Ubisoft’s virtual reality take on Star Trek has been delisted on Steam and the Oculus Store. Star Trek: Bridge Crew is a cooperative VR game that tasks players with collaborating on the upkeep of the Enterprise. James had a lot of fun with it back in 2017, and while it was definitely built for VR headsets, a non-VR edition did eventually release.
But if you head over to the Steam page now, a notice warns that “at the request of the publisher, Star Trek: Bridge Crew is no longer available for sale on Steam.” Meanwhile, the game is only available to wishlist on the Oculus Store. There is, at the time of writing, one way to purchase Star Trek: Bridge Crew, and that’s via the Ubisoft webstore. You’ll need to buy it via browser, though, because it’s unavailable on the Ubisoft desktop app.
Often when a game is delisted, the publisher offers forewarning and sometimes even a drastic discount, but not in this instance. I’ve reached out to Ubisoft for comment on the delisting, though given it’s a Star Trek game, it’s probably due to a license expiry.
That doesn’t rule out its return, though, and there’s every possibility the delisting will be brief. One recent example of a temporary delisting was the LEGO Lord of the Rings games. Activision’s fairly average Deadpool game also has a history of being intermittently unavailable.
It’d be a real shame if Bridge Crew doesn’t return in some form, because it ticks a lot of roleplaying boxes for long time Star Trek fans. “During my four hour session with Star Trek: Bridge Crew, there wasn’t any mind-bending discovery or unbounding optimism and no kissing (damn!),” James wrote in 2017 ahead of the game’s launch. “There was a lot of goofing off and weird finger gestures and panicked yelling. We’re not professional space pilots with cool accents and trim jumpsuits, but Bridge Crew makes me want to be one.”