Star Trek: Infinite Space, a free-to-play, browser-based MMO based on Star Trek, has been cancelled by its publisher Gameforge. The German publisher and developer said they were unable to find another company willing to help them bring Star Trek: Infinite Space to market.

Star Trek: Infinite Space would have allowed players to engage in massive ship-to-ship battles. The promising-looking 3D browser game was built with Unity and was based around classic vessel-to-vessel space combat.

Gameforge originally planned to release the game in fall 2011. However, when fall came around, the company laid off 100 staff members and cancelled two other games. They then announced that they needed a co-publisher for Infinite Space. The cancellation of the game is not altogether surprising given these earlier troubles.

"Since autumn 2011 we made many efforts to find a publishing and marketing partner for Star Trek: Infinite Space," Gameforge told GI.biz. "Unfortunately, our efforts were not successful. So we have decided with a heavy heart to finally abandon the project Star Trek: Infinite Space. The discontinuation is very regrettable. Unfortunately it happens from time to time that a good concept for a game cannot be implemented as originally planned."

One reason Infinite Space might have had trouble finding a co-publisher is the fact that there's already a free-to-play Star Trek MMO with ship-to-ship combat on the market. Cryptic's Star Trek Online launched in 2010 and made the F2P switch in 2012 due to low subscriber numbers. The fact that STO failed to catch fire, added with the massive risks associated with MMOs in general, probably made other publishers wary.

Star Trek-loving gamers still have something to look forward to. Namco Bandai is set to launch a co-op third-person shooter based on the new Star Trek movies, next year.