Revealed exclusively at IGN Live, Star Trek: Shadow Frontier is the surprise upcoming game from Bloober Team, the developer of the critically and commercially acclaimed Silent Hill 2 remake, and Cronos: The New Dawn. It stars Michelle Forbes, who reprises her role as Trek fan-favorite character Ro Laren and finds herself stranded on an alien planet. The newly formed Paramount Games Studio, which includes all Paramount and Skydance gaming studios, has invested heavily in the game, and, as Shawn Kittelsen, senior vice president, head of creative and production at Paramount Games Studio told IGN ahead of the reveal, it certainly has high hopes for it.
“The goal is for Bloober to make the best Star Trek game of all time, if we can bring that to life,” Kittelsen said. There have been many, many Star Trek games over the years, and everyone will have their own favorites. Birth of the Federation, 25th Anniversary, Judgment Rites, Bridge Commander, Armada, Starfleet Academy, Star Trek Online… the list goes on. Paramount, though, wants to top them all.
To that end, Star Trek: Shadow Frontier is different from previous Star Trek games. It’s from Bloober, a horror specialist, but Kittelsen says it’s more of a “psychological thriller.” He compares it to Ninja Theory’s Hellblade series, rather than Bloober’s previous hits like Silent Hill 2.
“It’s interesting, Star Trek has had so many permutations over the years,” Kittelsen said. “It can kind of genre bend. It’s the rare sci-fi show that can do a Sherlock Holmes Victorian era mystery as well as interplanetary warfare on an epic scale. And everything in between. Bloober has an incredible track record in the horror space… Silent Hill 2 remake, Cronos: The New Dawn I thought was really well done and showed them pushing into sci-fi horror. I think we consider Star Trek: Shadow Frontier more of a psychological thriller than a horror game, sort of akin to Hellblade in a lot of ways.”
So, expect plenty of “conflict within yourself” moments from Ro Laren in a game that will show Bloober “has more range.”
“If you look at the history of Star Trek, a lot of fans and writers always would grumble about the Roddenberry rule, where Gene Roddenberry famously did not want interpersonal conflict between crew members,” Kittelsen said. “But where that drove a lot of storytelling in the original series and in The Next Generation was into this sort of inward journey of intrapersonal conflict, like conflict within yourself.
“Ro Laren’s character, who’s played by Michelle Forbes, who we’re bringing back from The Next Generation, never got her moment in the spotlight enough for the fans who loved her on The Next Generation. So bringing her back and having an adventure focused on her, and then giving her that deeper inner psychological conflict to work with, and making that the centerpiece for the psychological thriller where she has to survive on a strange planet, is right up Bloober’s alley. And I think this is a game that’s going to show that Bloober has more range, that they don’t need to be pigeonholed in a horror category. They’re trying to flex to a different place and show what they can do.
“And because of Trek’s innate qualities and the fact that there is a hopefulness and a really strong sense of positive and optimistic values that come through when you’re part of Starfleet. That thread as well, you can go really, really dark at Star Trek, but it always has to have some anchor in the light of boldly going, and not boldly going to seek and destroy, but boldly going to understand and communicate.
“That is going to show people a new side of what Bloober can do. But it’s also a chance for Bloober to bring the things that they’ve been doing really well in their latest games, the incredible production values, the really strong cinematic storytelling and just rock solid third-person action, all of those pieces will come together, I think, for a very special game that’s going to be unexpected for a lot of Trek fans and a lot of Bloober fans.”
Star Trek Series of the Modern Era
Star Trek Series of the Modern Era
Paramount Games Studio had its big step-out moment last week, where it announced its existence with the reveal of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin from Bayonetta developer PlatinumGames. Turtles is very early in development, but Star Trek: Shadow Frontier is further along, Kittelsen said. This was a licensed game that was already in the works when Paramount formed its new video game division last year, and Kittelsen and co. liked what they saw. So they invested in the game, decided to publish it themselves, and set about on a release plan that, Paramount hopes, will get Trek fans excited.
“We started talking to Bloober about ways that we felt like the game could be pushed further and quality could be improved, and they were super collaborative and receptive to that,” Kittelsen explained.
“So we’ve had a really good relationship working with them. And as they developed a vertical slice that went from good to better to best, it was clear that we felt there was more potential for this game, and that we wouldn’t want someone else to publish it, that we would want to work with it ourselves. And again, this is all about, how do we mobilize Paramount’s fan channels and the Star Trek fan base as much as possible? And we felt we could activate that better than having someone else publish the title.
“So we invested in it, we’re contributing to the production, and we’re collaborating with Bloober really heavily and we’re bringing it to market with as much fanfare as we possibly can, and making sure along the way too that it’s an authentic Trek experience, but it’s also a high-quality game.”
Star Trek: Shadow Frontier is due out in 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC. Meanwhile, Paramount Games Studio is now publishing the recently delayed Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game, and Amy Hennig’s Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, although it won’t be out until 2027 at the earliest. The AAA Avatar: The Last Airbender RPG is no more, however.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
