Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Review – A Dark Future Full of Tough Choices

This year, RPG fans are in for a real treat. After the near-perfect Baldur’s Gate 3, the community has seen another great game that has no shortage of difficult choices. However, in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, you are not heading to a fantasy universe, but to the distant future, where an endless war is raging against all enemies of the human race. The following lines of our review will tell you whether this universe is worth visiting.

Platform: PC (review version), PS5, Xbox Series X/S.

Release date: 12.07.2023

Developer: Owl Games

Publisher: Owl Games

Genre: Isometric RPG

Czech localization: No

Multiplayer: yes (cooperation)

Data for download: 35 GB

Game time: 70-100 hours

Price: 1200 CZK (Steam)

Warhammer 40,000 Universe: Rogue Trader Won’t Mate With You

Baldur’s Gate 3 had a wild start. However, what happened on board the nautiloid was nothing compared to what you’ll encounter when you launch Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. The spaceship you’re on has been the target of a violent uprising, leaving your chances of survival slim. And with no one to trust, there are plenty of unpleasant surprises in store. But as always in this genre, you’ll eventually manage to resolve the situation, and then begin a thrilling adventure that you’ll enjoy as a captain with a lot of work ahead of him. Even this universe needs its heroes, willing to risk their lives for the Emperor and humanity.

You can choose your main character from a selection of presets or create one from scratch, defining not only their appearance but also individual stats. This way, you can create a skilled soldier, a tech savant, a local version of a mage, or one of a number of other alternative professions. It should be noted that your hero is not alone in this. Even if you target him incorrectly, he will still have several characters to support him in combat, and he will focus primarily on conversations, knowledge, and working with technology. In our preview, I complained a lot about the game not launching right away, which made it difficult for me to establish relationships with other team members.

In the full version of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, you play through an introductory pass with a few characters, which gives you a certain bond with them that you can build on. However, the companion pool in the finished game is much larger than in the previous version I played, so you’ll get to play with other interesting characters beyond the starting squad. The personalities of the people are what draw you in. Personally, I had the closest relationship with a Space Marine from the Space Wolves Chapter. The impressive Ulfar charmed me both with his personality and the way he could attack enemies the moment he came within range.

But the path to him turned out to be much longer than to the rest of the staff. However, quality things are rarely free. Sometimes the only way to get them is to gain a reputation, built through donations and taking over worlds in the name of your values. Yes, there is also the component of building structures on planets and cooperating with other entities in this game universe. However, in my opinion, it does not play a very important role.

What is this planet, some stories

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader’s story doesn’t just take place on one world, but takes you right across multiple planets. Space travel is complex here, and in many ways resembles Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. In short, you can never be sure that you won’t crash or even that your ship won’t be attacked. In fact, it probably happens more often than is healthy. But when it does, you have no choice but to confront the daemonic creatures or other aggressors. Most of these are decent massacres, with daemons and aliens using not only treacherous crew members, but corpses as well. The encounter with crew members whose bodies always exploded after being destroyed was pretty brutal.

But when you arrive at your destination, you’ll be in for a bit of a discovery. The worlds that the creators of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader have brought you have something in common. Each location is a clearly defined corridor, sometimes consisting of several floors. So don’t expect the open-world concept that Baldur’s Gate 3 presented. But if you like old-school RPGs, you won’t mind. There are plenty of special stories on individual planets and ships. Only a few of them don’t have a dark plot, making this a very dark affair, in which you not only decide the fate of completely unknown creatures, but also your own friends. And I must say that your choices do not always lead to a happy ending. However, in this universe, there is no other way.

When talking to the population of individual worlds, you will often have to face moral tests, tests of your physical abilities or your command of the language. While in Baldur’s Gate 3 everything was transparent and the presentation could not be faulted, here we have a traditional system in which the average player often does not understand the reason why he actually succeeded or failed. In short, it will happen, and he can try his luck on the way to the last save position, or he can simply leave it alone and follow the direction in which the plot of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader will go.

You decide your fate one by one

If you accidentally fail a skill or conversation check and don’t reach the last saved position to load, a fight usually ensues. The combat system here is based on a turn-based format, so fans of XCOM: Enemy Unknown and similar refined projects will find something to their liking. Each character’s initiative is different, so you will never play your turn at the same time. Also, I found the difficulty itself to be quite high. The player doesn’t have many options to solve the situation “smartly”, so you are basically forced to eliminate your opponents one by one.

Their progression is difficult because you rarely have to deal with the power at your disposal. Fortunately, as the game progresses, the heroes progress and gain more and more powerful tools, which allow them to take on demons or other seemingly intimidating creatures. I found the combat system to be fairly fair, consistently responding to your progress and movements. For example, using magic turns the entire world into a rather dark place, which more than once attracted a demon to your world that craves mortal flesh. The enemy AI itself was also pretty good in my opinion. However, what I didn’t like about it was that sometimes more than one enemy would shoot through the textures, while it was impossible to hit them yourself.

The main problem with Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is its bugs. Considering the fact that it was developed with the support of the community, it’s not like this game is completely free of technical flaws of all sorts. I could probably live with the fact that there was a guard somewhere, even after he died. Visual bugs are just something that happens from time to time. But whenever a game contains elements that clearly interfere with my gaming experience, it’s a problem. During my journey through space, in addition to turn-based battles in which spaceships collide, I managed to encounter several minor and major bugs that made the game difficult to complete. Things didn’t always go as expected, and there were even crashes a few times. In addition, the frequency increased as the story progressed. First of all, therefore, after entering the third act. However, in a game of this size, I’m willing to be a little more lenient than in linear projects. However, I hope that the creators will work on the whole and at least eliminate the most acute shortcomings.

You won’t find a darker RPG than Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader.

There are countless RPGs on the market that try to offer the world stories full of difficult decisions. However, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is undoubtedly one of the darkest games out there. The story takes place in a grim future that doesn’t faze anyone, and more than once your hero is forced to make some truly brutal choices. The combat system is challenging but fair, and the space travel itself is worth it, thanks to the presence of well-designed giant ship battles and a wide range of locations to target.

However, I have a problem with how the developers “managed” to deal with the bugs. There are still relatively many of them, which actually forces me to reach for a slightly lower rating than I would objectively like to give. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the authors in refining their work. For now, I would recommend Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader primarily to fans of the genre who enjoy dark universes where any choice can turn against you. If that’s what you’re looking for, by all means, hop on board.