Elite: Dangerous is getting a William Shatner voice pack

If you've ever thought to yourself that the one thing a deep-space exploration game like Elite: Dangerous needs is a ship's computer that sounds like William Shatner, then today is your lucky day. The upcoming Orion voice pack for the VoiceAttack voice recognition system contains more than 1300 phrases from the ship's onboard AI, all of them voiced by the man himself.

This is probably the least-necessary bit of explaining I will ever have to do, but Shatner is famous around the world as Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, whose disjointed over-emoting on the small screen is the stuff of mockery, love, and legend. (Seriously, watch this. It's pure gold.) He's reeled it in quite a bit for his turn in Elite: Dangerous, going by the preview videos released today, and it's kind of weird hearing him responding to orders, rather than giving them. Still, “Shatner is my co-pilot” isn't the worst idea for a spaceship bumper sticker I've ever had.

The Shatner pack (technically entitled Orion, but come on, nobody's going to call it that) is scheduled for release on April 8. (VoiceAttack, to be clear, is an entirely separate piece of software, and not part of Elite: Dangerous.) Preorders may be placed now, and all advance orders will be entered into a draw for signed photos, a signed copy of his Leonard Nimoy retrospective Leonard, and other interesting bits of Shat.

Thanks, Eurogamer.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.