DISCLAIMER: The following product may change drastically from what you see below OR it may not be released at all. It is a prototype product going through testing and is subject to change or cancellation without any notice. Potential buyers, please do not contact your distributor about it yet, as they will not have any information to share beyond what you’ll read in this post.
The Star Trek franchise isn’t exactly a stranger to the arcade market, as I once covered in this now outdated post from 2009, and now it’s time for the series to boldly go where no redemption game has gone before with Star Trek Battleground by Raw Thrills.
Before we really get into it, thanks to Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report for sending these photos my way.
Spotted on test in the Chicago area this week, we have a new videmption game in the works by Raw Thrills that uses the Star Trek license and theme. The cabinet is definitely carrying an unusual shape, in part because this does not use a traditional flat screen display, nor a VR headset as the most recent Star Trek arcade release does.
The giant saucer sections on the cabinet as you see above are partially for aesthetics, but the one in front is also to help darken the ambiance as the game employs projection mapping. This appears to be Raw Thrills adapting the tech that they originally tested out with their never-released Mario Party Challenge World game.
As you can (mostly) see from the photo above, there are spherical bumps on the playfield, which give some “pop” to the overall appearance. I believe that the areas where the saucer sections are are shaped to try and appear like the 3D models of those ships (with a bump in the center where the bridge
