll still be playing this game. But every time a friend asks what I'm playing and if it's good, I can't with good conscious recommend they install it and give it a whirl. If you're a Star Trek fan? Maybe. Give it a shot. It's free, after all. But if you are a game fan then there are so many other objectively better options out there. My personal enjoyment of this game is biased and completely subjective, and I don't want that to conflate with an objective recommendation. But who knows. It's free. And if you're still quarantined then you've got plenty of time on your hands to see for yourself.Show moreShow less

1,680.5 hours at review282 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

10/16/2014

When I first started this game I'd recomend it to anyone interested in space RPGs, now: never. Why? Simple really, in the beginning this game was almost perfectly balanced, with ~30% content grind, but these things where optional and could be found as loot with % drop chance, bought from other players or simply a direct reward while you where exploring new areas etc. As it is now, there are HUGE power creeps, making almost all viable options of ships and skills bad-really bad, and a handfull few stupidly overpowered and all new updates and new ships they pour in makes the ship you grind for obsoleate before you even get it. There are 5 (main) types of credits. Three which you need to specificly grind for. And don't get me started on those damn Locked Boxes, you need a key to open, keys can be bought for ~1-2 000 000 credits (or just pay up real money). Each boxs has ~1-2% chance (stays at that % even if you pay) of holding ANYTHING you would like, most is just useless crap. And forgett the exploration they're boasting about, it's just the same thing over and over, go to place a and defeat three waves of really easy enemies, then defeat the really easy flagship, repeat. (Yes, I played on Elite setting.) Now let me explain where the grind element comes in, a base ship has ~20 slots for equipment. You will grind for: Space: - The ship itself. (Price for good ships ~1 000 000 ( very low end) - 100 000 000 (high end) ingame credits. One Elite mission will give you avarage ~100 000) - Weaponsx6-8. (It'll take you ~3 weeks to get ONE high level ship equipment from a Fleet merchant.) - Shield. - Engine. - Deflector. - Consolesx6-8. - Space crew skills. Personal: (You + crew.) - Weaponx6. - Shieldx5. - Armourx5. - Skill Kit. - Land crew skills. - Crafting. (Gods only know how long THAT will take.) - Passive skills. - Sub missions. (Duty missions.) - Events. (These will pile up quick and if you don't do enough to turn it in (100%), you walk away with nothing.) - Reputationx6-7. - Crafting XP. - Crafting material. (More kinds than you have slots in your Bank btw, and you don't find the ones related to each other in the same place, forcing you to scan every single quadrant to find those you need and end up with a ton of those you don't anyway.) Fleet: (Community effort.) - 5 buildings to simultaniously upgrade, with 6 subcategories each, all 6 can (and need to) be upgraded atleast 5 times. (All demands HUGE quantities the same resources as your ships and eqpts cost.) Don't think that's the end of the list, I just can't remember what more there where. So no, no no no no no no no NO, do not start this game, because it'll eat up all your time and give you nothing in return. Edit after New Dawn: Did you remove your pay-to-progress? No? Well, no change here then.Show moreShow less

1,520.9 hours at review509 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

08/31/2019

Hey, you! Star Trek Online is a game I have sunk many hours into, I have played the game (sometimes intermittently, sometimes continuously) over the course of almost a decade. The amount of hours I have in this game is, suffice to say, embarrassing. So embarrassing that I have stopped running the game through the Steam client despite still actively playing it, there's a bit of sad trivia for you. No, approaching this without a bit of bias might be as impossible as quitting this game for good is, but let's try! I think I can explain. I enjoy it, really. But I don't think you will. In Star Trek Online, we are offered the playground of the beloved science fiction franchise in its entirety! But that's a lot smaller than you might think. We can create a Captain from (as of the time of writing) six faction options, nearly a total of thirty species - but they soon coalesce into just functionally two: the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Want to join the Starfleet from the 60s? Yeah, you can. How about the one from the fandom's controversial Star Trek: Discovery? Please do! A Starfleet officer or Klingon warrior from the game's own plot-line? Absolutely. There's some Romulan representation, too! And you can even be part of the Dominion if you really want to. Starting to read like a bit of a melting pot, huh? Something for everyone, to serve every flavor of Trekkie. So why do I say No? Where do I begin? It's.. big. Flush with content if you're into just playing through the mission episodes. There's a lot there and it might easily overwhelm a new player who just starts out now, and that might even be a plus to some people. But it's an MMO and relies too strongly on practices that haunt this genre of game, it's repetitive as all hell and boils down to either shooting something, one of maybe three mini-games that you'll grow to hate, or a mercifully brief 4-second interaction with your mission target. We're not using space exploration to illustrate an analysis of the Human condition here. That's fine, i'm reviewing a product, it doesn't need to be deep, it needs to sell to an audience. It's functionally identical to many games of its ilk - with a few more 'moving parts' behind the space combat sections, attributes you might expect from other games in the medium, like strength and endurance, are painted over as energy damage and hull capacity. It plays much the same, though; focus on buffing one or two statistics (usually your critical chance & damage, if your play-style is shooting things) and that's most of the superficial depth and difficulty out of the way already. Get used to shooting things, too. What's that? You joined Starfleet to explore things? Well, too bad. They patched most forms of that content (i.e: exploration clusters) out of the game a few years ago, so you'll just have to make do with the mission episodes and system patrols. But, there's a more immediate red flag than that - Trek Online wants to form an intimate attachment to your wallet, know what I mean? It wants you to invest. There's a psychology behind these recurrent microtransactions - and the way they affect this game in particular - that I just can't condone. But it might require some explanation... This game has loot box lunacy. Yeah, let's call it that. It ties some ships that are not inherently more powerful than other ones, per say, behind the 'master keys' and their boxes. Some of these ships are fan favourites, ones you might wish to own. You might buy these keys, or you might grind the in-game currency with a roster of many characters to do such, then maybe you can crack open a box or two a day, it's capped and limited like that - or you can buy your keys and ships with credits, that being your uncapped currency, but I hope you brought MILLIONS, or hundreds of millions if you wanted a ship. You can only hold ten million credits without an ingame purchase to uncap yourself, too, so maybe that warrants mentioning. There's a catch about these ships in the boxes, by the by, they are more powerful. The abilities a ship can slot and use vary per ship, as do what you can equip on it (number of fore/aft weapons, number of consoles that buff X skills or grant an ability that does Y, some do both). A ship from one of these premium boxes will come with a unique trait that is unlocked through playing around with the ship for awhile - and a console that can usually be equipped on any other ship you might happen to own. These two factors can change the entire game. Some are comparatively useless and entirely forgettable; but some clearly demonstrate the disparity between an 'investor' and a free player. I just cannot in good conscience recommend this to any progression orientated player - for placing ships, or any item that can give a feasible advantage over another player, behind gambling mechanics (yes, it is gambling by the way) is just wrong. Many ships are also available for direct purchase with equally beneficial consoles and traits in the game's cash shop, too, and it's very likely that you will feel compelled to buy one when you hit the level cap. That must be an daunting choice by now, the amount of ships in the final level bracket is immense. The amount of ships with useful traits is considerably smaller than this. There's limited room to manoeuvre with a play-style, and you're probably going to end up buying more ships to their collect traits and compensate for an uninformed earlier choice. That is, if you aren't spooked away from the game already. Then maybe you'll buy a couple more to fill all five of your starship trait slots up, see where i'm going with this? Then before you know it, that's a couple hundred dollars that just slipped through your fingers and into the corporate maw. The game's also showing some worrying signs of fatigue from the longevity of its development life-cycle, too. It has added a veritable mountain of content since I began playing, changed development studios and gotten a strange fixation with streamlining what had been added before. Maybe we're getting more than we're losing, though, maybe Trek Online isn't in the state of decline that I think it is. What's been lost can be seen in the gradual homogeneity of every faction as the mission storylets progress. They begin relatively distinct, but are soon all ham-fisted into an awkward alliance for development convenience, with the written mission text given some VERY subtle rewrites from faction to faction, that's if you're lucky. We can use the popular metaphor of a theme-park for the solo content, when you've been on all the rides once? That's kinda it. And, well, I can't talk about missions without mentioning an elephant in the room. If ever you grew bored of the game's episodes and same-ish 'save the day' plot threads, there was the foundry; the amazing, but increasingly neglected and broken, set of construction tools in which to create and share your own missions, able to remedy any content drought - another mountain of content that was right at your fingertips! The possibilities were almost endless. But they got rid of it, unfortunately. Lamenting might be crass and pointless, especially in my review of all places, but it's important to understand it was a source of incredible creativity, home to stories that, at times, outshone the game's own writing staff. You wanted to play your Klingon warrior and actually feel like you were taking part in a story engineered for that particular narrative? Take a nice break from the rota of PvE queues and content? You went there. It was great. That's it for the time being. This story's over. Maybe I'll append this later, but this is real close to the text limit, so probably not. I am of a mind that this game's days are coming to be numbered, with MMO's I feel this is kind of a given - but I could be wrong? If you've made it this far, thanks! And I hope you understand a bit more about Star Trek: Online. You have the bridge, Number OneShow moreShow less

3,744.6 hours at review507 people found this helpful

RecommendedSteam player

07/23/2015

I enjoy this game. I don't write reviews, I Love Star Trek and this is easy to get lost in and with all the negative reviews I've read I have to write something positive. I would absolutely recommend this game. Kills me to see/read reviews that are thumbs down by players who have hundereds of hours in and speak all this good and try to throw out "pay to win" or that cryptic doesn't give back. "it's pay to win." Everyone who complains that you have to pay to win is just wrong. You can earn game currency(zen) by playing the game. you get dilithium just by playing. You have to refine that dilithium and exchange it for zen. You are only allowed 8000 dilithium to be refined a day. at this time I think the exchange rate in 280's dilithium to 1 zen. You can do the math, too early for me to do it. Sure it takes longer than paying but what doesn't and it's not difficult at all. I saved up 3000k zen by doing this and it seemed like it took no time. For reference, you get 500 zen a month by subscription. Bought the ship I wanted that was only offered using zen. It's not pay to win. In fact it comes easy just going through and playing you earn dilithium just doing the regular missions. You also earn by doing side crew assignments which run while you're doing missions. You earn different ships by leveling which is the other thing. Most of the ships you buy with zen aren't that much different than the ones you earn leveling, at least I wouldn't see it being a problem for a casual player of the game. Paying doesn't earn you any combat bonuses either. Paying really only opens up more slots for officers, ships, and gives currency each month. look it up on the site. It only expands those slots by a few. PLUS if you pay for a month subscription, cancel, and never sub again. you KEEP all the bonuses you earned while subscribed, with the exception of the monthly money, when you're unsubsscribed. Who else does that? I've been playing for a few years now, on and off, and all i've seen this game do is grow and develop into something awesome. I look forward to the new content or "seasons" and the devs always seem to do something to draw me back if I stop playing for a while. The map has expanded and grown to be awesome. If you're a fan, sometimes just flying around the map and visiting the places you recognize is rewarding enough. Cryptic has done nothing but improve this game step by step and continue to do so. They feature voice work by actual star trek cast and seem to be making this a truly remarkable and unique game. The thing I love most is the foundry missions. Which are player created missions that play as episodes in Star Trek. So you have your ship that you get in game, you have your crew, and then you get to take them on these episodes/missions that feel like you're playing through an episode that you're watching on TV. This is by far one of the greatest things this game has to offer for the fan who wishes he could watch a new episode. and as a plus, anyone can create missions through the foundry. The "Fleets" are like guilds or clans in this game. and I have found them nothing but helpful. Content is unlocked by joining one. Awesome features that I think are worth your while. 1st column is recommended. The game itself is beautiful and any Star Trek fan has to geek a little to be able to take a character though all the places you've watched growing up. There are problems with every game and everyone is different in what bothers them vs someone else but to generally thumb down this game is rediculous. I feel sorry for those people because I'm sure they are having trouble finding a fleet or are frustrated with maybe the learning curve of all the content but if you give this game a fair chance, and are a fan of Star Trek, I think you'll find yourself feeling that same feeling you felt while watching your favorite episodes when they first aired just playing through and learning the game. I personally cannot wait to see what they do with it in the future. *UPDATE* I once again have gotten lost in this game. I take breaks from it due to life or other games however when I come back it's been updated and made better each time. I am enjoying the new content so much I thought I'd updae this review and say that if you were thinking about giving this a chance, go ahead. You'll be surprised and even may find yourself a new fan if you weren't one already. LLAP everyoneShow moreShow less

512 hours at review242 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

12/26/2014

The story line is VERY good, very trek and as you can see I've spent SOME hours in the game. It used to be very fun but lately the devs arrogance is increasing and theay are NOT listening to the playerbase. A great amount of players are unsatisfied at the moment and instead of communicating with the community all they do is deleting threads they don't like on the forums New content coming in frequently so you don't get bored, problem is alongside new bugs come in and in between there is not enough time/crew to fix them so the list just gets longer and longer. update 5.3.15: they are releasing new not canon high end tier ships now which are improved versions of the canonships already ingame for more $$ - €€. Also you get the option to let them look like those old canonships most of the players already have (payed for). And for saying this I got: You have been banned from Star Trek Online Discussions by a Star Trek Online developer for your post in "Star Trek Online General Discussions" I think some Ferengi runs the company -greed is eternal update 18.04.15 gamebreaking bugs that steal palytime from you and the supp wont help for lost stuff me out of the game now 4.9.15 back in the game since few weeks and another time respecing one of my toons let 3 personal traits disappear a dev looked into it and said he was able to reproduce the bug no compensation - also other ppl on the forums with the same issue they fixed the bug on the next patch noptes 21.11.15 long time asked by players now 9 personal trait slots for space AND ground unfortunate some palyers including me experience loadignscreen stuck on maps: ESD DS9 NR sometimes 7 restarts of the game required to finally load no comments on that from cryptic problem sicne release of NEW DAWN 4.1.16 one of my toons ground tray bugged, supports admits they cant fidn the issue borticuscryptic looked at it no so far 28.3.16 directX related gamecrash has finally been fixed 17.10.16 after more than a half year some other player found a fix for my tray problem and a way to reproduce the bug. Lets see if crypric fixes it or not. 26.10.16 Replicator items have been removed from fleet projects and replaced with plain EC donation. While a lot of ppl find that good since they had to spend EC to get them its less clicky now. BUT if u do a little calculation its more EC now then u had to spend before! Also there are ppl with special ships that offer those items at a reduced price. So those ppl are doublescewed. In addition all fleet projects that havent been filled and weather they got those items filled or not got emptied throu the patch. For my fleet one project was filled with 24000 energy cells and aft the patch needed 21million EC! 2017 Space and ground "balance" patches lets keep it short: some things got nerved some thigns got buffed is the game balance better now? nope Because of the droprates of limited time offerd ships some of thsoe are worth ~375$/€ not that those ships are stronger than others... just more rare to get implimentation of an easy way to get TONS of gold pressed latinum but nothing additional to spend it on victory is life addon is bringing playable jem'hadar, free ofc no wait there is a "better" version with better offensive in space and ground available for €€€/$$$ so yeah we now reached plain pay2win we call it pay'hadar *This review is subject to change if the dev team changes its strategyShow moreShow less

6,654.1 hours at review485 people found this helpful

Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.