Paradox's grand strategy Star Trek Infinite will receive no further updates
Just months after release
Paradox have a reputation for updating their games in perpetuity, with both free patches and DLC, even if players would rather they stopped. Star Trek Infinite is bucking that trend, it seems.
The grand strategy game was released last year and has only received a few patches since, and now it's been confirmed that it will receive no further updates.
"Sadly, we must inform you that Star Trek: Infinite will not receive further updates," reads the announcement on March 27th, alongside some pablum thanking everyone and everything for their support.
Players on Steam aren't feeling so supportive, where already 'mixed' reviews have fallen sharply into 'overwhelmingly negative'. Ctrl+F "abandoned" to clock the eleven uses of the word on the first page.
Star Trek Infinite? "Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of false advertising since my suit against the film 'The Neverending Story'," as Lionel Hutz would say.
Sin seemed to be having a good time in her Star Trek Infinite review, while carrying plenty of complaints.
And yet... I recorded all these complaints with a detached sort of "hmm" rather than major frustration. It's one of the most low-stress strategy games I've played this year, and its detail comprehensible once you've picked up the stone it's hiding under. It's a combination of engaging and undemanding that grand strategy seldom manages, and has enough Trek stuff to work for someone who's seen most of the serieseses but only once, and can only sometimes tell if something's a reference to an episode or wholly new. How the boon of such a familiar setting will stand against the weight of that setting's expectations I do not know, but if you go in wanting an enjoyable game that you kind of already know, Infinite will be a pleasant little surprise.
Which only makes it more of a shame that there won't be more of it and that players feel frustrated by the experience.
I've played plenty of Star Trek games over the years and I've loved a couple, but I'm not sure any of them have been great. I loved Star Trek: Armada mostly because the ship stats were all held in text files so it was trivially easy to mod the game and construct a fleet of undefeatable Enterprises.