Jonathan Frakes Joining Another Major Star Trek Production
Jonathan Frakes will reprise the role of Will Riker in the upcoming game Star Trek: Resurgence.
Jonathan Frakes, the actor portraying Commander William Riker in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and subsequent films and series, joined the cast of the upcoming Star Trek: Resurgence. Frakes will assume his iconic role from the series and continue portraying Riker in an upcoming single-player Star Trek narrative scheduled to release on May 23, 2023, on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC via Epic Games.
As reported by Screen Rant, Jonathan Frakes’ role in the upcoming Star Trek game was announced by the official Star Trek website, StarTrek.com. The game’s writer stated that the creatives behind the title wouldn’t even consider including Riker in the narrative unless they could have Jonathan Frakes return to the role. He added that the actor was an absolute joy to work with, especially since he brought his classic Riker charm and command to the upcoming game set in the 24th century, in an era shortly after the events of TNG.
The team behind the narrative of Star Trek: Resurgence actually took the inspiration for the premise from an early episode of TNG that featured Riker and first introduced the Tkon Empire to the Star Trek universe. Due to Riker’s overwhelming involvement with the episode’s narrative, it only felt organic to add the character to the game and, by extension, the actor portraying the Commander. In the narrative, Riker has just left the USS Enterprise-E and is on his way to take command of the USS Titan, though it’s unclear whether that particular starship makes it to Resurgence.
The Star Trek: Resurgence game, which takes place aboard the USS Resolute, features two playable characters—First Officer Jara Rydek and engineering crewperson Carter Diaz—as they unravel the sinister plot involving two alien civilizations on the brink of interstellar conflict. The game will immerse players in the Star Trek universe and allow them to interact with both new and returning characters through a variety of dialogue and action gameplay, which will affect the outcome of the game’s story.
Unlike his most recent appearance in Star Trek: Picard, Jonathan Frakes is going to pull the clock back and portray Riker when the Commander was in his prime, which is a tragic time for the Riker family, given that their son dies of a terminal disease. Despite his prominence in the narrative, Riker will remain an non-player character in the game, but his presence will still make an impact on the game’s protagonists.
In other Star Trek news unrelated to Jonathan Frakes, GOG.com has added several Star Trek games to their library, including the Voyager and Elite Force gaming series, as well as many other gaming titles. These were previously nearly forgotten by all except retrogamers—mostly due to incompatibility with modern gaming hardware—but GOG made the games playable on modern systems for the first time in nearly a decade.
Apart from the Star Trek: Resurgence, which is supposed to drop on May 23 for the aforementioned systems, Star Trek fans are also expecting another gaming release titled Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova. Unfortunately, it won’t feature Jonathan Frakes as Will Riker.
