Former Deep Space Nine: The Fallen designer Eric C. Reuter is working with his company Fusion Creative Design on a free expansion pack for the game originally developed by The Collective. The expansion, Convergence, is in the final stages of development, and the company has released a 3-level demo.

"Convergence takes place on SRIII, site of the wreckage of the U.S.S. Ulysses, a matter of months after the conclusion of The Fallen," explained Reuter in an interview with Star Trek Gaming Universe. "The alleged purpose of the facility was to construct a weapon capable of being deployed for planetary defense. The source of power for this weapon system relates directly to the story of the Pah'Wraiths, and to the ancient Orbs that they fashioned. The weapon promised to be of immense power, and it could ostensibly be deployed to protect any civilization from attack...the Cardassians have other plans, however."

At the start of the game, the Cardassians have assaulted the facility and the Dominion is sending a force to investigate what's happening. "Nothing but a contingent of scientists and a small security team from Starfleet [are] there to defend," said Reuter. "Starfleet has sent The Defiant, as well as a nearby Science vessel to the rescue...the crew of the Defiant is there to do whatever they can to prevent this facility, and the weapon technology from falling into enemy hands, at all costs."

New official Star Trek games have not been released in several years, but Convergence promises to provide fans of The Fallen with new content. Reuter, a fan of Star Trek since 1967, said that he had never been more proud than when he saw his name in the credits of the Deep Space Nine game. "I would have killed for a DS9 movie, and not ever seeing that come to pass is a huge disappointment. So much potential there for a great story."

The missions in Convergence will allow players to rescue wounded personnel, attempt to retrieve critical data, plant explosives to destroy the facility in case it cannot be kept from the Cardassians and defend the facility using prototype weapons. "Each character will have numerous, varying objectives for each level," said Reuter. "You may have to locate and restore the weapon's system plasma cores to full operation, locating the guidance systems computers in huge facility on the surface and restoring them to full functionality, preventing the Dominion from utilizing an earlier prototype of the weapon's plasma generators...you'll even get a chance to see Worf ice-skate."

Convergence will have "about 20 levels", of which 14 are completed with a 15th underway. "All of the team is enjoying the mission so much, they wanted to bring more hours of gameplay to the finished product," Reuter said. He did not have a guess when the game would be released but said that there would be no additional demo versions.

The original interview is at this page, which also has a link to the 3-level demo and to gameplay movies. The Fallen, which is needed to play this expansion, is available from Amazon.com. The official web site of the expansion is here.

Discuss this news item at Trek BBS!
 Add TrekToday RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fan? Then visit CSIFiles.com!