One of my most anticipated games to come out of Summer Games Fest is so hilariously on-brand that I’m almost ashamed to admit to it. Like Bart sitting in class, not wanting to say the line, I trotted into work this morning and weakly announced that I’m quite excited about that new Star Trek game. Of course I am. Pathetic.
Star Trek: Shadow Frontier is – brace yourself – a third-person horror game from those over at Bloober Team, who, as you’ll likely know, have priors with this sort of thing. Star Trek and horror very rarely cross paths, and, like with the recent Across the Unknown, the franchise generally sticks to broad strategy titles rather than focused storytelling.
The genre isn’t the only thing that got me watching Shadow Frontier, though; it’s the protagonist. It’s Ro Laren. Ro Laren! For those who had a life in the ’90s and don’t know who that is, she is a supporting character from The Next Generation who acted as a rare source of friction for the otherwise harmonious crew. A history of insubordination, intense (arguably justified) hatred of Cardassians, and past trauma make her a fascinating subject for a game that may lean into the psychological side of things.
The trailer doesn’t give too much away, with a voiceover propelling Ro through a labyrinth of spaceship corridors – it’s someone she knows that’s talking to her; someone she wants to save. There are strange growths and moving tentacles, and everything’s pretty dark. Eventually, she gets to what I assume is the crew quarters and picks up a TNG comm badge, which just adds so many more questions.
Ro has a tumultuous career in Starfleet, to say the least; at one time she found herself as a freedom fighter outside the Federation before being recruited by Starfleet Intelligence. With her not wearing a uniform in the Shadow Frontier trailer, I’m going to assume it takes place somewhere around her freedom fighter/superspy years, with the existence of the comm badge suggesting the latter.
The malaise for new Trek is palpable, and with the most recent wave of TV shows struggling to find an audience, I (selfishly) hope that the future of the franchise lies mainly in the past, and mainly in videogame form. It’s a universe with unbelievable depth that’s just waiting to be explored. The fact that we’re getting a deeply personal, psychological thriller based on a character I’m sure not many people know is a great sign of things to come.
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