Blizzard Buys Cryptic - Star Trek Licence Confirmed

Posted by Stropp on April 1, 2008

Man it pays not to sleep!

One of my contacts has confirmed that, hot on the heels of the Activision merger, Blizzard has concluded talks to buy Cryptic Studios. As part of that deal, Blizzard is also gaining access to the Star Trek Online licence.

The new property will be called World of Star Trek. Blizzards John Smedley explains:

The World of Warcraft branding is important to us here at Blizzard. Our marketing department has determined through rigorous consumer testing that the ‘World of’ prefix is one of the primary reasons for the success of World of Warcraft. Most people think it’s our attention to detail with casual friendly gameplay, but that’s not it all.

Consequently, all of our new MMOs will use the ‘World of’ prefix, for instance, ‘World of Diablo 3.’ All of the MMO companies that we buy with our 500 million dollar profit in the next year will also be required to execute a name change for their games.

I was lucky enough to talk to a senior Blizzard staffer about the features of the new game. Unfortunately, most of the features are very hush hush. Luckily, I can tell you about some of them.

• Some of the locations include, Star Fleet Academy, the planet Vulcan, the Klingon Homeworld, the Ocampa World, and the 1950’s mining town from that episode of Enterprise.
• Players will be able to create a Borg player character and assimilate other player characters.
• Newbie areas will have phasers restricted to stun.
• The Prime Directive will be involved by giving players quests where they are not allowed to do anything.
• Players using the transporters will be beamed to random locations for missions, much as in the television series’.
• Players will be able to me, and be given away missions by every Captain from each series.
• Similar to monster play in Lord of the Rings Online, a PvP 1v1 arena option will be provided where players will be able to engage in a battle royale as either Kirk or Picard.

Due to large parts of the game already completed, World of Star Trek will be released before Christmas this year. As Blizzard does not want a conflict with other upcoming releases, Wrath of the Lich King will be delayed to Fall of 2009.

Popularity: 21%