One of the coolest - and most secretive - previews of last year's E3 was that of Star Trek, a new game from Paramount that was being developed by Digital Extremes (BioShock 2, Unreal Tournament, Dark Sector, The Darkness II). It's visuals, Mass Effect style gameplay and built-for-co-op structure impressed us enough that it made our list of most anticipated games of 2012.

Little did we know that the sci-fi action RPG would not actually be coming out this year. Earlier today, Paramount Pictures and Namco Bandai jointly announced that they're teaming up to co-publish and distribute Star Trek with a Q1 2013 release date. They also confirm that it'll release on "all major home consoles and PC," meaning the Nintendo Wii U players will also be able to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Star Trek lets players play as fan-favorites and poster boy characters Captain Kirk and Spock, set in the J.J. Abrams movie reboot universe. When we first heard about the game being a tie-in with the film, some fans (and us) were understandably concerned, but this is the type of "movie tie-in" done right, in that it's not actually tied down to a specific release date to coincide with the release of Star Trek 2 next summer.

What we saw last year was impressive and with today's announcement of the 2013 date, there's still a full year on top of that to perfect this game, hopefully taking notes from what this year's best titles (including Mass Effect 3) offer fans.

While we still don't have a clear idea of gameplay - outside of the pre-alpha gameplay video - or any new images, we do have five Star Trek screenshots from December that are worth looking at - Note how the aesthetic (and bright lens flares) are taken straight from the film's design choices.

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Story and characters will be the cornerstones of Star Trek with Kirk and Spock's opposing philosophies and personalities offering a unique take on the co-op relationship as they attempt to stop a "legendary race" from taking over the galaxy. The story of the game is being written by Marianne Krawczyk (God of War) with writer-producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. Orci and Kurtzman are of course currently at work shooting Star Trek 2, having previously been responsible for big-budget blockbusters including Star Trek, Transformers, Cowboys & Aliens along with TV shows including Fringe and Hawaii Five-0.

The more development time the better.

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