'Star Trek Online' launches for free on consoles
Boldly going where several FTP games have gone before.
Star Trek Online arrived on PC in the busy MMORPG scene in February 2010, just as the sun started to set on the genre. But the game followed industry trends to keep its playerbase, relaunching in January 2012 with a free-to-play tier and releasing semi-annual "season" expansions of new content at no cost. Today, it's landing on PS4 and Xbox One, following other FTP titles in the move to consoles.
Whatever their genre, microtransaction-filled MMOs have been erratically arriving on home game systems for a few years. It took DC Universe Online three years from its launch on PS4 in 2013 to jump over to Xbox One last April, while the MOBA title Smite came to Microsoft's system in August 2015 and then Sony's this past May. And they keep coming, with the third-person MOBA Paragon arriving on PS4 last month. Despite Star Trek Online's troubled development process and hiccups along the way, it's seeking new life and more players in a well-precedented move to consoles.
