As part of the @YearOfKlingon, for @trekonlinegame we updated many of our old Klingon missions and story elements. Our last big update, "House Shattered," featured a rework of the "Warzone" mission group. Here are some designer notes from the remastering!

The "Warzone" mission group advances the story of the House-versus-House struggles in the Klingon Empire, as well as the Klingon's fighting against its old sometimes-friend-sometimes-enemy, the Federation. In a society that reveres warriors, there's a lot of war!

"Bringing Down the House" and "The House Always Wins" collectively make up the House-versus-House story. In these missions you face off against House Torg and their allies, who've been clashing with House Martok. Martok himself is thought to be lost or dead at this time.

Since Martok is gone, the House is under the stewardship of his wife, Lady Sirella. We brought Shannon Cochran, the original actress, in to voice the character, and our character artists resculpted her to look more like her appearance in DS9 (with a few extra years.)

Early in the mission you follow threads of a mysterious stranger who is a threat to House Security. In the original version of the mission, the map was treated much like an open-world MMO: You wander all about the Ketha Lowlands and the farms, seeing its broad expanse.

But most people are playing this as a single player or in a small team, not as part of an open-world zone. For the remaster we added a tighter path, with clear walls and stairs to help guide you along the way.

Instead of having you run back and forth across big spaces, we tightened up the mission flow so that you move cleanly from one place to another, with clear paths to note where you should go next. You can still explore and see the map, but now you're less likely to get lost!

In the many years since the original release of our Klingon missions we've developed new minigames and new UI elements, and we took advantage of these—in this case using the hot/cold scanning that we developed for "Khitomer Discord."

As you chase down the Romulan spy who tried to sabotage House Martok, you travel through several star systems. Originally some of this took place on the actual open-system map for Qo'noS, which made it susceptible to breakage if other players got involved! We fixed that up.

The story finishes on Forcas III, famed for its bat'leth tournament. In our original version of the mission, this was a large Klingon interior map, where you ran through several rooms looking for clues before finding M'ven, House Martok's entrant in the tournament.

Unfortunately the map was very easy to get lost in, and you spent part of it fighting alongside M'ven, before he's suddenly killed by assassins. We revamped the episode to make the map easier to navigate and with a new fighting circle.

And, of course, this was the perfect time to revamp the costume for Worf.

Once M'ven is assassinated you learn that House Torg was behind all of this, in an alliance with Romulans, so it's time to put a stop to their treachery! This carries on to the episode "The House Always Wins," where you visit the Martok estate one last time for M'ven's funeral.

Then it's off to Torg's house in the Gorath system in an all-out assault. We adjusted the behavior of the space battle so that you are in a scrum with several allied ships at your side before you beam down for the final confrontation.

We redid the interior for the House of Torg, making the map easier to navigate and adding Torg's giant, ostentatious throne. It's made to emulate the Great Hall in Qo'noS: Torg clearly wants to be seen as a powerful figure like the High Chancellor. Thanks @Tumerboy!

After some more space combat you race back to Qo'noS in pursuit of Torg, to face him down in the Great Hall itself. We redid this map to use the updated version of the hall, and our animator put in some lovely cutscene work as Alexander sacrifices himself for Worf.

Finally, it's on to "Mars, the Bringer of War." This episode combines and streamlines two older episodes: "Second Star to the Right, Straight on 'til Morning," and "Keep Your Enemies Closer."

These two episodes focus on the Klingon battles against the Federation, as you have a chance to make a lightning raid against Utopia Planitia—the Federation shipyard over Mars. The remastered episode is named for the Holst suite about Mars.

In the original version of the mission, you'd board the U.S.S. DeWitt and fight your way all through the ship until you reached the captain. This map was very long, very easy to get turned around, and had a lot of back-and-forth, plus it was really old. We fixed that up!

To keep the mission flowing we cut down this segment so that you go directly to the enemy ship's bridge. This was a good opportunity to use our newer assets for a Galaxy-class bridge. We also changed the gameplay so you hold off security while your intel companion does his thing.

In the earlier version of the mission you'd torture the captain for information, but that's not heroic, and we know that torture doesn't work anyway—people just use it to be cruel. Not very honorable. We cut all of that bad stuff.

Once you get your ass to Mars, you get to fight over the wonderful new version of the map. We re-created Mars based on what we saw of the synth attack in the Picard series for the new TFO "Synthwave," and used the map again here.

In the old version of this mission, you'd fight off several different groups of ships in widely-spaced areas. We rebuilt the gameplay space so that you're in a shooting gallery, racing to fight damaged or inactive ships before Starfleet can scramble them to action.

Finally, you head to the Gamma Okana system to break your warrior allies out of prison before Starfleet can send reinforcements to keep them secure, while they're still reeling from the attack on Mars. We touched up this map and interior too.

We removed the runabout gameplay and focused on the prison break, so you have tension as you make your triumphant escape. And the episode finishes with a bang as you get away with your warriors!

What's next? Well, coming soon, more Klingon story... check back in and see!