Star Trek Is Officially Switching Genre In 2027 With New Release

Published Sep 1, 2026, 1:36 PM EDT

In 2027, Star Trek will make a hard pivot to a new genre familiar to gaming fans: psychological horror. The new Trek release will borrow elements from Alien, Resident Evil, and Dead Space with its approach to sci-fi scares — and it will bring back a fan-favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation character.

Star Trek: Shadow Frontier will officially bring back a TNG icon

Silent Hill 2 and Cronos: The New Dawn developer Bloober Team is responsible for Star Trek's next big gamble: Star Trek: Shadow Frontier. Bloober and Paramount Games Studio describe Shadow Frontier as a "new sci-fi psychological thriller title set on a mysterious, uncharted planet."

Star Trek: Shadow Frontier features a face familiar to Star Trek: The Next Generation fans: Ro Laren, the Bajoran officer who often clashed with Starfleet in the late-'80s revival of the Trek franchise. Ro will be played in Shadow Frontier by the actor who originally played her, Michelle Forbes.

According to an official announcement from Paramount Games Studio and Bloober Team, the story of Star Trek: Shadow Frontier takes place on an uncharted planet that Ro crash-lands on after answering a distress call. The unnamed planet is a "spaceship graveyard where nothing is as it seems," the game's creators say, and as she "explores the planet's corrupted surface and crosses paths with other survivors, she must face twisted creatures, a hostile ecosystem, and an entity that seeks to envelop her body and mind."

A teaser trailer for Star Trek: Shadow Frontier offers more questions than answers, but the prospect of Bloober Team exploring sci-fi again after Observer and Cronos: The New Dawn is certainly enticing. Star Trek has dabbled in psychological horror infrequently, so Star Trek: Shadow Frontier will hopefully live up to its exciting premise.

Star Trek: Shadow Frontier is a bold new direction for the franchise

“We’ve long admired the way Bloober Team crafts deeply immersive, atmospheric experiences that keep players on the edge of their seats,” said Shawn Kittelsen, head of creative and production at Paramount Games Studio, in a news release. “For Star Trek: Shadow Frontier, it was essential to partner with a studio that could both honor that legacy and push it forward. We have full confidence in Bloober’s ability to deliver a game that does justice to the Star Trek name while bringing something bold and new to the beloved franchise."

“As lifelong fans of science fiction, Star Trek has always held a special place in our hearts,” said Piotr Babieno, CEO of Bloober Team. “By combining that passion with what we do best, horror, we’ve partnered with Paramount to create something truly unique: a new adventure set in a beloved universe, enriched with our own signature layer of dark, psychological thriller. We’re genuinely excited about this journey, and our hope is to honor the legacy of Star Trek in a way that feels both respectful yet refreshingly different.”

Bloober Team has a packed slate of games coming. In addition to publishing a new asymmetric multiplayer horror game based on the Saw franchise, the developer is also working on a remake of the original Silent Hill and Layers of Fear 3.

Star Trek: Shadow Frontier is coming to Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X in 2027.