Star Trek: Bridge Crew is now playable without a VR headset

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The multiplayer starship simulator Star Trek: Bridge Crew sounds pretty great, but as we pointed out in our hands-on with it earlier this year, coming up with the three VR-equipped friends needed to play the thing is a real challenge for most of us. And since VR continues to not show signs of an imminent mass-market breakthrough, Ubisoft has done what it probably should have done in the first place by patching out the requirement.

The update makes some graphical improvements and incorporates "enhanced" support for Windows Mixed Reality, but the elimination of the VR requirement is obviously the big move here. Importantly, Bridge Crew is cross-platform across the board, so PC, PS4, VR, and non-VR owners will all be able to play together.

Hopefully, this change means that Ubisoft isn't ready to abandon Bridge Crew to an unhappy fate, if one approached. VR may be cool, but its position as a standalone platform is still tenuous. Senior creative director David Votypka also teased "additional cool things" coming to the game in the future, but we'll have to wait to find out what those things actually are.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.