EXCLUSIVE - The Mirror Universe: Exploring The Untold Story Of Bridge Commander 2 And Elite Force 3
Uncharted territory.
By Jay Tee
25/03/21
Featuring developer interviews with Steven Peeler and Tony Evans.
The inconsistency of licensed video games is an ironic constant of this industry, where titles based on existing IP’s either deviate too far from the source material, or get rushed out the door to meet an arbitrary release window. There are notable exceptions of course, with the Arkham series, Insomniac’s Spiderman, and Goldeneye being genre defining examples that surpassed expectations.
Star Trek as a property has an epic history of video game adaptations, dating back to the Commodore 64 and the NES. When Activision took the reigns, alongside continuing efforts from Interplay and Simon & Schuster (shout out to DS9: The Fallen and Dominion Wars), it kickstarted a whole series of fascinating experiments. Star Trek: Armada (and it’s somewhat divisive sequel) presented a wonderful take on real time strategy; it faithfully adhered to aspects of canon with familiar characters and ship designs, whilst creating new ship types, technology, and a narrative of its own.
Away Team’s isometric squad combat again struck a neat balance between recognisable aspects from the series and fresh tech, while Starfleet Command 3 gave fans of the late 90’s original another shot at tactical jollyness. But the absolute pinnacle of this era was arguably the introduction of one Hazard Team, and the opportunity to truly take the conn.
The first Elite Force, developed by now Call of Duty mainstays Raven Software, was a tour de force of first person shooter mechanics and tight mission design. Even with a developer switch to Ritual Entertainment for Elite Force 2, both games managed to remain faithful to Trek’s well established pillars of exploration and memorable characters.
As noted by Steven Peeler, who was Lead Programmer and Technical Director at Ritual for the sequel, “delivering an authentic Trek experience comes from a lot of different things: having beloved characters like Picard, including as many things from the canon as is feasible, matching the tone of Star Trek as much as possible with the story line, and, even if you are making a shooter, trying to keep the normal Star Trek pacing by adding things like puzzles to tone down the combat”.
Even these early screenshots for EF2 looked promising, and a clear visual jump from the original.
Whereas the original Elite Force told a new story with familiar characters from Voyager, Elite Force 2 had more room to breathe thanks to its post Nemesis setting on the Enterprise-E. It was fertile ground for good storytelling, but it wasn’t all plain sailing. For starters, real world events had a tangible impact on the direction of the adventure.
“I wish we could have shipped with the original story we developed,” laments Peeler. “Unfortunately, it had to do with terrorists and then 9/11 happened, and the story was rewritten”. But these early creative issues existed beyond the writers room. With brewing tension between Activision and Viacom over the viability of the license, which eventually led to a lawsuit that saw them parting ways, the development process itself was, according to Peeler, fraught with tension.
“Activision was very controlling about everything. I remember milestones being a huge pain. I really could have done with less involvement on their part. As for Viacom, I believe we ran story stuff by them, but other than that they let us do our thing”.
Despite the hurdles, pre-production work on Elite Force 3 using the Doom 3 engine had begun (thanks to game director Christopher Stockman and EGM’s fantastic write up for that nugget!), but the impending litigation saw the project languish and ultimately it never saw the light of day. I asked Peeler about the nature of those initial concepts: “I’m pretty sure we had thought about it a little story wise, but right around the time we shipped Elite Force 2, Activision sued Viacom. That pretty much ended any real chance of another sequel”.
It was a bitter end to an incredible run, with a huge amount of potential still left to mine from the series. Thankfully, the legacy of Elite Force has endured; two games that broke the mould and proved first person shooters could work within the Trek universe. But for many, the true peak of the Activision fronted era was Bridge Commander. It was like a fan project made real; take command of a Federation starship, giving orders directly to your crew, from the perspective of the Captain’s chair, or a third person tactical view of your vessel in space. Throw in the vocal talents of Patrick Steward and Brent Spiner (Picard and Data respectively) and you have a recipe for Trek nirvana.
Giving orders from the Captain’s Chair was incredibly immersing. Make it so!
As a Game Designer on Bridge Commander, Tony Evans wore multiple hats, which included pitching in on the script alongside Derek Chester and the late Dorothy “D.C.” Fontana. She wrote several episodes of the Original Series alongside Gene Roddenberry, and worked on The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, other Trek games, and even the New Voyages fan production.
“Writing was a group effort,” Evans explained. “A large part of it was the quality control and the consistency, as well as some of the set piece dialogue. All of the designers to a certain extent contributed to the writing”. It was this sense of collaboration that defined much of the development process, even as Evan’s took on more extensive duties. “Towards the end of [development on] Bridge Commander, I was responsible for almost half of the missions in the game, especially some of the larger sequences. Then there were editing passes done by Dororthy and Derek”.
Unlike Peeler’s experience on Elite Force 2, Evan’s and the rest of Totally Games were largely given carte blanche to do their thing. “We’d occasionally get notes, but their confidence in us hitting the right tone for narrative was very strong once we brought Dorothy Fontana onto the team. She was one of the original pros and knows her stuff. I don’t recall there being a lot of issues in terms of them [Viacom] pushing back on what we wanted to do”.
Bridge Commander was released to extremely positive reviews, and equally glowing fan reception. IGN were effusive in their admiration: “Richly developing and conveying the Star Trek feel and atmosphere, but still incorporating a well developed marriage of tactical foresight, automation and manual control, Bridge Commander has rightfully earned the rank of undisputed king of all that is starship combat”.
Gamespot followed suit, calling it “an innovative, entertaining simulation that adapts its licensed subject material in a manner that should satisfy even the franchise's most zealous fans”.
You would think, therefore, a sequel was an inevitability. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be, despite “six months of pre production and early planning” on Bridge Commander 2 being completed before the plug was pulled and the follow up was cancelled.
Is it weird that I can almost * hear * this screenshot?
Evan’s states that “my assumption at the time was that while initial sales of Bridge Commander were positive and strong, which is why Activison indicated to us that they would like a sequel, after several months had passed perhaps the sales didn’t reach the point at which Activision felt they may have justified a sequel”.
A logical business decision, perhaps, but one that definitely stung. “It was very disappointing. I was really looking forward to it, and the team was as well. The hardest part was the after effects of that, realising that we weren’t going to get another project. This also coincided with another project in the studio that we were collaborating on with Microsoft… I wasn’t involved in that one, but that was also cancelled around the same time.
The cost was a tangible one. Evans goes on to explain: “That resulted in a number of layoffs for the studio. Dave Litwin, [Director of Bridge Commander 1] kind of took a bullet for his team and laid himself off to save the jobs of myself and some other people. I was able to keep my job and continue working on the next [Totally Games] project: Secret Weapons Over Normandy”.
Evans couldn’t speak to whether the cancellation also had anything to do with early seeds of discontent between Activision and Viacom, but he was able to walk me through those early plans for Bridge Commander 2, and how his role on the team had continued to evolve. Following his work on the first game, Evan’s was promoted to Lead Designer. “Dave [Litwin] had pretty strong confidence in me and lobbied pretty heavily for my promotion”.
Mechically, Bridge Commander 2 was going to retain the slower paced capital ship style combat, with the option for faster engagements. “The general idea was to incorporate the steel of the [Star Wars] X-Wing and Tie Fighter games. We were prototyping a ship very much like the Defiant [from Deep Space Nine] as part of that. It was looking really good. I was excited. The team was excited”.
Staying true to the core design of the original was paramount. “We wanted to keep what worked [with Bridge Commander]. One thing I really wanted was some investigation of multiplayer or co-op, but we hadn’t begun to unpack the technical issues there. I would have ideally liked the experience of one player managing a capital ship, while the other takes on a more agile, fighter class”.
So despite these intriguing concepts, Elite Force 3 and Bridge Commander 2 are forever trapped in the mirror universe; an alternate reality where these classic adventures got a chance to continue. Perhaps one day, someone will smartly recover the IP and return to these ideas, but for now, it feels appropriate to wrap things up by remembering that all good things… must come to an end.
I’d like to give a huge shout out to Steven Peeler and Tony Evans for giving up their time for this feature, and to the original dev teams at Totally Games, Ritual Entertainment, Raven Software, and all the other talented folks who worked on interactive Star Trek entertainment at this time. Thank you so much for your incredible effort and creativity, and for making some of the best videogames I’ve ever played.
