Say “Starfleet captain” to an entire generation and Jean-Luc Picard is the face that appears. Patrick Stewart carried the role through seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, four feature films and three seasons of Star Trek: Picard — a run long enough to earn anyone a permanent place in a fandom’s heart.
Then it was over, and the era fell silent.
The gap Picard left behind
A fitting final chapter is what Star Trek: Picard delivered for the character, and season three carried most of that weight by bringing much of the TNG cast back together for one last big adventure. Not everyone embraced the series. Still, the ending gave longtime viewers genuine closure, and it put Riker, Data, Worf, Beverly Crusher and Geordi La Forge on screen together again decades after TNG went off the air.
A noticeable void has sat where stories about that era and those characters used to be ever since Picard wrapped in 2023. New series and games have kept the franchise in motion. What Next Generation fans haven’t had are many routes back to the crew that defined Trek for them.
2027 is when that changes.
Ro Laren gets the spotlight
Ro Laren returns in Star Trek: Shadow Frontier, with Michelle Forbes voicing her once more — making this the first major new project constructed around a Next Generation character since Picard ended in 2023. It also steers the franchise into notably darker territory.
Think about what Ro’s comeback represents. Forbes hadn’t played the character in nearly three decades before Picard season three, and she’s now the protagonist.
Bloober Team is making a Star Trek horror game
Handling development is Bloober Team, the studio responsible for the acclaimed Silent Hill 2 remake and Cronos: The New Dawn. Described as a mature, story-driven third-person action-adventure with a heavy psychological-horror streak, Shadow Frontier telegraphs its tone pretty clearly.
After responding to a distress call, Ro crash-lands on an uncharted planet strewn with wrecked starships. The environment there has been corrupted by a mysterious consciousness, which begins working its way into her mind.
Exploration, combat, puzzles and cinematic sequences all feed into the gameplay. Whether you take on the planet’s creatures or steer clear of them entirely is your call.
Recognizable Trek hardware plays a central role as well. Scanning the environment falls to the tricorder, while the phaser doubles as a weapon and a puzzle-solving tool.
When you can actually play it
Sometime in 2027 is the window for Star Trek: Shadow Frontier, and no specific date or tighter timeframe has come from Bloober Team or Paramount Games. June 2026 brought the official reveal, with PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X/S and PC versions confirmed. “Coming Soon” is all the Steam page offers, so whether this arrives early or late in the year is anyone’s guess.
Either way, the timing isn’t trivial. It’ll be 40 years since TNG premiered in 1987 come September 2027, planting Shadow Frontier right in the middle of an anniversary year for Picard’s corner of the franchise.
Short of Paramount and Bloober Team locking in a date, hitting wishlist on Steam is the entire plan.