Ubisoft’s Star Trek: Bridge Crew may be preparing for a complete shutdown, as it was removed from Steam and the Oculus Store recently. The delisting is likely due to the expired licensing of Star Trek properties from Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios. Compatibility issues may be a factor as well since the game has not seen much support since 2018. Bridge Crew has been a popular VR game receiving generally positive reviews on Metacritic and in 2017 PC Gamer ranked it among the best Star Trek games, so despite a lot of positive feedback, it is unfortunate to see it let go like this.
On February 11, Delisted Games confirmed that the immersive Star Trek experience was only available to buy online from the Ubisoft Store for Oculus and Vive devices, as well as the PlayStation 4 for PSVR. It is on sale in the PlayStation Store until Feb 16 but may remain on the Ubisoft store with an account login as of now. Though it is also possible to pick up retail copy, even logging in for single-player missions requires the Bridge Crew’s servers to be online. If Ubisoft decided to shut down these servers, the game would completely lock its players out and be effectively dead. There is currently no official announcement as to the reasons behind this delisting or whether Ubisoft will keep its servers online. Current server alert updates can be viewed on the Ubisoft support website.
Bridge Crew was developed by Red Storm Entertainment and published by Ubisoft, first released in 2017 for Windows PC, PlayStation 4, and Oculus Quest. It was initially created for VR to place its players in the heart of the Star Trek universe as they man the original bridge of the legendary U.S.S Enterprise. A few months after its release it was modified so it could be played outside of VR, though the optimal gameplay is performed through a headset. Its four-player role-playing capability and overall exciting strategy-based in-game experience have landed Bridge Crew with several game award nominations for best VR game such as the Games Critics Awards in 2016 and the Golden Joystick Awards in 2017.