4. Its A Co-op Focused Game
Co-op used to be a pretty common feature in games, but as the graphics grew more sophisticated and services like Xbox Live and PlayStation Network evolved, co-op became rarer and rarer. While the Halo's, Gears of War's, and Army of Two's of the gaming world are keeping co-op alive, its a pretty rare thing to see a game developed specifically for co-op. But this Star Trek games mechanics revolve around asymmetric co-op, where Kirk and Spock get different abilities because of who the characters are. And that means there are certain hurdles it has to clear if it wants to do well with audiences. First, since co-op games are designed to be played with another player, there tends to be problems when you play alone. Friendly AI in video games isnt the greatest thing in the world, often making a somewhat frustrating, but tolerable experience into a blood churning torture session. Second, making asymmetric co-op fun is a bit of a challenge (even ignoring the problems a single player causes). Its hard enough to make cover shooting fun and exciting, but adding all the special abilities players get as Spock makes things harder to balance and keep players from feeling gypped if theyre stuck as Kirk. Third, no one knows if its got splitscreen co-op. For console players, this could be a make or break feature. Its a lot easier to convince a friend to come over and play a game on the same console than it is to get them to buy a game just to play co-op; if they want to play with a friend online, they can just get a party and start playing multiplayer in Call of Duty. If Star Trek wants to make a name for itself, it needs to have splitscreen from day one.