In 1993 the Williams Pinball Company released a pinball machine themed around Star Trek: The Next Generation that featured iconic elements, actor voices, sounds, and music from the series. Now you can play a virtual version of this popular pinball table at home on consoles and PC.
Star Trek: The Next Generation in Pinball FX
The new TNG table is available now as DLC for Pinball FX, a digital pinball game available on available on Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. Here is the launch trailer… [NOTE: While the actual game uses music from the TV show, the trailer uses generic music]
According to Zen Studios, publishers of Pinball FX, the TNG table has been one of their most frequent requests from players. Pinball FX is free to download on Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. The TNG table DLC (downloadable content) costs $9.99.
Asteroid encounter in Star Trek: The Next Generation table in Pinball FX (Zen Studios)
Here is the official description of the TNG DLC:
Experience an out-of-this-galaxy pinball adventure on the Star Trek™: The Next Generation Williams™ Pinball Machine! Join Captain Picard on the U.S.S. Enterprise-D and fight against Romulans, Cardassians, and the Borg while listening to the original music and voices from the series!
Bumpers in Star Trek: The Next Generation table in Pinball FX (Zen Studios)
The TNG table in Pinaball FX recreates the game experience from the original table. This includes the following table features:
– Warp through eight U.S.S. Enterprise-D Missions
– Enjoy the original music and voiceovers by eight cast members
– Fire Photon Torpedoes to defend the starship
– Get ahead of the competition with the Warp Speed ball delivery sequence
– Survive the Shuttle Simulation in the Holodeck
– Reach Warp Factor 9.9 for unique rewards
– Find secret modes hidden from the galaxy. Become an honorary Starfleet officer today!
The “Cannon” in Star Trek: The Next Generation table in Pinball FX (Zen Studios)
Pinball FX features dozens of available tables for downloads including tables themed for Star Wars, Marvel, Peanuts, and Twilight Zone, along with more classic Williams pinball machines. For more info or to download the game visit pinballfx.com.
Close up on the ship in Star Trek: The Next Generation table in Pinball FX (Zen Studios)
Find more Star Trek gaming news and analysis.
What ist this music supposed to bei?
Thei maay nit hove the riites ti the mewsic
Lol… Autocomplete Punk?
Anyhow… The music Sounds awefull.
Lol, agreed
As a Trek fan with fond memories of playing this machine at a nearby video store in the ‘90s, and who has enjoyed Pinball FX on the PS4 for a while, I’m very glad to see this.
Omg, finally I can play this again! Find memories of playing this on a Sealink ferry (!!) across the English channel.
All hands, prepare for multi-ball.
Always struck me as odd they included the asymmetrical renegade Borg ship from Descent in this game. But a fun game nonetheless.
Me too, but it was the most current Borg ship at the time the game was produced
Right, but I imagine if someone were to design a TNG themed pinball table today from scratch, it’s probably gonna be based on “Best of Both Worlds,” isn’t it? Have a big cube in the middle with maybe a Locutus head with a laser pointer.
Hey, Zen, you can make that table too while you’re at it. You have my permission. ;-)
It sure looks cool! But… I want a TOS pinball machine!
There were two tables based on TOS produced by Bally in 1979 and Data East in 1991. They’ve never been recreated legally for PCs or phones. However, fans have recreated the tables for Visual Pinball on the PC, if you want to go searching for those.
Also, Interplay released a video game called Star Trek Pinball for DOS back in 1998, which was basically three of their previous tables rethemed to classic Trek. It’s still available on various abandonware sites, if you can get it to run on your Windows PC.
My dad bought this machine a long time ago and still has it in working order. Call me crazy – I think that music is actually in the game. It definitely has music that’s more iconic TNG, but I have a weird memory of hearing that music while shooting the ball out of one of the launchers – or maybe selecting a mission? Either way – neat that it’s coming out digitally!
As an owner of this actual pinball machine (in addition to my other pinball which is of my other favorite TV show…Twilight Zone :) ), this does look very cool indeed. I have Pinball FX on my desktop and certainly can recommend the program for playing pinballs if you don’t have the space or want to put in the effort to maintain the actual pinballs yourself (which can be challenging sometimes). It’s also fun as you can compete remotely with other players.
This particular pinball table is truly one of the best ever, designed by the legendary Steve Ritchie who is still actively designing pinball games to this day. He also designed the Star Trek pinball that came out a few years back for the Kelvin movies which is also a very fun game, even for someone like myself who, shall we say, was and is not at all fond of the new movies (and leave it at that ;) ) .