The game is set in the Star Trek Kelvin universe, between the events of the films Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, and follows the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Starfleet starship USS Enterprise. The player takes control of either Kirk or first officer Spock, and investigates the theft of a terraforming device from the colony of New Vulcan by the Gorn. Together, Kirk and Spock engage the Gorn on away missions, travel to another universe, and re-take Enterprise when alien forces capture it. This two-character gameplay was seen as a unique element, referred to as "bro-op".[1]The Gorn, who previously appeared in The Original Series and Star Trek: Enterprise, were heavily redesigned, with fifteen different classes of creatures created. A replica of the Gorn costume from "Arena" appeared in a viral advertisement alongside William Shatner, which was intended as a homage to the fight between Kirk and the Gorn from that episode. The game was announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2012, but was particularly panned by critics upon launch in 2013 and sales were poor. Following an issue with the cooperative mode on the PC upon launch, reviewers also criticized a number of issues such as poor lip syncing, clipping, and bad camera angles.