General Gaming Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader (CRPG from Owlcat Games) - massive Patch 1.1.28 released (1,800+ changes)

[Zaku3]

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun on Steam

STORE.STEAMPOWERED.COM

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Load up your Boltgun and unleash the awesome Space Marine arsenal to blast your way through an explosion of sprites, pixels and blood in a perfect blend of Warhammer 40,000, frenetic gameplay and the stylish visuals of 90’s retro shooters.

 

 

 

They heard you wanted 40k but Quake and Metal Slug but the player character is an Ork.

 

 

 

In addition the Emperor has heard your prayers Owlcat games is making a CRPG. Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

New Darktide trailer:

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Space Marine II "Behind the Scenes" trailer:

 

 

[Zaku3]

Announcement trailer for Rogue Trader.

 

 

 

[jaethos]

I really like Owlcat's RPGs, and I've recently become more interested in WH40k, so Rogue Trader has me very interested. 

[stepee]

FROM WHO

[elbobo]

Just started playing pathfinder kingmaker and it is excellent so I'm looking forward to owlcat's game

[stepee]

Okay actually the metal slug one looks pretty fun.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

5 hours ago, jaethos said:

I really like Owlcat's RPGs, and I've recently become more interested in WH40k, so Rogue Trader has me very interested. 

 

2 hours ago, elbobo said:

Just started playing pathfinder kingmaker and it is excellent so I'm looking forward to owlcat's game

 

I'm sure Rogue Trader will be an outstanding game...

 

...after the fifth or sixth patch 

 

[BloodyHell]

Im looking forward to Rogue Trader. Shootas, Blood, and Teef looks awesome, October 20 looks like a good day!

And Space Marine 2... I want it so bad, but I expect a long wait. They didn't show any new footage at all, just stuff from the vertical slice we saw at Game Awards. Seems it's very early in development. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Recent Roger Trader previews:

 

In Warhammer 40,000 RPG Rogue Trader, you’re 'less of an adventurer' and more 'like a god' | TechRadar

WWW.TECHRADAR.COM

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All ahead full

 

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Rogue Trader is quite clearly inspired by the tabletop roleplaying game of the same name, by Fantasy Flight Games. Shestov spoke fondly of “over five years” of team sessions at Owlcat. 

 

Though Owlcat does not intend to blindly borrow from the pen-and-paper classic, it clearly wants to do justice to a unique ethos. “It’s a game about searching through space, dealing with anomalies, and trading”, Shestov says – keen to impress upon us Rogue Trader’s unique ability to “deliver believable, diverse stories”. Folks who enjoy the TTRPG will also be happy to learn that the Owlcat game is set in the Koronus Expanse – a fan favorite region of space. 

 

As a veteran of said game, I can confirm that Rogue Trader is at its best when storytellers lean into the sheer scope of the setting. You might be negotiating with an alien diplomat one minute, before rushing off to help your allies in a space battle the next. Perhaps this culminates with a dramatic duel on the bridge of your ship, or maybe a tense political stand-off. 

 

In Owlcat’s game,  you may “encounter some mighty figure who is asking for help” and decide, in a Machiavellian power move, to have them drop “to their knees” in supplication and beg for your assistance. The developer is keen to faithfully recreate the power and influence Rogue Traders hold in the tabletop game – assuring us that the CRPG’s player character is “less of an adventurer” and more “like a god.” 

 

 

 

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader’s Combat Promises To Be a Strategy Masterclass - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader may be an RPG, but it has a deep, tactical combat system that could be a strategy masterclass.

 

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While devastating psychic abilities and guns capable of reducing an enemy to smears of red paste are exciting, I’m surprised to find it’s the planning layers before the kill that have me most impressed. Party member Pasqal, for example, is a Tech Priest with the ability to survey an enemy and identify their weak points, which can then be exploited with an attack. That attack can be enhanced through the use of the Machine Spirit Communion skill, which blesses a weapon to increase its attack value. Finally, Pasqal’s firearm - a volatile plasma gun - can be overcharged for devastating damage (provided you’re willing to run the lethal risk of it backfiring). These three steps combined can prove devastating to an enemy character, and this is what appears to be one of Rogue Trader’s more simplistic strategies.

 

Most turn-based RPGs embrace this kind of forward thinking, but it's the fact that every single character in this demo has their own strategic abilities that impresses me. Even characters that share a class can have unique skills thanks to Rogue Trader’s multi-tier career ladders. All characters have a basic class, but they develop into advanced and then elite tiers, which further specialises them. For example, Pasqal is an adept, a class that studies the battlefield to identify opportunities and weaknesses. Idira, another party member, is also an adept, but as an unsanctioned psyker (see: illegal space wizard) her advanced and elite tiers promise to tap into adjacent-but-different areas to Pasqal’s, such as precognition. So while both characters hail from a similar skill set, they have the potential to evolve into distinctly different specialisms. That will hopefully avoid the classic RPG pitfall where having two companions of the same class feels like pointlessly doubling up.

 

 

 

'Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader' is worthy of the Blood God's gaze

WWW.NME.COM

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Developer Owlcat Games takes NME through a bloody shootout in upcoming CRPG 'Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader'.

 

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One way that Rogue Trader pulls this off is with a dynamic dismemberment system – an incredibly on-brand feature for a Warhammer game that turns every death into a disgusting spectacle. In one fight, a stray burst of las rounds dissected a Druchii with messy imperfection, leaving a single bloody leg skating along the steaming ice. It’s undeniably over-the-top and gratuitous – Warhammer‘s middle name – yet the gore sells the brutish strength of each weapon with aplomb. Owlcat points out that a shot from a plasma gun will ruin someone’s day very differently to being hit with a hammer, which is apt to mash Xenos into space jam.

 

Beyond the difference in weapons, each character’s class lends itself to different styles of play. A Tech-Priest can hit enemies with a range of debuffs or perk their allies up, while a Smuggler is all about fast movement and sneaking in as many potshots as possible. Each class also has its own background – the Smuggler in the demo was a former soldier, which meant they were a running, gunning killing machine that had no difficulty turning the table on a set of Druchii ambushers.

 

 

 

WARHAMMER 40,000: ROGUE TRADER TAKES OWLCAT INTO THE FUTURE – GAMESCOM 2022

 

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Like any good adventure game, this RPG bundles the Rogue Trader and a party of allies, this time made up of 5 companions, into a series of quests, side missions, and encounters that explore the world around them. In this case, it seems like Rogue Trader is set to delve into areas of 40K that we don’t always see, hopefully allowing Owlcat to play on the fringes of established cannon and delve into the underworlds that don’t make for epic tabletop campaigns. This time, we moved off into this abandoned citadel. The background and overall aesthetic is just as imposing as you might expect from any great 40Kgame. While our landing craft for this expedition into the unknown might have seemed impressive enough, the scale of the architecture around it was immense, conjuring up images of the gargantuan Grand Cruisers that make up the Imperial Navy. Like much of Warhammer 40K this setting succeeds in making you aware of just how insignificant you and your loyal cannon fodder are against the harsh reality of the universe before thrusting you into an unfortunate situation.

 

All this stoic posing from a dead world complete, we tripped over ourselves to head into this deadly necropolis. Our tour through Rogue Trader turned out to be a primarily combat based expedition, and an opportunity to see one of the big changes of direction for the development team at Owlcat. Previous outings with Pathfinder have incorporated a dynamic action combat system, where initiative rolls and attack score are all calculated on the fly and attacking an enemy can feel chaotic. This time around players familiar with the Pathfinder approach will find a more methodical way to take down enemies alongside an entirely new repartee of unusual allies. Entering a snow swept lobby, our group of ferocious heroes were eagerly accosted by some scarily savage beasties, but his did give us an opportunity to unfurl the turn-based combat that stands front and center in Rogue Trader.

 

 

 

Official news site for the game:

News - Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

ROGUETRADER.OWLCAT.GAMES

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Zaku3]

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

 

I wanna speak with the owner of these forums. Posting pornographic material without tags.

[BloodyHell]

I want this, but seriously, just give me damn digital warhammer. Im happy to even buy my digital armies and rules updates, if thats what's required, but theres no reason we shouldn't be playing 40k and Sigmar on an official game. TTS is good, but its not built around warhammer.

 

Add Warhammer Fantasy and you can have all the money! Fantasy is still my favorite game (warhammer Armies Project is the best form to play Warhammer Fantasy riht now) and I play it more often than 40k or Sigmar (mostly because I have two friends who still also have armies). I even have one of those old 6 piece green game boards we all used to play on. 

 

Damn, I can't wait for Old World.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Rogue Trader alpha begins next week...as long as you pre-order either the Developer's Digital Pack ($99) or Collector's Edition ($299)

 

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

ROGUETRADER.OWLCAT.GAMES

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader - First Impressions

WWW.THEGAMER.COM

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Credits for the credit god!

 

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I’m deeply enjoying Rogue Trader. It hits all the marks - complex combat, snappy dialogue, gorgeous environments, and an insightful depiction of 40k’s established lore. As a newbie to the universe, I have to read every tooltip and encyclopedia page, and every time I’ve felt the need to delve into a wikia, it’s been to explore, not to explain.

 

The alpha build I got to mess around with is a bit more limited than the final release will be, placing me in the shoes of the always-male Rogue Trader named, fittingly if unimaginatively, Rogue Trader, and starting me off at the beginning of chapter two. After a quick background customisation sequence that took the form of familiar storybook scenes that many will know from Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, I was thrust into the middle of the narrative. This was great for me, as it took away much of the choice paralysis of character creation and forced me straight into the action.

 

 

 

Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader – Alpha impressions | Wargamer

WWW.WARGAMER.COM

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The first CRPG for Warhammer 40k, Rogue Trader charts a course into the unknown - there’s a long voyage ahead, but Owlcat Games has a firm hand on the tiller

 

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I’ve had my clammy hands on the alpha build of Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader over the weekend, sneaking in 15 hours with the new CRPG from Owlcat Games. Zealous fans who sprang the cash for the luxurious Developer Digital edition or Collector’s edition of the game will be able to try it out for themselves on December 7, and might be wondering if it was a sound investment. Good news, folks – Rogue Trader looks like it’s going to rock.

 

 

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Alpha Hands-On - Charting the Koronus Expanse

WCCFTECH.COM

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Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is setting out to be a very interesting cRPG set in the beloved world created by Games Workshop.

 

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After generating the Rogue Trader, the Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader throws players right into the action at the start of Chapter 2. Theodora Von Valancious' ship has been damaged in a previous encounter, and the noble Rogue Trader has died during the assault, and it is up to her successor, the player, to reach Footfall, a void station in the asteroid belt and one of the main trade hubs in the Koronus Expanse, to repair the ship and resume the expedition. With the six companions that have already joined the Rogue Trader, they land at the trading hub to discover that the political and social climate are quite complicated, and it will be the Rogue Trader's choices that will further shape the lives of those living on the trade hub.

 

Right from the start, it is clear how Owlcat Games is going all-in when it comes to the setting and story. Those with limited knowledge of the Warhammer 40,000 universe may feel confused by the barrage of terms that are thrown at them right from the beginning of the adventure, but those who live and breathe Warhammer 40,000 will definitely be happy to see such an accurate representation of the universe. Despite still being in alpha, the game does a very good job at providing information on important terms and concepts, information that is readily available by hovering over certain terms with the mouse cursor in true cRPG fashion. Choices will obviously play a very big role in the game, and while those in the alpha have minor consequences, they make the player feel like an active part of the world.

 

 

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is giving me strong OG Fallout vibes

WWW.POLYGON.COM

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Adventure awaits in the port city of Footfall

 

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Owlcat has put its best foot forward, delivering a one-two punch of quality original narrative and delicious isometric ultraviolence. It’s still very early to get hyped about a game with no release date, but fans of 40K and the original Fallout will want to keep this one on their radar.

 

In the lore of 40K, a “rogue trader” is a swashbuckling merchant who operates on the fringes of the human empire. But don’t expect to slip on the mantle of a scrappy mariner fending off bands of marauding space pirates. Instead you’re a member of the nobility, with a ship the size of a small city and thousands of underlings to do your bidding. Your personal retinue is a band of highly skilled and eccentric humanoid warriors, and the goal is to blaze a trail of glory and enterprise across a dangerous galaxy.

 

Just how dangerous? In the first hour that I spent playing the game I experienced a total party kill, my band of six heavily armed combatants reduced to steaming piles of meat on a dusty floor. And that was just a low-level engagement against some street thugs.

 

Reloading, I hopped back in to my saved game determined to make it out alive. What I found was an intricate series of synergistic character abilities, not unlike something you’d find in a boutique Japanese role-playing game. Every character in the party has a role, it seems, even if sometimes that’s just hiding behind a crate and buffing the characters with the biggest guns.

 

And the guns themselves behave just like you’d expect. Bolter rounds explode with a satisfying thud, sometimes blasting opponents back and knocking them down. Flamers arc across the battlefield, setting enemies alight. Friendly fire is a huge concern, and making sure that all of your troops have clear backstops and open fields of fire is key to their survival.

 

 

[BloodyHell]

Definitely looking forward to this.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is shaping up to be a stellar CRPG | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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Owlcat Games' latest has shot to the top of my most-wanted list.

 

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Footfall Station is an Imperial outpost on the edge of the Koronus Expanse, a wild sector of frontier space that I plan to tame as a newly minted Rogue Trader. It's essentially Mos Eisley with more buttresses. The Liege of Footfall has requested an audience, a convenient development as my ship needs repairs anyway. Before we arrive at Footfall, however, one of my tech-priests asks a question. Do I want to be greeted with the pomp and formality my title deserves? Or do I want to enter the station incognito?

 

Frankly, I'm insulted by the question. I'm a bloody Rogue Trader! I'm a one-man East India Company, given special warrant by the Imperium to explore uncharted space, expand its borders, and milk the colonies I establish for everything they're worth. In the callous meat-grinder of the Imperium, I'm one of the few allowed to turn the handle. I want the red-carpet treatment. Trumpets, confetti, adoring crowds, and something sexy bursting out of a cake.

 

When I descend to the station via dropship, a throng of sycophants applaud my arrival, though frankly I expected it to be bigger. Suddenly, a man dressed in orange rags yells out, and armed gangsters pour from all corners of the dock. The applauding masses are subject to an appalling massacre, as bullets aimed at me rip through the crowd. But I know a thing or two about massacres, and leap into the fray with my entourage, butchering the thugs with blades and bullets. Heads roll, limbs fly, a good number of the attackers are simply mulched. From the carnage, I pick out a couple of weapons I like the look of, then store the rest as cargo to be sold in bulk at a later date.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Developer Diaries:

 

 

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

[ThreePi]

Hope this turns out well. The Pathfinder games are the best of the CRPG revival of the past 10 years or so and the 40K franchise could use a good "win" as a lot of stuff has fallen flat.

[Massdriver]

I’ve played a lot of crpgs the last couple of years and I enjoyed Kingmaker and I’m working on WotR. Very enjoyable and well done.

 

They’re probably some of my favorites too. I like the ruleset, but Pillars 2 and Tyranny are also great. Torment is rarely mentioned but is entertaining and of course Disco. I beat Baldur’s Gate 2 last year and once I got past the old animations, I had a blast with it. 
 

Owlcat does a few things wrong. Their games are poorly optimized at times, there are too many bugs at first, and at times the writing is uneven, but it’s still great. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

 

Rogue Trader is an RPG that dives deep into Warhammer 40K lore

WWW.POLYGON.COM

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Sail the stars, kill heretics, make money

 

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The world of 40K also offers some interesting subversions of the RPG formula. Usually my character is a helpful hero, always inquiring about a villager’s quest requirements. Rogue Trader quickly reminds me that in a grimdark future of only war, typical RPG protagonist behavior is read as servile and pathetic. On the other hand, I’ve quickly accumulated a party of dangerous people who I need to keep happy, so I can’t be too mean. My skills offer me alternative solutions; I can use my lore in the warp to suggest a ritual, or my knowledge of foul xenos to warn an ally of their machinations.

 

Rogue Trader excellently captures the flavor and tone of the 40K universe while telling its own story and setting the stakes. All of my allies are under the banner of the Imperium of Man, but the schisms and fractures within that banner lead to very different interpretations and executions upon the Imperial Creed. It’s also fun just to chat to my Space Marine or Sister of Battle friend and see what they think about the world, even if it doesn’t mean I’ll progress in a specific quest.

 

Even better, the game lets me and my allies delve into places that the “main” narrative of 40K doesn’t, like the Drukhari city of Commorragh. This city is tucked into the Webway, a system of pathways in between the extra-dimensional Warp and realspace, and it’s full of evil elves who make the Sith look like toddlers. Going to Commorragh is a huge breath of fresh air in a setting that focuses so heavily on the Imperium, and it makes for a complete blast to explore such a dangerous, alien place with the freedom afforded by a RPG with branching dialogue trees.

 

 

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Beta Preview - The Wealthiest of the Universe

WCCFTECH.COM

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With its great attention to lore and detail, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is setting out to be one of the best games based on the universe

 

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Starting from the beginning of the campaign, the Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader beta offers the first look at many of the game's features that were unavailable in the alpha, such as character creation. While all of the options have yet to be finalized, the character creator allows for ample customization of body, skin color, hairstyles, tattoos and scars, implants, and voice. Creating the physical appearance of your character is only the beginning, as you will be able to choose the character's Occupation, which will influence the character's attributes, skills, and features while also changing the basic outfit, pick the Triumph and Darkest Hours, the best and worst moment your character has lived so far to better define its backstory and abilities, and Career, which acts as a class. The beta features the basic Adept, Soldier, Fighter, and Leader and the advanced Hunter, Assassin, and Vanguard Careers, and all of them have seen some major reworking to allow for more varied playstyles in combat. Careers will also matter while exploring the Koronus expanse, as abilities like Awareness, Athletics, Lore, and more will open up more options while interacting with the environment and various NPCs.

 

Once your Rogue Trader has been created, you will be thrown straight into the game's Prologue, which acts as a sort of tutorial area that teaches the player the basics of exploration and ground combat. The ground combat system is the feature that has changed less over the alpha, as it is still a turn-based tactical combat system where player and AI take turns to move their units and use a variety of weapons and abilities to defeat the enemy. The Momentum system, with a proper explanation and the time to get used to it, feels even better than it did in the alpha. This system is essentially a battle morale system that allows characters to use special abilities called Desperate Measures and Heroic Acts depending on the Momentum Value, and a character's low health in the case of Desperate Measures. This system, in addition to the vast number of different abilities, different battlegrounds with interactable elements, friendly fire, and other features, make for an extremely deep experience that will provide plenty to sink their teeth into for fans of tactical RPGs.

 

 

 

Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader - First Impressions - Bell of Lost Souls

WWW.BELLOFLOSTSOULS.NET

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We sat down with Owlcat Games and got a look at the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. It's what you think it is in all the right ways.

 

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Combat-wise (and there’s LOTS of combat) it’s more X-COM style with a square grid and a movement/action point system for your party. You’ve got some basic attacks based on the weapons you have. And yes, you do have to reload your guns if you run out of ammo. It’s a pretty simple system and if you played any X-COM game or even the more recent Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate: Daemonhunters (also a great game) then you’ll be right at home. It’s not the exact same but it’s close enough.

 

Like I said, it’s checking all the right boxes so far! That’s kind of what I’d expect from Owlcat, the same company that did Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It’s turn-based instead of real time combat but that’s a trade off I appreciate in this type of a tactical game with loads of ways to kill your foes.

 

Also, without getting to far into the weeds of combat, you can really customize your crew’s combat prowess. You can build characters to become experts at a particular style of combat (ranged vs melee as an example). You can even mix in support options to boost your combat monkey characters, too. Or go for a mix. You’ve got a lot of play and different styles to play with for your part. From what I saw, it’s a good system

 

 

 

Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader – How Did it Take This Long to Get a Warhammer CRPG? - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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In a two-hour hands-off demo, we took a look at the first-ever CRPG in the Warhammer 40K universe.

 

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The first and most immediately obvious example is the combat, which takes a classic turn-based tactics approach that should feel very familiar to Warhammer players and scales it down from a military mass combat encounter to fit a smaller group of ne’er-do-wells that’s more appropriate for a party-based RPG. Galactic scale aside, everything else a Warhammer fan could expect appears to be present and accounted for, whether it’s detailed maps littered with cover, a sandbox of weapons and abilities that allow for slow and strategic engagement of the enemy, and a wide variety of iconic Warhammer factions to fight. If you’re looking to capture the magic of a turn-based Warhammer shootout in video game form, so far Rogue Trader seems to be making all the right moves.

 

From the nearly two-hour-long demo I was given, there also seems to be a super dense story with more dialogue options and social checks than you can shake a power sword at, and the incredibly detailed environments definitely succeed at recreating the world of Warhammer in all its pessimistic and depressing glory. Playing as a Rogue Trader, one of only a handful of individuals given agency to explore the galaxy and largely do as you please, you’re put in a unique, Commander Shepard-esque position of setting out to chart your own course and make enormously consequential decisions with almost no balances to your power – the perfect setup for an RPG with lots of dramatic choices and consequences, wouldn’t you say?

 

 

 

 

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader beta brings CRPG goodness to the grimdark future

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We go hands on with the Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader beta, delving into the expansive CRPG and the lore of this dark future setting.

 

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Being a CRPG, this is a wordy game. A very, very wordy game. As the characters converse, they feel absolutely rooted in this setting, your dialogue options more than capable of seeing you rebuked for not being pious or fervent enough in the service of the God Emperor, but also letting you lean into a particular role and background. If there’s every a piece of jargon that you don’t know or remember, you are able to click on the bolded words in the conversation to link through to an encyclopaedia.

 

Oh, that’s right, there’s a full character creator before you even get to this part, letting you pick the look for your character, your origins, whether that’s being Void Born or from a Hive World, then your background as a person, which affects dialogue options available to you, and then choosing a career that is this game’s two-tiered class system. You can be a fighter, leader, psychic adept or soldier at the start, but can then further specialise as an assassin, vanguard or hunter, though not all of these options can be combined. There’s a fair bit of this that’s locked away or not fully fleshed out for the beta, but the framework is clearly quite flexible.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader’s devs want to capitalize on 2023’s CRPG obsession

WWW.POLYGON.COM

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Late-game companions are forces to be reckoned with

 

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I can’t help drawing parallels to my current obsession: Baldur’s Gate 3. Larian Studios’ CRPG has not only sold far better than its creative director anticipated, but also ignited public forums and Polygon staff DMs with conversations about another unlikely band of friends: Astarion, Shadowheart, Gale, and Lae’zel, to name some. Baldur’s Gate 3 is nothing short of a phenomenon, and it’s proven that CRPGs, despite their presumed niche-ness, still hold quite a lot of clout. It’s an exciting time for fans of role-playing, and I imagine it must be exciting for Owlcat. I mention as much to Mishulin as he closes down the demo.

 

“Baldur’s Gate 3’s success is very encouraging,” he says. “Larian Studios is doing great work, and as a result, they’re bringing even more people into the CRPG genre, and renewing a lot of passion for it. Ideally, when those players all finally finish Baldur’s Gate 3 [laughs] they’ll be even more ready to dive into Rogue Trader.”

 

 

 

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Preview

WWW.THEGAMER.COM

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Take a closer look at Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the upcoming CRPG from Owlcat Games!

 

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Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader creative director Alexander Mishulin leads his party of six spacefaring ne'er-do-wells in a battle against a potentially-unending force of Necrons to demonstrate how combat works in this 40k experience, and I can only watch on in awe. The fight was full of close calls, and the party had to take some risks, overextending with melee and going all-in to win the day.

 

The team members that you recruit throughout the course of the game are largely determined by your actions. For the preview demo, Mishulin assembles a party of outcasts and cutthroats, indicating that the player character had skirted Imperial law and, if not for the Warrant Of Trade granting him immunity, would probably have been branded a heretic by now.

 

 

 

Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader Preview

SCREENRANT.COM

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Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is becoming an increasingly attractive prospect for fans of western RPGs, even those unfamiliar with the franchise.

 

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If there’s a constant piece of negative community feedback circulating on Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader’s playtest so far, it probably regards the space battles. Here, players captain the Rogue Trader Cruiser in battle against threats from various species and their spacecrafts, using mechanics which work quite differently from those found in the boots-on-the-ground skirmishes.

 

For those who did not fare well during the playtest, Mishulin assures that, “There will be options for players to either make them really easy, or circumvent them entirely… You will not be spending your mental capacity on how to approach this or how to fight them [if you don’t want to].” While difficulty settings for space battles weren’t in the Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader playtest, they are confirmed to be included in the full release.

 

Additionally, players can expect detailed tutorials along with those updates, explaining how to approach space combat with different faction ships. Drukhari ships, for example, can be frustratingly evasive, but there’s a trick to fighting them that requires arming attacks on alternating turns. Regardless, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader players will be able to tune down the challenge for these encounters in the finished version, and they only represent an estimated 5 to 10% of the total playable game.

 

 

 

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader could be your next CRPG obsession | Digital Trends

WWW.DIGITALTRENDS.COM

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Just like Baldur's Gate 3, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is shaping up to be an ambitious 100-hour CRPG.

 

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In its full, final form, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader will be a massive RPG full of meaningful player choices and a sprawling story. My demo, though, was solely focused on its combat system. And that’s a good thing, because it’s the area where it really feels like Owlcat is going to stand out from the pack.

 

The gameplay segment I saw was a battle somewhere past the 80-hour mark. My crew of six figurine-like heroes touched down on a planet and walked down into a Necron den. That kicked off a long grid-based, turn-based battle against five Necrons, a few healing drones, and some teleporters that spawned in new monsters intermittently. After placing each team member in an opening action phase, a developer began showing me just how much players can do in a battle — and it’s a heck of a lot.

 

Each character has five action points that can be spent on their turn, which can be split between attacks and a slew of abilities. In my session, I saw late-game characters with 20 abilities equipped, as well as two different sets of weapons. What’s notable about that large of a turn economy is that it really enables players to create and execute specific strategies each battle, rather than launching attacks until each enemy is dead. The 45-minute battle I witnessed revolved around support companions stacking buffs on one damage-heavy character. That incrementally built up his power as the battle progressed until he was dealing over 170 damage on a hit. Meanwhile, a pair of ranged characters controlled the eastern side of the arena, with one continually buffing the other and giving them extra turns.

 

Even more unique is Rogue Trader’s momentum system. The better players do in battle, the more a bar fills that’s shared between all characters. When it hits a certain threshold, a character can initiate a sort of super ability that lets them zip anywhere they want on the map and pull out a powerful attack phase capable of wiping out multiple enemies in one go. Each character can only use it once per battle, but another character can activate it the next time the bar fills up. On the flip side, there’s an anti-momentum system which lets players activate that skill if they’re doing badly … though it’ll come with some negative effects too.

 

 

 

Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader preview: Owlcat reveals the 10th companion

WWW.SPORTSKEEDA.COM

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Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader has been in beta for over a year, and I’ve finally had a chance to get a peek at it.

 

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As this takes place about 80 hours into a roughly 100-hour game, I won’t spoil anything major. All I can say is that the party was seeking information about their Dynasty, and it led them to a small Necron outpost.

 

Stealth didn’t work, so the team of the Rogue Trader, Marazhai, Jae Heydari, Idira Tlass, and Pasqal Haneumann had to fend off the space zombies. However, this base had two teleporters. If you don’t destroy them fast, you can be overrun by a constant flow of the Necron menace.

 

The turn-based gameplay is exceptional. It uses an Initiative system, so each character goes when it’s their time. You also have to worry about friendly fire and be extremely careful how you position and use your allies. Even though they were level 40, they had way less HP than the Necron forces.

 

 

 

"It's not a welcoming setting": Rogue Trader's Alexander Mishulin on Warhammer CRPGs, setting, scope, and more (Exclusive)

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After checking out Warhammer 40K Rogue Traders, I had the pleasure of speaking to Alexander Mishulin (Creative Director) and Nikita Putilin (PR Director) of the upcoming CRPG.

 

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After checking out Warhammer 40K Rogue Traders, I had the pleasure of speaking to Alexander Mishulin (Creative Director) and Nikita Putilin (PR Director) of the upcoming CRPG. We spoke about a variety of topics throughout the event, but the interview focused on lessons learned, why 40K instead of Warhammer Fantasy, and much more. There’s a lot to love in this upcoming roleplaying game, and it’s also the first-ever Warhammer CRPG.

 

As a Rogue Trader, the player has the freedom to associate with whom they wish without stressing about the Emperor of Mankind, so you can expect a wild, varied team of protagonists.

 

Unfortunately, Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader does not have a release date yet, but the game is a lot of fun. It takes a great deal from the rich, grimdark future of Warhammer 40K without feeling like it was rehashed from other games.

 

During our conversation, Alexander Mishulin, Creative Director at Owlcat Games, discussed why there hasn't been a Warhammer 40K CRPG until Rogue Trader.

 

 

 

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Interview - Owlcat Gets Grim | TechRaptor

TECHRAPTOR.NET

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With our Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader interview with Owlcat Games, we got a look at the game 80 hours in, and learned more about the story and gameplay

 

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Founded in 2016, Owlcat Games is dedicated to bringing incredible tabletop roleplaying game experiences into the digital realm. Beginning with Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, the game studio now embarks into the grim dark future of the 41st millennium with Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader.

 

Based on the tabletop RPG by Fantasy Flight Games, and set in the weird, oppressive world of Games Workshop's classic tabletop miniature game Warhammer 40,000, we got a chance to see the game in action at a preview event in Manhattan and spoke to a few members of the team.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Recent developer videos:

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Recent videos from Mort:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

PC Gamer isn't particularly impressed:

 

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader review | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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The first CRPG in the Warhammer 40,000 universe gets the tone right, but the combat's a drag.

 

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We've just defeated a cult, foiled a plot, saved a world. A bureaucrat says the triumphant parade has already been organized. We'll get to ride a battle tank, and halfway it'll stop and a small crowd will mob us. It's all stage-managed. The mob has been carefully vetted, the bureaucrat explains. "Members of the military. Young people, attractive and physically fit. A few healthy children."

 

At the end of the parade the heretic leader's body will be burned on a pyre. The bureaucrat asks if we'd mind handing the flamer to the governor for this part, as it would be a real PR coup for him.

 

In moments like this, Rogue Trader nails the dystopian satire of Warhammer 40,000's Imperium. There's a sidequest about document approval climaxing in a queue that some people have been waiting in for days, and which I can use my authority to subvert in underhanded ways. When I want people to know how important I am, I have a robot skull in a barrister's wig fly around announcing my presence and title. One of the entertainments at a coronation is just 'shooting prisoners'. 

 

 

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There are things about the combat I like. There's artful slow-mo on kill strikes that adds emphasis to the Sister of Battle's bursts of bolt-pistol fire or the psyker's lightning arcing from target to target. And using psychic powers results in veil degradation, which adds whispering voices, shadow tentacles, and other visual effects as well as random Perils of the Warp like a blastback of psychic damage or straight-up summoning a daemon.

 

It's just that there's a lot of combat, and most of it's boring. There's never one interesting tactical battle when there could be three samey ones to grind down your resources. And the proliferation of abilities and passive bonuses to those abilities makes character progression a chore. Everyone levels up constantly, and making decisions for the six party members plus the three or so left behind who nevertheless need to rotate in for their personal quests is absolute tedium. You'll be staring at options like adding +((50 + 10 x Ballistic Skill bonus) / number of enemies in the area of effect)% damage with an additional +(10 + 2 x Ballistic Skill bonus)% dodge reduction to your next ranged area-of-effect attack, and wondering who thought making it all so bitty was a good idea.

 

The other thing that sapped my goodwill is bugs. While it runs smoothly on my rig (and managed to run at over 30fps even when I tested it on a laptop with a 1060), I've had quest bugs and problems with the AI. I had to restart after a quest-blocking bug 18 hours in, and had characters insist I help them with problems I already solved or offer their services after being recruited. One enemy ran back to the beginning of the map on the first turn and hid there, meaning after dealing with his friends I had to trek back in turn-based mode to finish the fight. Allies sometimes don't act on their turns, and distant enemies sometimes take a full minute to decide what they're doing. The camera doesn't always move where it's supposed to when dialogue pops up during battles, meaning I have to read it in the log after. The log reverts to Russian when describing Perils of the Warp, and explains why I have to reroll successes by saying "%Reason%". Two of my combat abilities stopped working for a while, and the tech-priest's utility mechadendrites, which are supposed to give him a +10 bonus to Demolition and Tech-Use, instead give him a +1,020 bonus. I could go on.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

PCGamesN is lukewarm on the game in its current state as well:

 

Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader review – a deep but unfinished sci-fi RPG

WWW.PCGAMESN.COM

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Our Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader review details how bugs and balance issues bury its great combat, companions, and intriguing universe.

 

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It isn’t until halfway through the lengthy second chapter that Rogue Trader begins to fall apart like a Voidship under heavy fire from two angles: bugs and tedious auxiliary mechanics. The first major issue arises when a talent that grants my protagonist an extra turn breaks, making her the only character – including enemies – that can act in combat. Instead of reloading an earlier save and respeccing my character to remove said talent, I destroy a troublesome gang as they’re powerless to stop me. I respec afterwards, but a couple hours of playtime later I realize I somehow broke a companion quest in cheesing the mission. I can no longer help Argenta, a dogmatic Soldier, face the demons of her past.

 

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Much like the devout’s blind faith in the God Emperor, I have hope that Owlcat Games will eventually release a handful of patches that elevate Rogue Trader into the ranks of the best modern CRPGs, given its track record with the Pathfinder games. That said, I can’t strongly recommend Rogue Trader in its current state. I want to revisit it in a year or so to truly appreciate the great character creation, memorable companions, intriguing Warhammer lore, and deep combat – maybe with an option to skip Voidship battles, please and thank you.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Rock Paper Shotgun's review-in-progress is more positive:

 

Rogue Trader is the first Warhammer 40K game I've played that feels genuinely epic

WWW.ROCKPAPERSHOTGUN.COM

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A Warhammer: 40,000: Rogue Trader review in progress from RPS, analysing the combat gameplay, narrative and levelling s…

 

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In the grim darkness of the far future… I will finish my review of Owlcat’s Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. It turns out that trying to complete an estimated 100-hour RPG during the run-up to The Game Awards is too much for this humble Scriptor. There are still many more tabletop-style planetary maps to discover and plunder, many more character levels to scale, and many more cursed artefacts to tamper with before my protagonist, the closet Chaos worshipper Bruschetta de Plonque, can pronounce herself mistress of the Kronos Expanse - assuming the Inquisition doesn’t claim her first. But after 20 hours of the game, I can absolutely say that I’m looking forward to the next 80. While it doesn’t have the cinematic swagger and raw anecdote-generating capacity of obvious rival Baldur's Gate 3, Rogue Trader has mystique and depth to spare, both in terms of its grotty narrative and its exceedingly busy combat and levelling systems.

 

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The depth is a mild shock, to be honest. Warhammer 40K is arguably the ultimate work of sci-fantasy greebling. Its "High Gothic" universe appears nightmarishly storied, bristling with spires and skulls and scrolls and seals, with ancient, cathedralic voidships and battle machines that have actual souls. But in practice, of course, it can be brutally simplistic. It’s about a bunch of big stupid space empires that exist on a permanent war footing, each shaped and structured by blunt hatred of the rest. Even today, after however many cross-media adaptations and spin-offs, you can see that this setting began life as a gleefully ham-fisted joke about the draconian tendencies and colonial nostalgia of Thatcherite Britain. There's a heck of a lot of writing involved but, for my money, the writing is often an extension of the greebling – literally, in the case of the faux-Latin text etched into monuments and weapons – and that is how things come across in many Warhammer 40K videogames, even those that don’t fixate on the spectacle of chainswords and bolters. Rogue Trader is one of the few I’ve played that earnestly digs into this world and tries to develop characters and plotlines, and it’s quietly compelling so far.

 

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I’m also enjoying the game’s turn-based combat system, though I do have notes. It’s a slightly rickety but engrossing balance of simple and bewildering. On the one hand, this is essentially a game about moving people into full or half-cover and flanking opponents who are trying to do the same. Overarching mechanics include reactive attacks of opportunity when people try to move away during melee, the risk of friendly fire, especially when firing a burst, and a set of class-specific, potentially match-winning Ultimates that become available when you gain enough Momentum from kills or conversely, take enough of a beating.

 

It almost seems intuitive, from a distance. But on the other hand, each character has dozens upon dozens of abilities spread across various classes and subclasses, which you can stack and combine to transformative effect, and which threaten to wreak all kinds of havoc towards the endgame.

 

 

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But anybody who’s in the mood for another massive RPG should definitely take an interest, pending my full review. There’s still time for things to go south, mind you. The writing has so far struck a good balance between committing to the worldbuilding, and poking fun at it, but there’s the risk of it becoming over-serious as the stakes are raised. The battle system’s complexities could prove to be inelegant and gratuitous in hindsight. The big thing, for me, is how much choice of alignment changes the story, and how much Owlcat will have to rein in the possibilities as the decisions multiply and evolve. I hope they’re fully committed to unpacking the consequences of Heresy, in particular. I’d hate for daft old Bruschetta to make it to the finishing line unscathed.

 

[Remarkableriots]

This supposed to come out tomorrow but on PSN it only has wishlist available?