It was meant to go boldly where no man has gone before, but instead, Star Trek: Infinite is going quietly into that good night. The Paradox-published space 4X—developed by Nimble Giant—has announced that it will no longer be receiving updates (via RPS).
Actually, it’s been dead (Jim) for some time. The announcement came via a dev diary posted on the Paradox forums two weeks ago, on March 27, but it’s taken a while for anyone but ardent fans of the game to notice.
“Sadly, we must inform you that Star Trek: Infinite will not receive further updates,” wrote a Paradox staff member on the game’s forums, before going on to offer absolutely no explanation for that whatsoever. Instead, the bulk of the post is dedicated to thanking Paradox’s business partners and the game’s fans.
That it took so long for most of us to notice the game’s passing probably goes some way to explaining why the game is being left behind, but it’s still a kick in the teeth for those who hoped the Stellaris-y Star Trek 4X was set for a long tail of updates like most of Paradox’s own self-developed strategy games.
Alas, it’s going the way of Imperator, Paradox’s own antiquity-themed strategy game that’s been quietly shuffled off to a latifundium upstate after a milquetoast response from players. The response has been pretty much what you’d expect: The recent reviews tab on Steam has turned an ugly shade of red as negative responses turn it “Overwhelmingly Negative” (the overall reviews are still “Mixed,” for now).
“What a colossal disappointment this game is,” says the very first response to the announcement on the Paradox forums. “Announcing a new custodian team would have been better,” reads another, “Not a great addition to the recent string of abandoned or troubled PDX related titles.”
It’s another misfire in a long line for Paradox, which has found itself in a bad state these past few years. On top of Star Trek’s failure, it’s dealing with the chaotic development of Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodines 2, a split with Harebrained Schemes after Lamplighters League sold poorly, and the continuing fallout of a C-suite shuffle after former CEO Ebba Ljungerud resigned and was replaced with Fredrik Wester.
Wester had been CEO prior to Ljungerud, but resigned in 2018. Less than two weeks after replacing Ljungerud in 2021, he apologised for “inappropriate behaviour” towards a colleague after the majority of women working at Paradox reported mistreatment at the studio. More and more, the company seems stuck in a time of troubles.
