Star Trek Remembers Walter Koenig — plus a New Visual History and More

Star Trek News · Edition of Tuesday 27 October 2026 · covering 20–27 October

This was the week Star Trek said goodbye to Walter Koenig, and the tributes to the original Enterprise navigator have kept coming. Elsewhere, a big new visual history of the original series has set its UK date, Star Trek Online has opened its haunted castle for Halloween with a graphics upgrade on PC, and IDW’s spooky Deep Space Nine mystery reaches its final issue this week.

The Star Trek News That Matters

Update: Star Trek pays tribute to Walter Koenig, the original series’ Ensign Chekov

• What is new: Since we reported Koenig’s death on Monday, more of the Star Trek family have paid tribute, including Leonard Nimoy’s son Adam Nimoy and the franchise’s long-time scenic artist Michael Okuda
• The facts: Koenig died of old age at his home in North Hollywood on Sunday night, aged 90, with his daughter and niece beside him, his representatives said
• A late honour: His representatives also noted that earlier this year he won the Platinum Award for best actor at the 2026 Independent Shorts Awards, for the short film Mr Fleischmann
• Where to watch in the UK: The original Star Trek series streams on Paramount+ in the UK, and Koenig appears in the 60th-anniversary documentary The Sixty-Year Mission, which opened in UK cinemas on 21 October

Adam Nimoy remembered “such a nice guy” and “a pleasure to hang out with” from their years on the convention circuit, while Okuda recalled the interview Koenig gave a couple of years ago for the Roddenberry Archive. Zachery McGinnis of Galactic Productions, who confirmed the death, said Koenig “understood what Star Trek meant to people and embraced the community that grew around it”. George Takei, his friend of nearly six decades, led the tributes on Monday.

Koenig joined Star Trek in its second season in 1967, played Chekov in seven films and returned once more as the voice of Federation President Anton Chekov in the final season of Star Trek: Picard in 2023. His death leaves William Shatner and George Takei as the last surviving principal cast members of the original series. If you want to start somewhere, our pick for tonight is “Catspaw”, the first episode he filmed.

Star Trek: The Original Voyages, a 416-page visual history, sets its UK date

• New development: The first spreads from Star Trek: The Original Voyages: A Visual History were revealed on Friday 23 October, ahead of publication next month
• The book: A full-colour history of the original series and its 60-year life across television, film, novels, comics, games and merchandise, written by filmmaker Kyle Newman and Star Trek author Jeff Bond, with a foreword by William Shatner
• What is inside: Hundreds of images, including previously unpublished ones, plus new interviews, with sections that run all the way to the original crew’s final films
• UK release: Published in hardback (£45) and as an ebook by Ebury Spotlight on Thursday 12 November. The US edition from Penguin Random House follows on 10 November

Bond says the aim was to put the show, and Kirk in particular, back in focus. “People often have difficulty viewing the show from the viewpoint of the era where it was radically progressive,” he said. “Kirk has been caricatured by fans, comedians and pop culture for so long that we forget that he was a very thoughtful and deeply emotional character.”

It is a good fit for an anniversary year that has already given us the documentary The Sixty-Year Mission, and it arrives just weeks after Koenig, one of the seven original bridge crew the book celebrates, has died. That will make it a more poignant read than anyone planned.

Star Trek Online opens its haunted castle for Halloween, with new graphics on PC

• New development: The annual Halloween event, Fall of the Old Ones, went live on PC and consoles on Thursday 22 October, alongside a set of new experimental graphics features on PC
• The event: Captains explore Castle Pyris in the group mission “Cat’s Tale” and two new solo patrols. Fourteen days of progress unlock the Fear Itself kit, which summons the Kohl Entertainer, and a matching costume seen in the Voyager episode “The Thaw”
• New graphics: Volumetric lighting, more realistic surface depth, softer shadows in space and real-time reflections are all switched off by default and can be turned on in the game’s Advanced options. The developers say some may come to consoles later
• UK availability: Star Trek Online is free to play in the UK on PC, PlayStation and Xbox. The event runs until 8pm UK time on Thursday 12 November

The update shows off the new lighting on the Castle Pyris maps first, with more of the game’s locations to follow. It is a welcome sign of investment in a game now in its 17th year, which also sits alongside Outposts Unknown as one of the places where fans can still find new Star Trek adventures each month.

Watch the graphics preview

IDW’s spooky Deep Space Nine mystery Star Trek: Holo-Ween II reaches its final issue

• New development: Issue #3 of IDW’s weekly Halloween miniseries arrived on Wednesday 21 October, and the fourth and final issue is due on Wednesday 28 October
• The story: Written by Alex Segura with art by Bailie Rosenlund, it is a locked-room murder mystery on Deep Space Nine. In issue #3, Worf and Odo seal off the station after a garbled warning from Sisko, only to find that Bashir and Dax have vanished
• The background: It is a sequel to IDW’s 2023 Holo-Ween, which pitted the Enterprise-D crew against Redjac and is available as a collected edition
• UK release: Available digitally on US release day. Print copies reach UK comic shops that stock IDW titles. UK dates for a collected edition not yet confirmed

A weekly release schedule makes this a neat Halloween treat, with all four issues landing in October and the finale arriving just before the 31st. With Deep Space Nine not getting any new screen stories, IDW’s comics are now where its characters live on, alongside Gates McFadden’s Star Trek: Crusher, which we covered earlier this month.

What is your favourite Walter Koenig moment as Chekov, on screen or off?