In a surprising move today, Ubisoft has announced that Star Trek: Bridge Crew is no longer a VR-exclusive title. According to a Steam Community post the update is being delivered by way of a “broad compatibility patch” that “enables non-VR play as well as adding enhanced support for Windows Mixed Reality headsets.”

For a game that is so intimately tied to its hand-presence and motion control support, I can certainly say I’m surprised. When I reviewed the game I noted how inefficient and clunky playing with a gamepad felt so I can’t imagine playing outside of VR will be anywhere near as immersive and intuitive. However, on the bright side, perhaps this will be the influx of new players the game needs to stay active in terms of multiplayer.

As stated, the patch also adds support for Windows VR headsets, which is great to see, as the long list of manufacturers for that platform will very likely see strong market penetration over the next year due to the lower cost and lack of external tracking sensors.

We’ve reached out to Ubisoft to see if this patch is coming to PS4 as well to enable non-PSVR play or if it’s restricted to the PC version only. We’ve also asked about whether or not players can limit matchmaking to just VR players or just non-VR players for feature parity since the game already has cross-platform multiplayer.

What do you think of the news? Let us know down in the comments below!