Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

I'm not particularly a cRPG fan, Baldurs gate 3 opened the door for me so I decided to bite the bullet and give this a shot being that it's set in a universe I've been trying to learn about and get into for some time now. I had heard about 'Rogue Trader' through a page I follow and even WH40k vets absolutely loved the game.

The game instantly pulled me in, there's a lot of reading but it's incredibly informative for newer players like me and has deep lore for the vets. It has keywords you can hover over and it gives you a definition or a rundown on what it means which has been one of my favorite parts of the game being that I'm pretty new. The story is very well done in that it makes you feel powerful and you also feel the impact of your decisions in the game. I knocked points off because some of the animations are reminiscent of old gen games and it does have bugs and glitches from time to time, but not enough that has really had an effect on my gameplay so far.

I think the Emperor would agree that if you're a fan of WH40K and you're not giving the game a chance, it's Heresy.

It was one of the most broken games I've seen in a long time. I played 80 hours but it left me tired as if 80 years had passed. They released the game in an even worse state than Baldur's Gate 3. I guess this is a new trend for game developers. They release buggy as hell and early access games as full versions. After releasing the things that need to be fixed and added before the release, they complete it with updates and additional DLCs. On top of that, they expect extra money for these DLCs. Looking at the current state of the game, it should definitely be avoided. I can easily say that the game was released 1 year early and it will take that long to fix it. The only reason I gave the game this score and was able to finish it is because it's connected to the Warhammer universe, otherwise it really wouldn't have gotten a score higher than 0 from me.

Before I begin, I really want to say that I found the voice work, both of the player character options and the companions/NPCs to be excellent this time around. Passion just radiates out of the performances. Some people complain about how dramatic some of the lines can be, but I found this to be so fitting for such an over-the-top franchise.

Special mention to Oliver Smith, hands down one of my favorite RPG voice performances *ever*.

"Die in Disgrace!"

I had a blast playing this game, while, admittedly, I waited several months for the inevitable bugs. Not surprising for a mid-sized developer without the big bucks of "AAA" publishers.

The story, while a little stilted and disjointed, is fun and entertaining, most importantly. It really helps give some good world building for the not-so-superpowered protagonists that are typical of the 40k universe. There are plenty of Space Marine centric games, it's nice to see the perspective of characters that aren't inherently "kill on sight" to every other faction in the universe.

The mechanics of the game are pretty crunchy and very challenging to follow at first. A seemingly overwhelming number of choices doesn't play a huge role in combat. It's one of those RPGs where you stack buffs on your murder machine while cheesing out extra actions and trigger a cascade of other buffs. However, cinematically, it's a lot of fun to watch.

I'm not a huge fan of the fact that the game follows the "big damn heroes" trope that, by the end of the game, you're stepping out of the medium galactic power and straight into saving the sector type quest line. I would really rather stay in the bounds of 'super powered normal'.

All in all, the game was definitely worth the price tag, and I enjoyed it more than enough to support Owlcat further.

"The God Emperor protects!" I know what you're thinking, but no, not that one.

Every so often, a game comes around that demands 10 to 15 hours of your time. This isn't one of them. Rogue Trader requires ten times that amount, easily, in order to see the story unfold in all the meaningful directions that it can.

I would like to preface my review by saying that I knew next to nothing about Warhammer 40K when I started up the game. I really only found myself drawn to the title because of my love for Owlcat's previous two entries in the Pathfinder world. That being said, Owlcat once again does a great job of putting the lore of their assigned universe into their work, and after 140 hours of gameplay I feel like I'm decently well-versed in plenty of the God-Emperor's vision of humanity's future.

For the rest of this review and others, check out WordsmithsAnvil . Com.