Star Trek: Elite Force 2 is a very fun first-person shooter that came to PC in June 2002. While it may have been a commercial failure at the time, it became a fan-favorite Star Trek game that features a nice mix of puzzles, action, and dialogue. But the game would have been very different if the terrorist attacks against the United States had not occurred on September 11, 2001. In a new interview with FRVR, Star Trek: Elite Force 2 lead writer and level designer Benson Russell explained that during the game’s development, the game’s story and opening had to change greatly due to the September 11 attacks. “I remember we were doing Elite Force 2 and 9/11 happened at that time,” Russell told FRVR. “One of the original scenes was, when you were at Starfleet Academy, there was supposed to be an attack, and we actually had a shuttle flying into a building and stuff like that.” Unsurprisingly, Elite Force 2 arrived less than a year after 9/11 and meant that all of that content had to be cut or completely reworked. “Well, that was a no-no for understandable reasons, of course,” Russell said. Despite the cuts and changes, Elite Force 2 became a popular Star Trek game that people still speak fondly of to this day. And they should, because it’s a great id Tech 3-powered FPS that any fan of that era of Star Trek should play, if only because you get some wonderful low-poly Picard moments. And yes, Patrick Stewart voices him. Rockstar Games famously found itself in a similar situation around this time. Their 2001 game, Grand Theft Auto 3, was set in a contemporary open world similar to New York City, so the studio had to make numerous changes, including making the police cars look less like real NYPD vehicles as intended and more generic. Interestingly, 9/11 also forced Rockstar to change the cover art for GTA 3 before its US release. (The European release used the originally planned cover art.) That cover became so iconic and popular that it ended up establishing the style that all GTA covers would follow to this day. Even the upcoming GTA 6 cover follows the same grid-based look created in 2001 in response to 9/11.
