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The following are Star Trek parodies and pop culture references that have been found in video games.
Asura's Wrath[]
During the fight against the final boss of the game, Chakravartin, the boss may sometimes say "Resistance is futile."
Back to the Future: The Game[]
Episode 1 of Back to the Future: The Game has Marty pretending to be from the patent office in order to get a younger version of Emmett Brown (resident of 1931) to build a rocket drill. He threatens to award the patent to a Dr. McCoy if Emmett doesn't produce immediate results. The game also features voice work from Christopher Lloyd (reprising his role as the older Emmett Brown) and Roger L. Jackson. Coincidentally, the elder Doc Brown during his stay in 1931, takes the alias Carl Sagan.
Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition[]
A halberd bears the name "The Chesley Crusher," with its description reading "First wielded by the much-maligned Ensign Chesley of the first exploratory fleet of Waterdeep…"
Digimon Story: Hackers Memory[]
One of the nicknames the character Chitose gives the player character Keisuke is "Redshirt," given his "unimportant" and "background" appearance.
Duke Nukem 3D[]
- The level "Warp Factor" is a homage to the USS Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
- The level "Tiberius Station" is named after James T. Kirk.
- The "dnscotty" cheat code for level select may be a reference to Montgomery Scott.
- In the Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach expansion pack, Duke uses a boat called the Kobayashi Maru to get around the islands.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim[]
An NPC is named "Temba Wide-Arm."
Fallout 2[]
- Federation Crash Site is a special encounter in which the player encounters a crashed Class F shuttlecraft with several dead red shirts and can loot a Hypospray.
- Guardian of Forever is another special encounter where the player encounters the portal from the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The City on the Edge of Forever". If the player goes through the portal, they are transported back to the events of the first Fallout where they inadvertently cause the story to happen.
- A character by the name of Vegeir is named after V'ger from Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
- Michael Dorn, actor of Worf, voices Marcus. Upon being hit, he exclaims, "I am NOT a merry Mutant!", in reference to a line said by Worf in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Qpid".
Fallout 3[]
- The Doctor's common greeting "Please state the nature of the medical emergency" is used by Sawbones.
- In the Broken Steel add-on, a computer entry can be found on a Dr. Gillian Taylor about a fourth attempt asking for a whale tank to be built at a San Francisco Aquarium. A clear reference to Dr. Gillian Taylor from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
Fallout 4[]
The Doctor's common greeting "Please state the nature of the medical emergency" is used by Knight Captain Cade.
Fallout 76[]
Graffiti can be found that reads "Darmok + Jalad" in the Tanagra Town location. A reference to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Darmok".
Fallout: New Vegas[]
- Michael Dorn, actor of Worf, reprises his role of Marcus from Fallout 2, and again exclaims he is "NOT a merry Mutant!" upon being hit.
- Both "Beam me up" and "Set lasers" appear as a weapon challenge and perk, respectively.
Final Fantasy IX[]
An NPC, if asked about potions that a player is seeking, will reply "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker. Ask someone else!"
Final Fantasy XIV[]
A shipwrecked vessel is named the Kobayashi Maru.
Fortnite[]
The Vulcan salute is available as a character emote animation.
FTL: Faster Than Light[]
- There is an achievement called No Redshirts Here (obtained by making it to the final sector without losing any crew members).
- The names of several other achievements are Star Trek references.
Heretic[]
- The "engage" cheat code for level select may be a reference to "engaging" the warp drive.
HoboWars[]
In the MMORPG HoboWars, the player may come across an old man while exploring the Hoburbs. The man tells the player his stories, but they're really taken from various TV shows, including Star Trek: The Next Generation ("The Best of Both Worlds"). He then rewards the player for listening.
- You sit and listen to the old man's stories for a little while before you realize he's just recounting episodes of Cheers, Happy Days, and The Beverly Hillbillies. You start to get a little uncomfortable when he starts retelling what sounds suspiciously like an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
- Old Man: ...And that's how we escaped the Borg ship and rescued the captain. Oh, look at the time! Buffy is about to come on! Well, let me get you a little something for spending some time with an old man.
The player is also able to buy a phaser from the Hoburbia pawn shop.
Jet Set Willy II: The Final Frontier[]
The sequel to the 1984 original, this platform game expands on the original with a new area wracked with references.
Aside from the obvious reference in the title:
- The rooms making up the spaceship area can be seen to form a suspiciously Enterprise-looking shape if the player fills out the Cartography Room.
- Going right from this area, the next room reached is called "NCC-1501".
- Continuing to the right and up eventually leads to "The TROUBLE with TRIBBLES is...", which requires leaping over a variety of furry blobs to traverse.
- Heading left will get the player to "Beam Me Down Spotty," a teleport room that will either take them back to The Bathroom (the game's start point) or a planetary surface, its last room being named (naturally) "Beam Me Up Spotty."
Kathy Rain[]
In this point-and-click adventure game set in 1995, the hacker Dave is at odds with IT-supervisor Clyde for several reasons, including Clyde thinking that TNG is superior to TOS.
Little Big Planet 2[]
The level "Huge Peril For Huge Spaceship" features a spacecraft which greatly resembles the Enterprise with a Sackboy head in place of the saucer section.
Little Big Planet 3[]
In the introduction, the narrator tells players that they "have always been, and always will be, most welcome in Little Big Planet," a reference to Spock's dying speech in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Madden NFL 16[]
In Madden NFL 16, one option in Franchise mode enables you to rebuild your team's stadium. When presented with a futuristic looking design as one of the options, one of the fan social media reactions includes "#beammeup", indicating their approval of the design.
Mass Effect[]
In one confrontation, Commander Shepard tells a krogan soldier that the ruins they're in are collapsing around them and will kill them all. The krogan responds, "Yes! Exhilarating, isn't it?", a direct reference to Kruge's response to Kirk's similar concern in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
The game features Marina Sirtis, Armin Shimerman, Keith Szarabajka, Dwight Schultz, Gary Anthony Williams, Grey DeLisle and Carolyn Seymour in various roles, as well as Jennifer Hale as the female version of Commander Shepard, Raphael Sbarge and Kimberly Brooks as Aliance squadmates Kaiden Alenko and Ashley Williams, and Fred Tatasciore as one the main antagonists, Saren Arterius.
Neil Ross provided the narration voice for the primary entries of the series' in-game Codex, a collection of background and worldbuilding information accessible by the player.
The asari race were created to fill the "green alien girls" trope, which was made popular by Star Trek: The Original Series.
Engineer Gregory Adams may be a nod to Star Trek. In The Original Series episode "Dagger of the Mind", Dr. Tristan Adams runs the Tantalus Penal Colony. Here, Adams oversees the SSV Normandy's experimental Tantalus Drive Core. He is also voiced by Roger L. Jackson.
Coincidentally, the commanding officer at the beginning of the game is named David Anderson.
In the DLC "Bring Down the Sky", the slogans found at X57 Radio reference Star Trek and Babylon 5. One of them, "When Your World is Hollow, We Help You Touch the Sky" is a reference to the TOS episode "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", about a hollow asteroid serving as a generation ship for a group of colonists that is inadvertently set on a course to impact a Human colony.
Mass Effect 2[]
In Mass Effect 2, when Commander Shepard visits a bar on the Citadel, his/her response to an alien drink served is "This is… it's green?". Similar lines are said about beverages in the episodes "By Any Other Name" and "Relics".
Being a Scottish engineer, Kenneth Donnelly on the Normandy SR-2 is commonly thought to be a reference to Montgomery Scott.
Both Mordin Solus, the salarian scientist on board the Normandy, and Data are humorously portrayed as enjoying, as well as singing, songs by the British composers Gilbert and Sullivan.
The Citadel features advertisement for a production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet performed entirely by a cast of elcor, a race who speak in a slow, flat monotone that they prefix all their dialog with non-elcor with an emotive statement to clarify their tone. At the end of the ads, an elcor spokesperson says, "Insincere endorsement: You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have heard him in the voice of elcor." This is a refence to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country when Chancellor Gorkon said "You haven't experienced Shakespeare until you have read it in the original Klingon."
Michael Dorn lends his voice to a krogan, a species with a warrior mentality similar to Klingons named Gatatog Uvenk with D.C. Douglas voicing the geth squadmate Legion and Shohreh Aghdashloo as quarian admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay.
Mass Effect 3[]
Troy Baker voices Cerberus assassin Kai Leng and the DLC "Omega" features Sumalee Montano as turian squadmate Nyreen Kandros and Brian George as Cerberus general Oleg Petrovsky.
Minecraft[]
The splash screen includes a random quote selected from a list that includes several sourced from Star Trek, including "Engage," "Khaaaaaaaaan!", and "Not as cool as Spock!", which is a correction of an earlier phrase which (obviously mistakenly) implied that Minecraft was "Cooler than Spock!"
For teleporting over 100 blocks with an ender pearl in Minecraft, players receive the advancement "Beam me up." The advancement for using the Nether to travel seven kilometers in the Overworld is called "Subspace Bubble," a reference to the subspace field used to travel at warp. (One block in the Nether is equivalent to eight in the Overworld, allowing for much faster travel.) Holding a dragon egg unlocks the advancement "The Next Generation," which may be referencing Star Trek: The Next Generation, and entering an End city unlocks the advancement "The City at the End of the Game," which may be a reference to the TOS episode "The City at the Edge of Forever."
Additionally, among the many languages the game is available in is Klingon.
Mortal Kombat 1[]
When Johnny Cage clashes with Sub-Zero, one of the possible comments has Sub-Zero mention that "Revenge is a dish best served cold," with Johnny replying "It is very cold in space" in the same infliction as Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Mortal Kombat 11[]
If the player chooses Shao Kahn with Johnny Cage as an announcer, Cage will say "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!" The game features Cary-Hiroyuki, who reprised his role of Shang Tsung from the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn as Cetrion, Jennifer Hale as Kronika, Vanessa Marshall as Sheeva, Kari Wahlgren as Kitana and Mileena, Phil LaMarr as Kotal Kahn, Chris Cox as the Terminator and Peter Weller reprising his role of RoboCop, with the latter two appearing as guest characters in the game.
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe[]
When Captain Marvel tells Superman, Deathstroke and the Joker that their enemy is called Dark Kahn, Joker replies with a Kirk-like "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!" with appropriate echoes. When Joker is finished, Deathstroke promptly tells him to shut up.
Orion Trail[]
The PC game Orion Trail features numerous references to the series and is based around killing "redshirts" on away missions. References include place names such as "the Gates of McFadden" and achievement names such as "He's dead, Jim."
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength[]
The game Orwell: Ignorance is Strength features a character who calls himself "Captain of starship USS Voyager" in social media and also has a picture of himself dressed in a uniform similar to Spock's, giving the Vulcan salute.
Quest for Glory 2[]
In the Quest for Glory 2 introduction, the Enterprise-D is clearly seen in the sky and warps away seconds later.
Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault[]
The game starts with Qwark saying the following line: "Captain's log. Stardate... uh, let's call it Wednesday."
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time[]
Near the beginning of the game, when Ratchet enters the Zoni temple alone, Qwark will say "Operation Red Shirt is a go."
Roblox[]
A virtual "hair" was released on the site's catalog called "Trecky Hair" for a users "Robloxian" avatar. This hair closely resembles a typical haircut that many Starfleet officers had on The Original Series.
Rogue Galaxy[]
A late chapter in the PS2 game Rogue Galaxy is entitled "All Good Things..."
Rolie Polie Olie[]
One of the games based on the show is titles "The Search for Spot", as a nod to The Search for Spock.
RuneScape[]
- Log entries for the player-owned port mini-game begin with "Captain's log, Runedate..."
- Players can also name their ships Enterprise or Defiant (from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine).
- The character Auguste (from the "Enlightened Journey" quest) was modeled after Jean-Luc Picard.
- The Bork boss is a reference to the Borg; some of the monsters summoned by him will shout phrases like "We are the collective!" and "Resistance is futile!"
Secret of Monkey Island[]
The lookout character says "Hey, I'm a lookout, not a bodyguard."
Skate[]
In Skate 3, when you set your gesture to "Nerd," your skater will do Vulcan salute on both hands just like Spock.
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom[]
In the mermalair level, dialogue with Mermaidman and the level boss named Prawn leads Mermaidman to yell, "PRAAAAAAAAAAAWN!!!" as in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
StarCraft[]
A possible unit selection reply for a Terran medic is "state the nature of your medical emergency." In one of the humorous taunts, the medic can say "He's dead, Jim."
The sixth humorous taunt of the Protoss corsair is: "Zefram Cochrane, is that you?".
Intentionally or not, the Protoss arbiter has quotes, supposedly in the Khalani language, that are commonly heard as "Duras?" (when selected) and "Gowron!" (when ordered to move or attack).
Star Control: Origins[]
One of the planets around the star Wolf 359 is named Locutus.
Star Fox 64[]
The boss of the Sector X area makes continual references to the whereabouts of its creator, not unlike V'Ger in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Star Fox: Assault[]
The game's main villains, the Aparoids, share many similarities with the Borg. Both races see themselves as the pinnacle of evolution, seek to "perfect" other life forms through forced assimilation, and are led by a queen. The Aparoids are an insectoid race, much like the original concept for the Borg.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic[]
A side quest in the game is called "The Trouble with Gizka," a possible reference to "The Trouble with Tribbles" (the gizka share the tribbles' considerable ability of rapid reproduction). The game also shares many aesthetic similarities to Star Trek and other non-Star Wars sci-fi.
Surviving Mars[]
Surviving Mars is a video game based on Mars colonization. One of the "mysteries" is called "Inner light" and features a quote from that episode by Jean-Luc Picard underneath the title.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time[]
The eighth level of the game (ninth in the SNES platform version) is titled: Starbase: Where No Turtle Has Gone Before. The level is set in the future (the year 2100) and features enemies using transporters.
Total War: Warhammer II[]
Several of the random lord names are those of Star Trek characters: Vorta names for high elves, Romulan names for dark elves, and Jem'Hadar names for Lizardmen. Lizardmen lords also have skills called "Obedience Brings Victory" and "Honored Elder," again referencing the Jem'Hadar.
Unreal 2: The Awakening[]
Aida is stated to be a master of three-dimensional chess. A board identical to those seen in Star Trek is present in her quarters.
World of Warcraft[]
The various teleporter operators are named after Star Trek engineers: "Scooty" (Scotty), "Jhordy Lapforge" (Geordi La Forge), and "Smiles O'Byron" (Miles O'Brien, or possibly his mirror counterpart "Smiley")