Star Trek Online in 2026
This year is the 60th anniversary of Star Trek. The original TV show was first broadcast in the US on September 8th 1966. If you search online you’ll find details of lots of related events. There are documentaries, conventions, new TV shows and even some video games in development. However, what you won’t find are any details regarding what will be happening with the MMORPG Star Trek Online. So far no road map for 2026 has been posted online by the developers but it is still quite early in the New Year. That being the case, I am not especially optimistic about there being any major plans waiting to be revealed. It is not as if DECA Games have demonstrated or stated any major ambitions for STO beyond keeping the endless events treadmill going and regularly adding content to the in-game store, during their development tenure. The ongoing story arc drags on inexorably and is as dull as ditchwater.
In recent years Star Trek as a franchise has seen a resurgence in public interest, due to some good TV shows. Sadly, absolutely nothing has been done by DECA Games to capitalise upon this, apart from adding themed, purchasable items from the new shows, into the in-game store. It all seems a somewhat wasted opportunity and a little sad, as this MMORPG has always had a great deal of potential. The change of developers from Cryptic to DECA Games in 2024 was a good opportunity to start improving the quality of story content and to address the huge amount of bugs and “jank” that have been inherent in STO since its launch in 2010. Sadly, the recent transition away from DECA Games back to the residual Cryptic Studios and wider ownership and publishing issues in late 2025 have stalled any major changes. The game has ticked over with a minimal amount of new content, which tends to be just more of the same. I wouldn’t say that STO is in maintenance mode but it’s not far from it.
I did some searching online to see what things had been discussed over the course of 2025 as potential projects, or areas of improvement. I only found two. The first being a feasibility study to see if the game engine could be upgraded or replaced. At present the game runs on the proprietary Cryptic engine, made by the original developers. This dates back to 2000 and although it has been updated over the years, it is still essentially running on two decade old code. Naturally, I would love to see STO running on something more robust and contemporary, such as Unreal Engine but I suspect the cost of porting the game to this would be unfeasible. Especially in light of the fact that the current publishers, Project Golden Arc, were formed after a management buyout from the Embracer Group. It will take a while for these business changes to take effect and no doubt finances may be scarce.
Another proposal that has been discussed in forums is a continued focus on character customisation, specifically race and gender changes, along with improvements to core gameplay systems. All of which sounds broadly positive but is also vague with respect to detail. Hence this doesn’t really sound like anything more than bug fixing. Which when added to the vague and let us be realistic, unlikely change of game engine, means that there isn’t much that we know about what is coming to STO this year. At this point in such a post, I’d usually say something conciliatory. Especially in light of the game effectively returning into the hands of some of the original developers. But frankly I am beyond that. There are other enjoyable franchise based MMORPGs that already have regular content updates and a coherent road map for the immediate future. I’ll be focusing on those games for the foreseeable future. Which is something I shouldn’t be saying in the year Star Trek celebrates its 60th anniversary.
Roger Edwards