Exclusively unveiled at IGN Live, Star Trek: Shadow Frontier is the unexpected new title from Bloober Team, the studio behind the acclaimed Silent Hill 2 remake and Cronos: The New Dawn. The game features Michelle Forbes reprising her role as fan-favorite Ro Laren, who becomes stranded on an alien planet. The newly formed Paramount Games Studio, which unites all Paramount and Skydance gaming divisions, has heavily invested in the project. As Shawn Kittelsen, senior vice president and head of creative and production at Paramount Games Studio, told IGN ahead of the reveal, expectations are sky-high.
“The goal is for Bloober to make the best Star Trek game of all time, if we can bring that to life,” Kittelsen said. With countless Star Trek games over the years—including Birth of the Federation, 25th Anniversary, Judgment Rites, Bridge Commander, Armada, Starfleet Academy, and Star Trek Online—Paramount aims to surpass them all.
To achieve this, Star Trek: Shadow Frontier takes a different approach. Despite Bloober's horror pedigree, Kittelsen describes it as a “psychological thriller,” comparing it to Ninja Theory's Hellblade series rather than Bloober's own Silent Hill 2.
“It's interesting, Star Trek has had so many permutations over the years,” Kittelsen noted. “It can genre bend. It's the rare sci-fi show that can do a Sherlock Holmes Victorian mystery as well as epic interplanetary warfare. Bloober has an incredible track record in horror… Silent Hill 2 remake, Cronos: The New Dawn showed them pushing into sci-fi horror. I think we consider Star Trek: Shadow Frontier more of a psychological thriller than a horror game, akin to Hellblade in many ways.”
Expect plenty of “conflict within yourself” moments for Ro Laren, showcasing Bloober's versatility. “If you look at Star Trek history, fans and writers often grumbled about the Roddenberry rule, where Gene Roddenberry famously avoided interpersonal conflict among crew members,” Kittelsen explained. “But that drove storytelling into intrapersonal conflict—conflict within yourself. Ro Laren, played by Michelle Forbes, never got her moment in the spotlight on The Next Generation. Bringing her back for an adventure focused on her inner psychological conflict, surviving on a strange planet, is right up Bloober's alley. This game will show Bloober has more range, that they don't need to be pigeonholed in horror. They're flexing to a different place.
“Because of Trek's innate hopefulness and positive values, you can go really dark but always have an anchor in the light of boldly going to understand and communicate. This will show a new side of Bloober, while leveraging their strengths: incredible production values, strong cinematic storytelling, and solid third-person action. All those pieces will come together for a special game that will surprise both Trek and Bloober fans.”
Paramount Games Studio made a big splash last week with the announcement of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin from PlatinumGames. While Turtles is early in development, Star Trek: Shadow Frontier is further along, Kittelsen said. It was a licensed game already in the works when Paramount formed its new video game division last year. Impressed by what they saw, Paramount invested, decided to publish it themselves, and crafted a release plan to excite Trek fans.
“We started talking to Bloober about ways to push the game further and improve quality, and they were super collaborative and receptive,” Kittelsen explained. “As they developed a vertical slice that went from good to better to best, we felt there was more potential. We didn't want someone else to publish it; we wanted to work with it ourselves. It's about mobilizing Paramount's fan channels and the Star Trek fan base as much as possible. We felt we could activate that better than another publisher.
“So we invested, contributed to production, and collaborated heavily with Bloober. We're bringing it to market with as much fanfare as possible, ensuring it's an authentic Trek experience and a high-quality game.”
Star Trek: Shadow Frontier is slated for release in 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC. Meanwhile, Paramount Games Studio is now publishing the delayed Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game and Amy Hennig's Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, though the latter won't arrive until at least 2027. However, the AAA Avatar: The Last Airbender RPG has been canceled.
