Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown Exclusive Interview

A New Voyage Begins

At Gamescom 2025, inside Daedalic Entertainment’s booth, the publisher rolled out a slate that ranged from Bloodgrounds to Coins, Crown and Cabal. The clear centerpiece was the freshly announced Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown. In an exclusive interview, I sat down with Sarah Lindhorst, Lead Narrative Designer, and Christian Schwarz, Game Designer — joined this time by my wife, a long-time Voyager fan — to chart where this new voyage is headed.

Back in October 2023, GameXcite secured a Star Trek license, planting the flag for a Voyager story built with modern design tools. Nearly two years on, that early promise has taken shape, and the team is ready to talk about choices, canon, and the risk of carving new space between familiar stars. While the release date for Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown is still unconfirmed, we sat down with the developers at Gamescom to gather concrete details. What follows are the first signals from inside the project – and how the crew plans to honor the past while pushing into the unknown.

Voyager’s Legacy and GameXcite’s Path

GameXcite is a Hamburg studio best known for licensed titles with a comic touch: Asterix & Friends: Remastered (2021), Idle Asterix (2022), and Asterix & Obelix: Heroes (2023). That portfolio shows a team comfortable with character‑driven worlds and established franchises, which makes a Star Trek project a natural fit. Trek demands coherent rules, ethical pressure, and room for curiosity.

Star Trek: Voyager aired from 1995 to 2001 and followed Captain Kathryn Janeway and her crew, flung to the Delta Quadrant and seventy thousand light-years from Earth. Week to week, the series balanced survival with science, and folded in questions about identity, culture, and command. Characters like Seven of Nine reframed what it means to reclaim humanity, while the show’s blend of exploration and diplomacy broadened Trek’s reach to a new generation.

Voyager left a distinct cultural wake – a woman in the captain’s chair on a network sci-fi show, a long arc about finding home, and a tone that made space for optimism without denying cost. Yet it was never universally embraced. Admirers point to Seven of Nine’s journey, bold episodes like “Year of Hell”, and the hope that threaded through even the darkest plots. Critics cite erratic writing, Janeway’s divisive command style, and the so-called reset-button endings that often erased consequence. Others simply turned it into meme culture, joking there are “three ways to do something – the right way, the wrong way, and the Janeway.”

Voyager carved a place in Trek where identity, resilience, and command decisions were tested every week. In 2025, those questions feel timely again.

In our exclusive interview at Gamescom, the GameXcite team explained how those same debates inspired their approach to Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown. By turning legacy controversies into branching choices, they aim to let players live through the arguments that once divided the fanbase — this time with the agency to decide how the journey unfolds.

Setting The Course

The presentation opened with a declaration: “Your ship, your crew, your journey, your mission – bring Voyager home.” From the first moments, Sarah Lindhorst, Lead Narrative Designer at GameXcite, leaned into the voice of Captain Janeway. She reminded the room that this was not a simple adaptation but a layered what‑if scenario. What if Seven of Nine never joined the crew? What if Seska survived and rejoined? What if Tuvok’s fate had been sealed earlier?

These branching questions framed the game’s bold pitch: the familiar Delta Quadrant story re‑imagined with permanent consequences. As Lindhorst told us during the interview, “Every decision I make has far-reaching consequences – whether in the way I build and lead my ship, or in the adventures my crew and I live through.”

Rewriting History

The design philosophy is clear. Where the television series was often accused of leaning on the “reset button”, the game aims for permanence. Death is final, resources are scarce, and choices close as many doors as they open. In one example, Chakotay is mortally wounded in a Vidiians encounter; in another, B’Elanna is split into two halves, and only her Klingon side survives. These aren’t scripted canon moments – they’re branches created by the player’s stewardship.

“Every decision I make has far‑reaching consequences – in the way I build and lead my ship, and in the adventures my crew and I live through.”

– Sarah Lindhorst

It’s here that Voyager’s divisive legacy finds new ground. Lindhorst and her team embrace the contradictions, offering players a chance to steer into paths the show never dared. “We can rewrite history on our journey, and the journey starts in the heart of Voyager itself – the ship.”

The Ship as a Character

Managing Voyager is more than cosmetic layout. Each deck holds limited space, every room requires energy, and every allocation ripples through the voyage. Mess hall or sick bay? Shuttle bay or hydroponics? Do you keep the holodeck powered for morale, or shut it down to conserve energy for shields?

Rooms can be upgraded, repaired, or dismantled. Crew must be assigned to keep them running. “As a captain, I must decide on the focus of my vessel. Will we be a ship of science, or a ship of combat, or something in between?” Lindhorst explained. That decision cascades through a tech tree – researching hydroponics to feed hungry orphans, or building disruptor beams to face hostile raiders. Each fork alters narrative outcomes, unlocking or denying solutions when crises arise.

By the way: the game is confirmed to be built in Unreal Engine 5 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. That puts it firmly in the current-gen space, though the visual style shown at Gamescom felt modest compared to flashier UE5 showcases. Official system requirements have not been disclosed yet, but the absence of heavy ray tracing or particle-intensive effects suggests it could run on a broader range of hardware. It’s even tempting to imagine potential future ports beyond the announced platforms — though that’s purely my speculation (and yes, plz plz plz Switch too!).

Living Systems

Christian Schwarz, Game Designer, demonstrated how these mechanics tie into moment‑to‑moment play. Each sector of the Delta Quadrant – twelve in all – contains procedurally generated star systems. A full voyage could, in theory, be completed in twelve hours, but survival demands careful planning. “In a star system, we need deuterium to power engines, uranium and titanium for maintenance, and food to feed the crew,” Lindhorst outlined. Choices become gambles: send shuttles into a hazardous gas giant for deuterium, risking lives for fuel, or play it safe and limp forward.

Morale underpins it all. Serve emergency rations too often, neglect quarters, or deny holodeck time, and mutiny becomes a real risk. “Without the support of my crew, the journey will fail. There will be a mutiny, and then it’s game over,” Lindhorst warned.

Encounters & Combat

Exploration is punctuated by ambushes. The Kazon may spring from nowhere, forcing tactical combat. Players do not pilot directly; instead, they allocate energy between shields, weapons, and engines while issuing commands: target engines, disable weapons, or retreat. Officers bring unique skills – Tom Paris with evasive maneuvers, the Doctor with specialized interventions. Resources like torpedoes are limited and costly, reinforcing the survival stakes.

Schwarz emphasized that combat is one expression of build strategy. A science‑focused ship might drain energy from foes or avoid conflict entirely. Diplomacy, too, can defuse encounters. “Not every meeting has to be hostile,” Lindhorst said. A distress call from Riley Fraser illustrated this, leading to an away mission aboard an abandoned Borg cube.

Away Missions & Dilemmas

Away missions unfold as chains of challenges. Heroes carry attributes – diplomacy, engineering, and command – that determine success. Pairing the Doctor and Seska, for example, increases the odds where one alone might fail. Success yields rewards; failure fatigues heroes or risks their lives. Critical successes can unlock unique technologies, sometimes available only once in the entire game.

The Riley Fraser mission underscored the game’s moral tension. What began as altruism – retrieving Borg tech to “restore peace” – ended in deception. Fraser was herself ex‑Borg, and the player faced a choice: trust her, hoard the technology, or destroy it. Each option triggered cascading effects: morale shifts, new sick bay tech, or long‑term suspicion of the crew. “You always need to ask yourself – what’s most important: morale, resources, or technology?” Lindhorst noted.

Consequences That Linger

Consequences echo beyond single quests. Aggressive choices against the Kazon raise sector hostility, leading to more ambushes. Darker decisions, like in a retelling of the infamous “Equinox” arc, may push the captain into morally compromised ground – even triggering mutiny. Schwarz teased that even recruiting unlikely allies, such as a Kazon defector, could shift outcomes in later conflicts.

The team stressed in our Gamescom interview that this is not a sandbox without oversight. Paramount reviews material, but within the “what‑if” framing, GameXcite has wide freedom. “With the what‑if scenarios, we had a lot of freedom. Overall, it’s the story you know – but you can change it,” Lindhorst said.

Living With Failure

Asked about save‑scumming, Lindhorst was firm: “It’s not like in Baldur’s Gate 3. What you do matters, and you have to live with it.” The game employs auto‑saves, and while players can restart a sector if beloved crew members die, they cannot erase every misstep. “Sometimes it’s interesting to live with what happens,” Schwarz added. “But of course, if it’s your favourite character, a lot of fans would restart the sector.”

That balance – consequence with a small safety net – mirrors the design ethos throughout. Voyager’s televised “reset button” becomes a deliberate rejection in the game, forcing players to carry scars forward.

Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown

Ultimately, Lindhorst promised, “The crew you start with will not be the crew you bring home.” Starting rosters always include the main cast, but recruits, deaths, and betrayals will shape each journey. Moral dilemmas, branching storylines, and resource pressure ensure no two voyages are alike. Every captain crafts a different legacy.

“The crew you start with will not be the crew you bring home.”

– Sarah Lindhorst

As the session closed, the developers reflected on their unusual freedom: building a game that honors Voyager’s DNA while daring to ask what else might have been. “You will have a narrative with many branching storylines. You have moral dilemmas all the way. And your ship, your crew, will be shaped by your decisions,” Lindhorst said. The point, she stressed, was not just survival but authorship.

A Starfleet-Style Sendoff

Honestly, the presentation didn’t try to rival the cinematic bombast of AAA publishers – no theaters, no blinding lights – yet it felt more memorable. Sarah Lindhorst slipped easily into Janeway’s role, Christian Schwarz played her lieutenant, and together they delivered mechanics through playful roleplay. It was intimate, natural, and heartwarming.

The ship management system instantly recalled Fallout Shelter and other management sims, with its sliced decks and modular rooms where crew members are trained for specific roles. Many of the outcomes hinge on chance: you assign the right officer to the right task, then watch a bouncing success meter resolve the roll. My recommendation is to capitalize on this mechanic. If the visual design of those rolls is polished and engaging, they could spark the kind of viral moments that made Baldur’s Gate 3’s dice checks so shareable. Funny failures, critical successes, or unlikely saves could become meme-worthy Trek stories in their own right.

By the end, my hands were itching to try the role of captain myself – to juggle resources, manage morale, and shape the fate of my own Voyager. We spent every minute deep in conversation about both the game and the series, and the passion of the team was obvious. If there were an award for best roleplay presentation, they’d earn it without question.

“Funny failures, critical successes, and unlikely saves could turn into meme-worthy Trek stories.”

And if you’re curious yourself, the Steam page for Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown is live. Adding the game to your wishlist is one of the simplest but most powerful ways to encourage the team to keep going. At the time of writing, there is no confirmed release date or published system requirements — details that fans are already searching for, and which we’ll update once they’re available.

For now… Voyager out!