Star Trek: Bridge Crew is a virtual reality game where players explore space as a member of the Federation. Playable cooperatively with a crew or solo as Captain, Star Trek: Bridge Crew puts players directly onto the bridge in a Starfleet ship.

The mission: explore a largely uncharted sector of space known as The Trench, in hopes of locating a suitable new home world for the decimated Vulcan populace while coming into direct conflict with the vaunted Klingon Empire. Star Trek: Bridge Crew puts a player and their friends into the heart of a new starship, the U.S.S. Aegis, where every action and decision that is made together will determine the fate of the ship and crew.

Developed by Red Storm Entertainment, a Ubisoft Studio, Star Trek: Bridge Crew was designed exclusively for VR, capitalizing on the powerful sense of social presence only possible through virtual reality. Through hand tracking and full-body avatars, including real-time lip-sync, players can experience what it's like to serve as an officer on the bridge of a Federation starship.

You’ve probably heard of IBM’s Watson, the cognitive, question-answering computer that’s been busy beating Jeopardy! champions, editing movie trailers, collaborating on art and music, and making great strides in customer service and healthcare. Appropriately for something that sounds straight out of sci-fi, some of Watson’s technology is now available in Star Trek: Bridge Crew.

Star Trek: Bridge Crew is fully integrated with IBM Watson’s interactive speech and cognitive capabilities, Watson Speech to Text and Watson Conversation, for an experimental beta period. With IBM Watson, Star Trek: Bridge Crew will let players use their voice and natural-language commands to interact with their virtual Starfleet crew members for the ultimate authentic voyage into the final frontier.

Part of what makes Watson an effective question-answering machine is its ability to work with natural language – and it’s those interactive speech and cognitive abilities that are set to boldly make their way into Bridge Crew.

Players can now live out their Star Trek fantasies as they command the U.S.S. Aegis and U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 with seamless voice interaction in tandem with full-body avatars that include real-time lip-sync and hand-tracking. IBM Watson services can be used to operate crews consisting of only AI characters or a mix of AI characters and human teammates without breaking immersion.

And where in the past voice commands in games have often been a source of frustration and controller-hurling, this new technology – built using IBM’s VR Speech Sandbox system – promises a far smoother and more responsive experience.

As a crew, players will form a team of four to operate the roles of Captain, Helm, Tactical or Engineer. Each role is crucial to the success of the varied missions players face, and only by working together can the crew complete their objectives. Also playable in solo, players will assume the role of Captain and dispatch orders to their NPC crew mates. The Captain's strategic decisions will be vital in order to successfully complete missions.

It's up to players and their crew to chart the region, and to secure a peaceful Federation presence. The maiden voyage of the U.S.S. Aegis is theirs to command.

Star Trek: Bridge Crew marks the latest venture into virtual reality for Ubisoft, who believes in the strong potential of VR to redefine social gaming with a unique sense of reality. Keen to explore the opportunities of this emerging technology, Ubisoft recently announced the games Werewolves Within and Eagle Flight, as well as a VR partnership with the film company, SpectreVision.

The iconic U.S.S. Enterprise bridge from Star Trek: The Original Series will be playable in Star Trek: Bridge Crew.

Star Trek: Bridge Crew will arrive on May 30 for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR.