Iam opening this review with a warning: I am going to spend a lot of time here talking about a different game. This isn’t something I usually do, but as you may have guessed from the screenshots Infinite is very much built on the chassis of Stellaris, with some appropriately Star Trek twists. Consider it the Napoleon: Total War to Stellaris’ Empire: Total War – a more focused, narrative spin off from a larger and more sprawling game.
The game is set firmly in the Next Generation/Deep Space Nine era and portrays the Federation, Klingons, Romulans and Cardassians as four superpowers locked in constant competition. It’s not unlike joining a Stellaris game a third of the way in. For the most part this works surprisingly well, but there are some oddities: for example playing as the Federation I was prompted to colonise the uninhabited planet of Denobula. I know, Nimble Giant, I like to pretend Enterprise never existed too.
Here’s the good news: Star Trek Infinite expresses the Federation fantasy far better than Stellaris ever did. You can genuinely expand by diplomacy here, buttering up minor species and inviting them, one by one. The other playable factions have their own spins on this, like setting up puppet governments as the Romulans.