Ubisoft’s Star Trek: Bridge Crew Game Utilizes IBM's Watson Technology

Fans have been waiting patiently for the arrival of Ubisoft’s Star Trek: Bridge Crew for VR, [...]

Fans have been waiting patiently for the arrival of Ubisoft's Star Trek: Bridge Crew for VR, doing their best William Shatner impressions and trying to figure out the best actions for keeping those poor fools in red shirts safe. But today, the company filled in a few more details about the forthcoming sim, including how it utilizes IBM Watson technology.

According to the blog, this tech, which has been running circles around Jeopardy! champs and creating movie trailers, will be utilized by the game in many ways. "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," the team explained. "When playing as Captain on either ship, the U.S.S. Aegis or U.S.S. Enterprise, you'll be able to speak direct, interactive commands to your virtual Starfleet shipmates. Captains can use Watson for any crew of less than four players. 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."

"We have been eager to find the right way to use interactive speech to tap into the more immersive and interactive experiences that virtual reality offers," says David Votypka, senior creative director on Star Trek: Bridge Crew. "Watson gives captains the ability to issue commands to non-player crew members in the same way they do with a human crew: by using their voice."

The game's speech features will be going into beta sometime this summer, complete with cross-play support, so players can work alongside other humans (with drop-in/drop out support) and the AI with voice commands to see just how well they handle the bridge. In the meantime, though, the full game isn't too far off, so fans can absolutely "go where no man has gone before" in the meantime. Let's just hope you make the right decisions and don't go flooding your ship with Tribbles. That's all we need…

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

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