Q: I find it interesting that in 2000 Raven Software will release two licensed property games, which is a complete about-face from creating original properties such as Heretic and Hexen.  Did you decide to make this switch to licensed universes as a creative or a business consideration?  Do you ever plan to return to original universes such as Heretic?

A: I don’t think there was any conscious decision to have our next games be based on licensed properties. They more or less fell into our lap. Being part of Activision, we were one of the studios they wanted to use to develop a launch title for their new Star Trek license. They specifically wanted to have a first person shooter, so they naturally choose us to do it. With Soldier of Fortune, we were originally working on concepts and making a prototype for a realistic army combat action game.  It was Activision who said they could get us the Soldier of Fortune name to use with the game we were planning.  The name seemed to fit with what we wanted to make and so it just happened to work out.

Heretic and Hexen will always be franchises at our disposal, but I don’t think you will see a sequel to one of those games any time soon.

Q: How did you initially come about deciding to do the Star Trek game?  I would assume Activision approached you with the license, but was there a lot of trepidation among the staff, especially considering the series' lackluster cachet among the gaming community?  How did you turn what could have been a concern into motivation to make a better product?

A: At first there wasn’t much enthusiasm for the Voyager game because most of us were fans of TNG and wanted to explore that series a little more. But when the design of the game started coming together we realized that we had much more freedom to do and explore what we wanted because Voyager's storyline takes place in the delta quadrant. It actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we were able to really go crazy with story and character development, and of course new aliens and weapons. We literally had the freedom to do what ever we wanted because of the nature of the show's stoyline.

Q: Whenever you work with a licensed property there are tradeoffs, especially when it comes to creative elements of game design.  Just how restrictive do you find the Star Trek universe?  Have you ever sat back at times and said, 'Wow, we have this great idea for the game, but we know Paramount won't let us do it'?

A: No, that never happened at all. In fact, we threw in a few surprises that aren’t a part of the Voyager universe and Paramount was behind what we were doing and accommodated us. We did have to make sure there was a good explanation for all of the borderline things we were doing.  But once we explained exactly how it worked in the game environment, there weren’t any problems. For the most part, we created the game without thinking of any restrictions. We just did what we wanted to do and what we thought would make the game really stand out.