It was 2003. Ritual Entertainment had a massive problem. They were following up on Voyager – Elite Force, a game that basically proved Star Trek didn't have to be a slow-paced strategy sim or a clunky bridge simulator. People actually wanted to shoot things with phasers. And honestly, the sequel they delivered, Star Trek: Elite Force II, remains one of the most fascinating "what if" moments in PC gaming history. It arrived just as the Quake III engine was breathing its last breaths of relevance, and somehow, it still feels better to play than half the modern shooters clogging up Steam today.
You remember the Hazard Team. You've got Alexander Munro—or Alexandria, if you were playing the first one, though the sequel locked you into the male lead for voice acting reasons—leading a squad of elite security officers who actually do the dirty work the redshirts usually die doing. It starts on the Enterprise-E under Captain Picard. Patrick Stewart actually showed up to voice the role, which, back in the early 2000s, was a huge deal for a licensed game. Most of the time you got a soundalike who sounded like they were recording in a closet.
Why the Combat in Star Trek: Elite Force II Still Holds Up
The movement is fast. Like, really fast. Because it’s built on the id Tech 3 bones, Munro moves with a weightlessness that modern "tactical" shooters have completely abandoned. You aren’t sluggish. You aren't stuck behind a chest-high wall waiting for your health to regenerate. You’re strafe-jumping across alien ruins while a Tricopper Grenade Launcher clears out a swarm of Exomorphs. It feels like Quake, but with a communicator chirping in your ear.
Ritual Entertainment didn't just reskin a military shooter. They leaned into the gadgetry. The Tricorder isn't just a quest marker; it’s a legitimate tool for puzzles and finding structural weaknesses. You're constantly toggling through vision modes. One minute you're sniping a Romulan through a localized dampening field, and the next you're recalibrating a power junction. It breaks up the monotony. Most games today struggle to balance "puzzles" and "action" without one feeling like a chore. Here, they're baked into the identity of being a Starfleet officer.
Let's talk about the weapons. The Compression Rifle is the workhorse, sure. But the Burst Rifle? The I-Mod from the first game? They felt meaty. There’s a specific satisfying hum to a Type 2 Phaser when it’s melting a Borg drone that modern sound design often misses. It’s a mix of nostalgia and genuine mechanical feedback.
The Problem with the Exomorphs
If there is a legitimate gripe people have with Star Trek: Elite Force II, it’s the enemies. The Borg are iconic. The Romulans are classic. But the game introduces the Exomorphs, which are basically generic "alien monsters." They’re fine to shoot, I guess. But they don't feel like Star Trek. They feel like something leftover from Ritual’s work on SiN or Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2.
🔗 Read more: Among Us Spider-Man: Why Everyone Is Still Obsessed With These Mods
The game is at its absolute peak when you're on the Enterprise or a derelict station. When you're fighting bug-monsters in a swamp, it loses the flavor. It becomes "Generic Sci-Fi Shooter #4." Thankfully, those segments don't last forever. The narrative pulls you back to the politics of the Alpha Quadrant soon enough.
The Technical Wizardry of Ritual Entertainment
It’s easy to forget how good this game looked in June 2003. Ritual pushed the Quake III engine to its absolute limit. They implemented something called "GHOUL 2" technology, which they borrowed from Raven Software’s Jedi Outcast. It allowed for per-poly hit detection and incredibly smooth skeletal animations. When you shot a Romulan in the shoulder, they actually reacted to the impact in that specific spot.
The environments were surprisingly huge for the time. You weren't just in hallways. You were on the hull of the Enterprise looking out at the stars. The skyboxes were gorgeous. Even now, if you fire up the game with a widescreen patch, the art direction carries it. The LCARS interfaces on the computer terminals look exactly like they did on The Next Generation and Voyager sets. That attention to detail is why fans still talk about it.
The Multiplayer Ghost Town
The "Holomatch" was supposed to be the next big thing. It had classes. It had specialized gear. It was basically Quake III Arena but with a Star Trek skin. And while it was fun, it launched into a market that was already moving toward Counter-Strike and the burgeoning Call of Duty scene.
You can still find some die-hard fans running servers occasionally, but it’s a shadow of what it was. The modding community, however, was legendary. People were building entire ships, custom missions, and "RPG" maps where you could just hang out and roleplay a Starfleet officer. It was a precursor to the massive social hubs we see in games today.
💡 You might also like: Why the Among the Sleep Mom is Still Gaming's Most Uncomfortable Horror Twist
Playing Elite Force II on Modern Hardware
Trying to run this game today isn't a total nightmare, but it's not "plug and play" either. Activision lost the license years ago, and for a long time, the game was abandonware. It finally popped up on GOG (Good Old Games) a while back, which solved the biggest headache: the DRM. The old CD-ROM version used Safedisc, which Windows 10 and 11 absolutely hate.
If you're going to dive back in, you need to do a few things. First, the resolution. By default, it’s going to try to run in 800x600. You have to go into the .cfg files to force a 16:9 aspect ratio. Also, the FOV (Field of View). Playing at 90 FOV on a 34-inch ultrawide makes you feel like you're traveling at Warp 9. You’ll want to bump that up to at least 100.
- Download the EFX Plus mod. It fixes a lot of the lingering bugs that Ritual never got to patch.
- Check the widescreen fix. Don't just stretch the image; use the community patches to keep the HUD elements from looking like pancakes.
- Turn on EAX emulation. If you have a Creative card or use software like Creative ALchemy, the positional audio in the engine is actually pretty decent.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Story
There’s this weird misconception that Star Trek: Elite Force II ignores the ending of Voyager. It doesn't. It starts literally minutes after "Endgame." You see the ship return to Earth. You see the Hazard Team get disbanded because Starfleet Command thinks a "commando unit" is too aggressive for peacetime.
The middle chunk of the game is actually a bit depressing. Munro is stuck teaching at the Academy. He's bored. The game captures that "veteran without a war" vibe surprisingly well before Picard swoops in to save the day. It’s a bridge between the Voyager era and the TNG movie era, and it handles that transition better than most of the books did at the time.
The romance subplots are... well, they're very 2003. You have a choice between Telsia (the human teammate) and Kleeya (the alien you rescue). It doesn't change the ending much, but it was a proto-BioWare move that felt ambitious. It gave you a reason to actually walk around the ship and talk to people between missions instead of just clicking "Start Next Level."
📖 Related: Appropriate for All Gamers NYT: The Real Story Behind the Most Famous Crossword Clue
The Legacy of the Hazard Team
Why haven't we had a game like this since? We’ve had Star Trek Online, which is great for scale, and Star Trek: Resurgence, which nails the "episode" feel. But we haven't had a premiere first-person shooter in this universe for over two decades.
Maybe it’s because the industry moved away from "boomer shooters" for a long time. Or maybe licensed games became too expensive to produce at this level of quality. Whatever the reason, Star Trek: Elite Force II stands as a monument to a time when developers weren't afraid to let you run at 30 miles per hour with a grenade launcher while Captain Picard yelled orders at you.
It’s a game that respects the source material without being afraid to be a game. It understands that while Star Trek is about diplomacy and exploration, sometimes you just need to vaporize a Romulan spy who is trying to blow up your warp core.
Final Practical Advice for New Players
If you’re picking this up for the first time, don't play it like a modern cover shooter. If you stand still, you die. Use your horizontal movement. The AI is surprisingly aggressive and will flank you if you stay in one spot. Also, pay attention to the Secret Areas. Ritual loved hiding health packs and weapon upgrades behind "crackable" walls or hidden vents. It’s very much an old-school design philosophy.
To get the most out of the experience:
- Toggle the "Always Run" option in the settings. Walking is for diplomats.
- Use the Tricorder frequently. It highlights interactive objects and hidden panels that the naked eye will miss.
- Explore the Enterprise-E. The devs put a lot of work into making the ship feel lived in. There are lots of little easter eggs for fans of the show.
The game isn't perfect, and the final boss is a bit of a bullet sponge that can be frustrating if you haven't saved enough heavy ammo. But as a piece of Star Trek history? It’s essential. It represents the peak of Action-Trek. It’s fast, it’s loud, and it’s unashamedly fun. You don't need to be a hardcore Trekkie to enjoy it, but if you are, the fanservice is just the icing on a very solid mechanical cake.
Go grab the GOG version, apply the widescreen patch, and remember what it was like when licensed games actually had a soul. It’s worth the afternoon of tinkering just to hear that phaser whine one more time.