GOG Winter Sale kicks off in style with Star Trek: Armada

a star trek armada promotional image — (Image credit: GOG)

Tactical alert! After four months of waiting, two more classic Star Trek games are finally available on GOG.

Star Trek: Armada and Star Trek: Armada II are available for download today (December 13) at $10 a pop, which should make fans of retro sci-fi real-time strategy games extremely happy. Today also marks the beginning of the GOG Winter Sale, so even if you have no particular interest in the Armada games, you can get a lot of the best PC games at a steep discount — including six other fan-favorite Star Trek games.

Information comes directly from the GOG website. For those who aren’t familiar with it, GOG (formerly Good Old Games) is an online video game retailer and download platform, which specializes in older fare, optimized for modern machines. CD Projekt Red, which developed and published The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077, runs GOG. Compared to platforms such as Steam and the Epic Games Store, GOG has relatively few restrictions, letting players download and install games however they see fit, rather than tying them to an Internet-connected client.

First things first: Let’s talk about the Armada games. If you’re not familiar with Star Trek: Armada and its sequel, they’re early-2000s Star Trek RTS games. Think “StarCraft, but in the Star Trek universe” and you’ve got the basic pitch. You’ll take control of recognizable factions, such as the Federation, the Klingons and the Borg as you play through two original stories involving Captain Picard and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise-E.

Without going into excruciating detail about either game, they’re from that era of experimental, mid-budget Star Trek games that often worked amazingly well, simply by copying and refining gameplay elements from popular genres.

For example: The RTS mechanics in the Armada games are nothing special — gather resources, build ships, destroy enemy bases and so forth. But the games have a distinct Star Trek “feel” to them, and incorporate lots of lore from the shows and movies.

Now, the bad news. Since Star Trek: Armada and Star Trek: Armada II just came out on GOG today, they’re not discounted for the GOG Winter Sale. If RTS games aren’t to your taste, though, you can get six other classic Trek titles at $8 per game:

Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force
Star Trek: Elite Force II
Star Trek: Bridge Commander
Star Trek: Starfleet Command III
Star Trek: Hidden Evil
Star Trek: Away Team

On the other hand, if Star Trek isn’t your thing and you came to this page purely to learn about the GOG Winter Sale, we’ve got you covered as well. GOG has thousands of discounted titles, including Cyberpunk 2077 for $30, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice for $7, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Game of the Year Edition for $10, and Stardew Valley for $10. Remember, too, that unlike Steam, you won’t need a launcher or an Internet connection to play these games.

Marshall Honorof was a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site's coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a science writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and technology. After hours, you can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi.