Dan Stahl plots a course back to Cryptic Studios

After departing the Star Trek Online developer earlier this year, former executive producer Dan Stahl has returned to Cryptic Studios to lead a new Away Team working on the "Foundry".

In a post on the Star Trek Online forum, Stahl announced his return to Cryptic Studios stating that "My time at Zynga was fun and interesting, but I really missed working with my colleagues here."

"There is something magical going on at Cryptic these days and I'm very happy to be back working on the MMOs that I personally love to play."

Stahl's new position is as senior producer, managing Cryptic's user-generated content tools known as the Foundry. Stahl expressed his excitement to be back with the studio and said he was looking forward to "working on future updates for the Foundry, especially with the development of Neverwinter which has its own deep history of User Developed Content."

Stahl's final word was to say that the plans to launch Star Trek Online as a free-to-play title on January 17 are on track and that he was fully in support of the changes made in Season 5 of the sci-fi MMO.

Thanks, Massively.