Rumor: Cryptic Studios taking over development of Star Trek Online

As we reported back in January 2008, P2 Entertainment, formerly Perpetual Entertainment, announced that it was no longer working on the its ever MMO centered on the Star Trek universe. For reasons not originally stated, P2 Entertainment had been pulled off of the development of Star Trek Online and all of its license material and game’s content (which did not include the code) had all been transferred over to a then unnamed Bay Area development studio.

Today (March 15, 2008), rumors have surfaced that the unnamed developer is Cryptic Studios, makers of City of Heroes/Villains and the upcoming Champions Online, will be taking over production of Star Trek Online.

Trek Movie reports that Cryptic is “definitely” the new license holder to develop Star Trek Online. As for the reason the developer is keeping the project cloaked, Trek Movie state, “Since acquiring the game, Cryptic has been assessing the current state of the game and assets, and deciding what to keep and what to change. Cryptic is holding off on making an announcement because they want to make their announcement more than just words and actually have something to show.”

Cryptic Studios is certainly a wise choice to take over development of Star Trek Online, a game, which many Trek fans have been hoping will revitalize the ailing franchise which hasn’t had a decent game title released in years. Since breaking off from NC Soft in 2007, the producers behind Cryptic’s previous number one hits, City of Heroes and City of Villains, Cryptic has made an effort to show that they are certainly up to the challenging of both developing and producing their own games, with Champions Online being the first to fly under their banner as a independent studio.

There is some concern though, that, Cryptic is still too small a studio to bankroll two MMO’s projects at the same time. Most of Cryptic’s resources will be set towards the development of Champions Online, which Cryptic announced earlier this year after word came that Marvel and Microsoft had backed out of the planned Marvel Universe Online. However, Star Trek Online certainly would be a more lucrative project over Champions Online, if Cryptic had to decide upon, which was most important, as Star Trek has a much larger, global, fan following then the relatively unknown Champions 1980’s style pen and paper RPG.

Read [Trek Movie] Also Read [GameSpot] Site [Cryptic Studios]