Star Trek Online changes hands

Perpetual development ceases as Star Trek MMO moves to a new studio, meaning certain delays

January 16, 2008

Perpetual Entertainment (which is becoming P2 Entertainment) will no longer be developing Star Trek Online. Paramount has not canceled the game, however, and has instead transferred the project to another development studio.

The unnamed developer, which has only been identified as a Bay Area studio, will be receiving the license to develop the game, as well as the content for the game itself. The code, however, will not be transfered to the new development team and remains in P2's hands.

Perpetual Entertainment had previously been working on Star Trek Online, as well as another MMORPG, Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising. Gods & Heroes, however, is also currently on hold. That game had been originally scheduled to launch in 2005, but was delayed until 2008. The game opened up for beta in October 2006, but a year later the company announced that Rome Rising would be put on hold.

The new developer has acquired Star Trek Online's contents, including dialogue scripts and artwork, but the code will need to be written from scratch.

Perpetual's successor, P2 Entertainment, will continue to develop its other, more successful business lines: the Perpetual Platform, which is licensed to companies like BioWare, and the casual gaming market.

The news of Star Trek Online's change of hands suggests that fans of the series will have to wait much longer before beginning their Starfleet careers. Considering how the new developers don't have any of the game's code, it's unlikely that the game will emerge before 2010. Perpetual had previously stated that the game would go online around the release of the eleventh Star Trek film, which is set to be released on Christmas Day of this year.