Paramount Games Studio and Bloober Team have announced Star Trek: Shadow Frontier, a sci-fi psychological thriller coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, and PC. The story follows Ro Laren as she tries to survive on a mysterious, uncharted planet that threatens not only her body, but also her mind.

The Star Trek universe is now moving in a direction that may not seem obvious at first, but makes perfect sense with Bloober Team attached: Star Trek: Shadow Frontier is a story-driven third-person action-adventure built as a psychological thriller. The game is published by Paramount Games Studio and developed by Bloober Team, the studio known for horror and oppressive atmosphere. It is planned for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, and PC via Steam, with former Lieutenant Ro Laren as its lead character, voiced by Michelle Forbes. Ro sets out to rescue an old friend, but the mission quickly grows beyond a standard rescue operation: after crashing on a planet overtaken by a strange consciousness, she has to survive while memory, reality, and identity begin to distort around her.

Shawn Kittelsen, senior vice president and head of creative and production at Paramount Games Studio, said Bloober Team was chosen for precisely that reason. “We’ve long admired the way Bloober Team crafts deeply immersive, atmospheric experiences that keep players on the edge of their seats,” he said. “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.”

Ro Laren Heads Into the Unknown, but This Time the Unknown Looks Back

Bloober Team CEO Piotr Babieno also made it clear that this is not being treated as a simple licensed project. “We’ve been waiting a long time to finally share what we’ve been working on. As lifelong fans of science-fiction, Star Trek has always held a special place in our hearts. 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.”

The story places Ro Laren on a distant world after she crashes onto a planet controlled by a planet-wide entity. The surface is both breathtaking and lethal: the environment is not passive scenery, but something weaponized against her. Creatures spawned within it patrol the landscape and strike without warning, forcing the player to decide whether to fight, escape, or outmaneuver whatever stands in the way. That premise is far removed from the clean briefing-room image of Star Trek, but it does not necessarily betray the core of the franchise. It is still about discovery, duty, and courage, only this time the cost of discovery is much darker.

The Tricorder and Phaser Are Not Just Icons Here, but Survival Tools

The gameplay blends exploration, investigation, puzzles, combat, and cinematic set-pieces. Ro uses her Tricorder to scan and analyze objects, while her Phaser serves both as a weapon and a tool for solving puzzles. The planet’s hostile ecosystem constantly threatens her existence, but the greater danger may be internal: the entity seeks to absorb Ro’s consciousness, burrowing into her mind and plaguing her with haunting visions. That makes the game sound less like a straightforward survival action title and more like a story where external threat and mental collapse are two parts of the same trap.

The most interesting promise behind Star Trek: Shadow Frontier is that it does not seem interested in simply dragging the franchise into horror, but in reframing Star Trek values inside a psychological action-adventure. Ro Laren travels beyond the edge of charted space, but just as importantly, she is pushed beyond the limits of sanity. If Bloober Team can balance the franchise’s curiosity and moral weight with its own darker, more oppressive style, this could become more than “Star Trek with horror.” It could be a separate, riskier branch of the universe. Based on the reveal, the mission is clear: explore, investigate, survive – and Ro may not return as the same person who began the journey.

Source: Gematsu