Star Trek Resurgence's Spock isn't Leonard Nimoy, but he sounds darn close

It's been a big year for Star Trek. The franchise's presence on the Paramount+ streaming service has never been greater and its grip on audiences, both old and new, has only gotten tighter. As Star Trek's presence in television grows, the same is becoming true for video games. One title that Trekkies have been looking to is Star Trek Resurgence, from the former Telltale devs at Dramatic Labs. Shacknews had a chance to try the game out during our time at Summer Game Fest's Play Days and we were amazed at how well the atmosphere stays true to the source material.

Resurgence's faithfulness to the Star Trek franchise extends to the game's voice acting. The story mainly follows two members of the U.S.S. Resolute: First Officer Jara Rydek and the engineer crew's Carter Diaz. Diaz shines as a rookie crew member striving to win the approval of his Vulcan superior officer, Lieutenant Commander Chovak. Meanwhile, Rydek is part of a Federation diplomacy mission on the Hotari homeworld, where the Hotari have seized a dilithium mining site from the Alydian race. The Alydians are clearly unhappy about this and it doesn't take long for players to see how far out of her element that Rydek is, especially as she's confronted by the Hotari Queen.

This leads to one of the most pleasant surprises of Resurgence. The senior member of the Federation's diplomacy team is Ambassador Spock. As long-time Trek fans are acutely aware, the great Leonard Nimoy tragically passed away in 2015. A titan of the industry, he is fondly remembered for making Spock a household name. There is no replacing him, though Dramatic Labs took up the unenviable task of trying.

The result was an Ambassador Spock who sounded eerily like Nimoy. After completing the diplomacy scene, I was struck at how uncannily Spock's voice resembled the late actor to the point that I asked Dramatic Labs representatives on hand about who was playing the role. The answer will please fans of Screen Junkies, as Spock is played by actor Piotr Michael, who previously took on the role in the Star Trek Into Darkness Honest Trailer almost ten years ago. The reps noted that Dramatic Labs heard dozens of auditions for the Spock role and Michael outshined the competition by leaps and bounds.

The pristine voice acting adds to what feels like it will be an engaging Star Trek experience. The team at Dramatic Labs is comprised of former Telltale developers and it certainly shows. Players will be tasked with making dialogue choices throughout the story, but there's one thing to note that's changed from the old Telltale days. Players will need to be much more decisive. There is no silence option and the game's characters, at certain points, will be pressured for answers. In fact, going back to the confrontation between Rydek and the Hotari Queen, the Queen at one point asks Rydek a question that's sure to anger at least one side of the negotiations and she makes it a point to demand a straight answer with no wishy-washy in-between answers available.

Dramatic Labs looks like they're ready to boldly go where the former Telltale team has never gone before. Look for Star Trek Resurgence to release on PC (via the Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 4 later this year.

This preview is based on hands-on impressions from an early demo present at Summer Game Fest 2022's Play Days.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?