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Star Trek: Infection is set to serve up a survival-horror experience in December, pitting you against a mysterious infection that’s ravaged a Starfleet ship by changing the crew into deadly mutants.

The News

Set aboard the U.S.S. Lumen, the single-player game lets you step into the boots of a Vulcan Starfleet officer tasked with a covert mission, which quickly spirals into “a psychological and physical nightmare,” developer Played With Fire says.

You’ll fight to keep your Vulcan logic as you selectively mutate your body to battle a dangerous entity, which “is learning your fears and using them against you,” the studio revealed in August.

Now, according to a Bloober Team investor relations post (via UploadVR), the studio is set to release Star Trek: Infection on December 11th, coming to the Horizon Store for Quest 3 & 3S and PC VR headset via Steam.

The studio initially announced in August that launch would be staggered, coming first to Quest this year, and then later to SteamVR headsets. We’re still waiting on broader release date info from the company to see if that’s still the case.

My Take

I’ve heard many commenters unhappy with the fact that the next Star Trek VR-native will essentially be survival-horror, which some don’t think can fit with the franchise’s broader ethos. I understand that concern, and I can’t say I’m not worried too.

As an unwashed Trek fan baptized in the CRT glow of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I think there’s more than enough narrative flexibility in the series to make it fit though.

I can’t count on my fingers and toes how many horror-themed episodes were featured across The Original Series, TNG, or Strange New Worlds (and, uh, the other ones), so treating an errant infection that turns everyone into dangerous monsters as somehow foreign to the series feels a bit like missing the forest for the holographic trees.

Still, I get it. It may not be the Trek game you want, but it’s hard to deny that Infection could be verifiably Trek if it can nail the vibe, lore and ship design. It’s also treading some pretty familiar territory by featuring a typical Vulcan who unleashes his tightly clamped-down emotions—basically the entire story arch for the SNW version of Spock, who slips in and out of his metaphorical Kolinahr leash to battle his frighteningly powerful emotions within.

At least from a VR immersion perspective, I’m interested in seeing how the body mod upgrades work, which actually sound like a cool way of turning a would-be action-shooter into something refreshingly different. Whatever the case, I typically give all things Trek a fair shake before judging, which is exactly what I’ll do with Star Trek: Infection when it launches in December.