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Star Trek Online Season 8.5's release to coincide with 4th anniversary festivities later this month  

Star Trek Online, Season 8.5, will coincide with the MMO's fourth anniversary when it launched at the end of the month, Cryptic has announced.

Speaking in a developer update on the official website, executive producer Stephen D’Angelo said the update will contain a new episode starring "a Star Trek actor who will bring their character to STO for the first time."

The update will be releasing on January 30, 2014, as part of Star Trek Online’s 4th anniversary celebration. Participating in the usual fun and games with Q will let you earn a cool new starship (or three!). Federation, Romulan Republic, and Klingon Defense Force scientists have been hard at work adapting Dyson technology to their standard ship designs, and you can be among the first to try out these new hybrid starships.

"We’re excited to be continuing the storyline for the game with this amazing episode, and we’ll be announcing who this actor is in about a week, when you will get your first sneak peek at the episode," he said. [Also] in this update, we have made a pass at 12 episodes in the early Federation experience, updating the episodes to hit a higher quality bar with both art and gameplay improvements throughout.

"We're re-envisioning the hourly events as weekend-long events with better rewards. You can expect the hourly calendar to disappear with Season 8.5, with the new events showing up on the main calendar. Additionally, a small selection of the existing hourly events are being turned into Daily missions – we’ll provide more information on this soon."

With the Season 8.5 update, players will also be able to switch between their starships in sector space and social zones and each starship allows for multiple pre-made, saved build-outs.

This way, player will be able to easily switch between separate PvE and PvP builds, and will also be able to make use of the new “easy equip” feature coming in the update.

Season 8.5 will be released on January 30 as part of Star Trek Online’s 4th anniversary celebration, and players can earn a new starship for participating in the festivities with Q.

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Stephany Nunneley-Jackson

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Stephany is VG247’s News Editor, with 22 years experience (with 15 of them at VG247). With a brain that lacks adhesive ducks, the ill-tempered, chaotic neutral fembot does her best to bring you the most interesting gaming news. She is also unofficially the site’s Lord of the Rings/Elder Scrolls Editor.

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