Every few years I get that retro-itch: I want to play the oldies. While not too old, Raven Software’s year 2000 release, Elite Force, is one of my favorite games. Running on the Quake 3 engine by ID Software, it blended the Star Trek: Voyager cannon well with the golden age of first-person shooters (FPS). After replaying a few missions, I started looking for fan-made enhancements and stumbled upon a fan-made game by Daniel Korican. It’s not related to Elite Force but features the same ship, the Voyager. I had an opportunity to send Daniel a few questions and he was courteous enough to entertain me. Below is our exchange as well as some media from his development efforts.
Geeks WorldWide: Why start this project now?
Daniel Korican: I started with that project 3 years ago.
GWW: Are you leveraging the source code released by Raven Software previously?
Daniel: I don’t use any code by Raven Software
GWW: What is the underlying game engine?
Daniel: Initially I started with Unity 3.4… but then switched to Unreal Engine 4.
GWW: What are the requirements for running the game?
Daniel: Well, you will need an high end pc. I think a quad core with 3.5 GHz, 32GB ram and a GeForce GTX 980 will be fine.
GWW: Are you completely remaking Elite Force 1 in a shot-for-shot sense?
Daniel: I’m not remaking Elite Force at all. It has a complete own story and I build all assets by myself. I don’t use anything from the EF.
GWW: How will your game vary from the original EF?
Daniel: I rebuilt all the Voyager TV show sets from scratch (every single room). My Voyager will be fully exportable and functional. All shuttles will be fully exportable and fully functional. Beside of that I wrote a complete true Star Trek story where you are playing an ensign who has to rescue the crew from a deadly threat. You will be able to fly with shuttles through space, landing on planets and exploring them.
GWW: What are some of the challenges you’re dealing with?
Daniel: Well, making a game is a full time job it costs money and a lot of energy. In the last couple of years there were many times where I really wanted to quit the game because I felt so tired of it but then I was always able to overcome those feelings. I spent hundreds of hours in learning new techniques and tools and even more hours in doing research and to find out how all those interiors look like. I think that my voyager model is right now the most advanced and detailed model at all. A big challenge was also to fix all the inconsistencies of the interior sets of the Voyager and especially of the Deltalfyler.
GWW: Have you considered Patreon for funding your development?
Daniel: Well I wanted to start my own Kickstarter but since the Axanar incident I keep away from crowdfunding as I don’t like to displease CBS & Paramount. It would be great to get some donations to buy new hardware and software for the project.
GWW: When we can expect to play a beta?
Daniel: I’m working hard on the game and I hope to make a first beta and the end of the next year.