A free fan-made mod for Stellaris has quietly become the most complete Star Trek game ever made. Star Trek: New Horizons is a total conversion mod that transforms the base 4X strategy game into a full-blown Trek universe. It launched on the Steam Workshop on May 20, 2016, just five days after Stellaris itself came out. A decade later, it is still being updated, still free, and still better than most official Trek games.
The mod was created by a small team of volunteers who now call themselves the Paradoxical Development Group. What started as two friends wanting a proper Trek mod has grown into a project with hundreds of thousands of downloads and an active community that spans the globe.
What Star Trek New Horizons Actually Is
Star Trek: New Horizons is not a small add-on. It replaces almost everything in Stellaris with Star Trek content. The base game is a space strategy title where you build an empire and explore a randomly generated galaxy. New Horizons throws that out and gives you a static, canon map of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. Earth is where it should be. Vulcan is nearby. The Klingon Empire is the aggressive neighbor you expect.
The mod includes around 100 canon races with animated portraits, full ship sets for more than 70 races, and over 800 unique ship models. There are more than 1,000 events and over one million words of written content. The tech tree has roughly 2,000 technologies, and the mod’s blog notes it now has 1,955 technologies, which is more than twice the number in the base game.
Fans can play as the United Earth, the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, the Cardassian Union, the Dominion, and many more. Each faction has its own mechanics. The Federation grows through diplomacy and integration, not conquest. The Cardassians focus on military occupation and resource extraction. The game forces you to roleplay each empire the way it should be played.
Ten Years of Updates and a Documentary
The mod hit its 10-year anniversary on May 20, 2026. The team marked the milestone with a full-hour documentary made by J4mie, a longtime content creator and friend of the project. The documentary opens by asking why the state of Star Trek games is so poor and then walks through the mod’s history.
The film covers the early days when the team had no idea what they were doing. The first Workshop upload was just a difficulty tweak, some music, and a single 3D ship model called the Wells-class. One of the founders, Shaggo, describes showing that first ship to the team as the spark that lit the whole project.
The mod grew from two people to over a hundred contributors after a GameStar article in May 2017 brought attention to the project. Today, the team is still active. The 10th-anniversary blog post confirmed that STNH is still in active development and that the team is not running out of ideas.
The Borg Finally Feel Terrifying Again
One of the standout features of New Horizons is how it handles the Borg Collective. In the base game, crisis events can feel generic. In New Horizons, the Borg are a proper threat. The mod replaces the standard crisis with a Borg invasion that conquers the Delta Quadrant and assimilates everything in its path.
Players can even play as the Borg. The faction has a unique tech tree, unique ships, and a distinct assimilation mechanic. The Borg do not use traditional diplomacy. Their only goal is perfection. Community discussions on Steam show that players treat the Borg as a serious challenge. One thread warns that the Undine are not triggered by moving near their space, but there is an event where you can poke the beehive, with the hint: “don’t poke the beehive”.
Why the Mod Still Matters in 2026
Official Star Trek games have had a rough time. Star Trek Online is now over 16 years old. Star Trek: Infinite, published by Paradox Interactive, was described by J4mie in the documentary as a “cash grab and a flop”. A Star Trek: Voyager game called Across the Unknown was also criticized for feeling like it forgot which platform it was on.
The documentary’s verdict is blunt: in 2026, if you want a serious Star Trek strategy game, your best option is still a free Stellaris mod made by volunteers.
The mod is completely free. Players only need to own Stellaris and subscribe to Star Trek: New Horizons on the Steam Workshop. The team also maintains a music submod and an interactive tech tree website to help players plan their research.
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A Community That Kept the Dream Alive
The mod’s blog credits the community for carrying the project through every year. Feedback, bug reports, Let’s Plays, fan art, and Discord discussions have all shaped what New Horizons is today. The team held a live Q&A on the anniversary date with several developers, including Russ, Shaggo, Zoom, and Orion1988.
The mod’s subreddit has over 5,200 readers and remains active. Steam Community discussions show players still debating mechanics, sharing strategies, and helping new players install the mod correctly. One common piece of advice: you need both the main New Horizons mod and the sub mod from the same developers for it to work properly.
The 10th-anniversary post ended with a simple message from the lead developer, Gman: “I’m proud of this. I’m proud of what we built and who we built it with. And I’m not done”.
Also Read: Hulu’s 36-Episode Star Trek Replacement Is A Masterclass In Mixing Genres
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