Rogue Trader is the RPG from Owlcat games that serves as an introduction into the mammoth Warhammer 40,000 universe – where you play a Rogue Trader; building a crew and traversing the world of the Imperium. Choices matter – you are faced with the option of staying dogmatically loyal to the Imperium of Man, or opting for a heretical profit-based approach that serves Chaos. Taking place in this backdrop where you regularly fight chaos cults and the gods of Tzeentch and Chaos Space Marines; it’s a vast game that is a whopping 130 hours plus multiple DLCs to get through. Regularly updated with another game on the way, Dark Heresy – it’s the perfect entry point to a universe that has gone from strength to strength on the gaming scene with the success of Space Marine 2 and the impending remaster of one of the all-time great RTS games, Dawn of War.
Here, choices matter. Your actions determine your fate. You can spend hours customizing a character, creating an origin for them – are they from a prison world or are they from royalty? And then you plant them into a rebellion on board a ship and the middle of the chaos that starts the game’s lengthy prologue that would be the length of most other games. The gameplay is turn-based – you have a variety of weapons that you can equip your character and different tactics to play that give them bonuses, in addition to various companions who range from brawlers to psykers able to tap into the power of the warp. It’ll be up to you to determine who you need on each mission and each character, be they Idira or Abelard, the loyal dogmatic assistant to the Rogue Trader – have their character fleshed out and developed to the point where they could be the game’s own protagonist. They have their own relations with other characters and their own agendas that have to be catered to. You can choose to be caring, romantically involved or aloof in a position of power – the actions shape your character.
The story set-up is fascinating – it avoids the typical protagonists of the Imperial Guard or the Space Marines and the entire game is adapted from a Table Top Rogue Trader game – the Rogue Trader gets the ability to expand the Imperium’s borders by any means necessary giving you advantage far beyond that of a regular Guardsman or even a Marine; which rapidly become apparent as Rogue Trader unfolds. The heir of the Rogue Trader dynasty is your protagonist – and you watch the predecessor killed during some warp travel and the betrayal of the heretical cult of chaos. Can you get your house in order and navigate the expanse of the system that surrounds you? You can play this character as a heretical outcast or a loyal, dogmatic aloof Imperial – the choices that you make are up to you.
The story is interesting and develops the various plot threads together in a way that makes sense. Everything comes together as it progresses in a way that almost feels like a novel; structured with the very best of pulp fiction. The long text narrative requires dense reading but there’s enough gunplay to back it up and each characters’ skillset brings a different variety to every fight – I favoured having Idira in most due to her powerful psyker skillset, yet there were times when my rifle armoured rogue trader protagonist came in handy. The ship-to-ship void combat offers a further break from the norm – not quite as complex as say, Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock but enough to echo the naval battle of Total War. It’s a treat for fans and veterans of CRPGs – appropriately dense and appropriately engaging.
Split into multiple chapters that would span the length of smaller games, the first chapter is fascinating. After the betrayal on board; you’re thrust into a planet in the grips of rebellion. It’s tight, tense and action packed – looking at the very real consequences of ending up headfirst in the middle of a war. You recruit characters left right and centre going forward – and what follows is a neatly plotted storyline that allows options for exploration and a variety of combat, in keeping with several “choices matter”-style decisions that switch where you want to go and the boss battles are varied – one second you’ll be fighting a daemon, the next chaos space marines. It never tires and if you liked Baldur’s Gate 3, you’ll find yourself right at home here.
There are the occasional bugs that haven’t been fixed as to be expected with a game this vast, for example in combat I moved my team into an area that I couldn’t return from once combat had been triggered, meaning that I had the extra challenge of fighting hordes of chaos cultists from a narrow rooftop. It made things more challenging but robbed the freedom. The majority of the bugs that surfaced Rogue Trader at launch have been fixed now; with a development team listening to feedback regularly.
Building a dynasty through wealth and tactical combat is fascinating to watch – you’re the heir to the von Valancious dynasty and it’s refreshing to play someone who’s not a Space Marine in a narrative-style Warhammer game after Space Marine 2, the universe is so vast there’s always something there and something new to explore. The gameplay is colossal in scope and it’s polished with a vast amount of side quests that don’t feel like filler at all – everything is fresh and exciting. Furthermore, 40k fans worried about enemy variety need not be – Rogue Trader finds a way to keep things engaging multiple hours in.
The reading of ability descriptions in Rogue Trader can feel lengthy but you’ll get the handle of them eventually. It’s very wordy and that runs through the game – there’s a lot of text on screen to read. The game is very much a storytelling narrative – with vast depth that plays out almost like a novel in gameplay form. But what a good novel it is – narrative is one of the game’s biggest strengths.
I found my characters’ skillsets advanced a bit too quickly and quickly surpassed the enemy I had to fight. The support characters are powerful, fresh with variety – I loved how good Argenta was as a space nun, and they all fit their stereotypes nicely. Tech Priest Pasqal Haneumann shook things up when you think you were getting used to your characters, and the watchful eye of Heinrix van Calox kept things engaging immediately after. There’s even the option of Space Wolves as playable characters, and Eldar – further down the line – that appeal to anyone surely given their status as fan-favourite factions.
The game looks great and the character designs are fascinating across the board. Now with expansions out on Steam – Lex Imperialis was released last month – it’s an optimal time to dive into the grim darkness of the far future and revisit this game that holds up well a few years down the line from release.
Rogue Trader is now available to purchase on Steam.
Learn more about the game at the official website for the title.
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