This news piece is mostly for the story lovers of Star Trek Online. Primarily because it brings in creative director Richard Hayden and senior narrative designer Flo McQuibban to talk about the recently released Heart of the Matter mini-episode and how they feel about several plot points related to the content.Play Star Trek Online for free

As one might expect, a lot of this internal interview gets pretty granular about multiple pieces of the current STO story, though some of the answers were shortened in the interest of both preventing spoilers and brevity. That said, things still get very much into the weeds about things like the Aetherians and their process of “ascension,” recent layers added for the Tzenkethi, and plot pieces related to the Devil’s Heart TFO.

Interspersed through the Q&A are a couple of mechanical and design bits as well: DECA Games will stop doing mini-episodes outright unless the studio has “a very good reason to do so” because current mini-episode lengths haven’t hit a sweet spot, discussion about encounter design for Devil’s Heart was explained, and plans to make content that goes beyond “go to place and shoot,” assuming players are on board with the idea. A second Q&A is planned to go live over the weekend, but for now there’s lots of food for the lore hounds.