Unlike Star Trek: The Original Series — a science-fiction adventure show predicated almost entirely on voluntarily advancing humankind’s exploration of the cosmos in the name of discovery and the pursuit of knowledge — Star Trek: Voyager was a pretty significant departure in the context that the Voyager’s mission wasn’t entirely voluntary, nor was it an exploratory romp through the universe. The fourth live-action Star Trek show overall, following TOS, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine, Voyager shook up the formula by revolving around a starship inexplicably transported light-years away from Earth into the fraught and unexplored Delta Quadrant on the far side of the Milky Way galaxy.
While Voyager still retained a great degree of the idealism, levity, and wide-eyed speculative wonder of other Star Trek shows, the initial premise feels like it lends itself so well to something desperate and a little grittier, with Captain Janeway and the rest of her crew’s quest to get back home reminiscent of a Robinson Crusoe story in space. Luckily, the 2026 game Star Trek: Voyager - Across the Unknown allows players to experience just how difficult the 70,000 lightyear return journey to Earth would be for themselves, and a recent update might have just given them a specific tool to make life on the Voyager a little easier.
