As Star Trek continues its 60th anniversary this year, fans have been hit with a wave of exciting announcements, spanning new games, collectibles, adaptations, and celebrations of the franchise’s most beloved eras. From fresh projects centered on The Next Generation and Voyager to upcoming releases that push Star Trek into entirely new genres, it's a great time to be a fan.
And in a newly announced project that takes Star Trek into a completely new genre, more than three decades after her original The Next Generation run, one fan-favorite character actor is officially reprising her role once again (via Bloober).
Ro Laren, the fiercely independent Bajoran officer introduced during season 5 of The Next Generation who frequently challenged Starfleet conventions and even Picard himself, is officially making a return in the upcoming release of Shadow Frontier. It's a new psychological horror-survival game from Bloober Team that's bringing back Michelle Forbes herself to reprise the role of Ro.
Ro's eventual decision to abandon Starfleet and join the Maquis gave her one of The Next Generation's most complicated and compelling character arcs, while Michelle Forbes' decision not to join Deep Space Nine ultimately helped pave the way for the creation of Kira Nerys. According to a 2006 interview with TV Zone, Michelle Forbes turned down Deep Space Nine primarily because she didn’t want to commit to being a series regular for five or six years.
While she enjoyed playing Ro Laren on The Next Generation, she preferred the flexibility of recurring and guest roles and wanted to pursue a wider variety of projects, including film work. In a later interview, Forbes specifically said the decision was about "wanting variety in my career," rather than any dissatisfaction with Star Trek.
As such, Forbes' return in Star Trek: Shadow Frontier feels quite special, putting the former Starfleet lieutenant at the center of its story, with Forbes once again providing her voice. Ro crash-lands on a distant planet overtaken by a mysterious consciousness, forcing her to confront hostile creatures, distorted memories, and unresolved demons from her past.
Star Trek: Shadow Frontier gives one of The Next Generation's most complicated characters something she didn't get enough of in the original series, which is an entire story built around her perspective. For longtime fans who once wondered what might have happened had Ro remained a major presence in the franchise, Shadow Frontier is our chance to find out. The game currently has no specific release date, but is available to wishlist on Steam, PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2 now.
Release Date
1987 - 1994-00-00
Network
Syndication
Showrunner
Gene Roddenberry
Directors
Cliff Bole, Les Landau, Winrich Kolbe, Rob Bowman, Robert Scheerer, Jonathan Frakes, Robert Wiemer, Gabrielle Beaumont, Alexander Singer, David Carson, Paul Lynch, Corey Allen, Patrick Stewart, Chip Chalmers, Joseph L. Scanlan, James L. Conway, Robert Lederman, Tom Benko, Timothy Bond, Robert Legato, Adam Nimoy, Robert Becker, David Livingston, LeVar Burton
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Commander William T. Riker
English (US) ·