One of the industry"s more off-again, on-again projects has officially reclaimed its on-again status... again. Star Trek: Shattered Universe for PlayStation 2 has been picked up for publication by TDK Mediactive. As you may know, the game was originally supposed to be published by Interplay back in the winter of 2001.
The game, developed by Starsphere Interactive, is spun out from the classic Original Series episode "Mirror, Mirror" and is set in the alternate, "dark" universe where the Federation is a conquering empire. The "normal" universe"s Captain Sulu and the crew of the Excelsior accidentally find themselves transported there, and have to figure exactly who their enemies and friends are in order to get back. The hook, gameplay-wise, is that the Excelsior is equipped with a small fleet of single-pilot fighter craft, and most of the game is actually a space combat sim.
The problems with the game"s release have been legal as much as - or more than - technical. Shattered Universe was to be Interplay"s last Star Trek title before their license and rights expired but, well, let"s just say things didn"t exactly work out as planned and leave it at that. Currently the Trek rights are held by Activision, which apparently left Shattered Universe with a rather tangled mess between the two publishers over exactly who would pay whom, how much, and for what if the title was ever to see the light of day.
Enter TDK, who seem to have simply paid whatever amount it took, to whoever they had to, to both acquire the game and get the legal rights to publish it.
Shattered Universe is expected to hit store shelves this summer.