Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Review

th is for the we one can escape the emperor's judgment a lot of RPGs assume you're just some nobody with a sword trying to make their way in a strange and hostile universe and there are a few universes as large and hostile as Warhammer 40K that's why I was so delighted that Warhammer 40,000 Rogue traitor puts you into the shiny step on me boots of a titular Rogue traitor the heir to the fwn fanus dynasty and a very powerful member of the high nobility in the Imperium of man getting to roleplay someone of such status and wealth across more than 130 hours of gritty tactical combat and superb Quest writing is a fresh power fantasy for this setting and this genre I just wish it wasn't plagued by more annoying bugs than there are demons in the warp Rogue Trader is an absolutely colossal somewhat lumbering crpg and like my grandiose Gothic Flagship the fortune Atrix it's not exactly polished to a mirror sheen on the bright side like balers Gate 3 before it almost none of the huge catalog of side quests and optional activities feel like filler developer owl cats previous games Pathfinder King maker and Wrath of the righteous had a lot of trash fights that honestly seemed like they were there to waste my time but every encounter in Rogue Traders epic length campaign presents tactical challenges that are made interesting through new ways of thinking about its enemies and use of space and cover and Rogue Trader has a lot of surprises in store for 40K fans in terms of the kinds of foes we get to fight if you insist Lord breaking away from the Pathfinder rule system owlcat reproduced with almost self-defeating Fidelity in its past two games Rogue Trader pays homage to some of the classic Fantasy Flight Warhammer 40K tabletop RPGs but this is really a new system built from the ground up and that intentionality has allowed it to Simply work better in most cases I will warn you that this is a very crunchy system though if you're coming here straight from balers Gate 3 Lan's interpretation of DnD D will seem like a soft gooey nougat that melts in your mouth by comparison ability descriptions in Rogue Trader can feel like reading an academic paper on differential equations and the wordy overly detailed way the tool tips are presented doesn't do it any favors I event eventually got a handle on it and came to enjoy the depth that it offers but it's intimidating until you learn its visual language and it never stops being kind of a research project to understand what a new Talent actually does on first inspection the upshot of having so many options is that the power of my squad fully outstripped to the default difficulty by a round halfway through the campaign here you can see arenta doing what basically amounts to Infinity damage with her Bolter against a late game Enemy none can escape the emperor's judgment luckily difficulty in Rogue Traer is fully modular and can be changed at any time you can keep outof combat skill checks at normal but really crank up the combat difficulty in targeted and granular ways which allowed me to dial in a satisfying experience though it does take some patience and experimentation and there are some startling difficulty spikes here and there where I had to nudge things back down temporarily one of my favorite elements of this combat system is how powerful support characters can be I made my rogue Traer the esteemed Karan Von fanus an officer who not only hands out Buffs but can also give allies free actions this ended up making me the Lynch pin of the entire party even though I rarely ever fired a shot or swung a chain sword myself that's why I have eot an ancient Elven Ranger with a sniper rifle arenta a warrior space none and olar basically a freaking werewolf in power armor I'm never going to be as cool as any of them so helping them do violence even better is a great Niche to find myself in setting up a combo where olar Cuts several people in half or ear at one Taps the enemy Commander from across the map is endlessly satisfying another SS beyond the highly positional space combat is well done too and plays out much like a naval engagement with lots of maneuvering and lining up broadsides and a fairly involved Colony management system reinforces the idea that I am a powerful ruler within this sector even though some of the colony stats like security didn't seem to matter [Music] much the writing is what really steers the ship here though from the central quest to reclaim your protectorate and deal with a powerful chaos cult to terrifying encounters on desolate shipwrecks hidden away in the dark corners of the coronis expanse to conversations with your diverse and multifaceted crew the dialogue and scenario design is of a similar quality to balers Gate 3 and other great of the genre plus if I had to pick three favorite factions in the entire 40K Universe they would be the sisters of battle The Craft World Eldar and the Space Wolves the fact that all three of these are represented by Rogue Traders recruitable companions probably wasn't done specifically to Pander to me but it sure feels like it was none shall stand in my way the Galaxy of Rogue Traer also looks great from the cramped corridors of an imperial bunker to the wild expanse of an untamed jungle world it manages to capture the harshness and moodiness of 40K without being constantly gloomy or depressing there's a lot of deaf use of color in every environment and on every model or portrait exploration is a treat even if danger is usually just around the corner the character designs rule too even if they definitely seem a bit dated for 2023 in terms of fine detail Rogue trador music is generally strong and fits the tone of the 40K Universe perfectly with its ominous chanting and pseudo medieval gloominess the problem is owlcat still hasn't really figured out how to use Music dynamically to amp up a dialogue scene a lot of huge impactful moments and Revelations deflate like a balloon because they're lacking the wicked or triumphant audio stings that would help them land so much harder beyond that the sound design is top tier though from the satisfying report of a Bolter to the highquality voice acting what little there is of it faith without Deeds is worthless unfortunately Rogue Trader is packed with bugs enough to stuff a space Hulk with I saw too many missing tool tips abilities that don't work correctly te- posing servitors and even a couple cases where my progress was blocked on a crucial Quest and I had to wait for a workaround or a patch to continue there have been several of those since I started playing the review copy and to be fair the devs did caution me that continuing on a save from an older version could cause issues I was not aware that a navigator of my station required such permission I shall henceforth be more astute in following the particular regulations of your ship so some of the stuff I experienced could be due to that it's hard to say especially since the 1.0.1 patch released on December 14th I have gone back and found that most of the egregious stuff seems to be fixed and what's left mostly falls under funny Andor just annoying but it might be worth giving this one a little more time in the plasma oven before jumping in by the manner of their death we shall know even in such a banner year for RPGs Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Traer stands out as one I wouldn't want to have missed excellent writing great combat and the chance to get up close and personal with some of the most interesting and and exciting elements of the 40K Universe makes for a stimulating Gore Feast of a journey its systems are a complicated Beast to master and the bugs are numerous and significant but it speaks to the quality of everything surrounding them that they didn't sour the experience for me more than they did owlcat has taken a proud step forward as an RPG developer to keep an augmen eye on count this one among the imperium's finest for more space Adventures check out our reviews of Avatar frontiers of Pandora and lethal company Early Access and for everything else keep it right here on IGN I'll do it

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Keywords: 000: Rogue Trader, warhammer, 40k, rpg, baldur's gate, gameplay, impressions, warhammer 40k trailer, warhammer 40000, game trailer, game trailers, trailer, trailers, gaming, video games, video game trailer, video game trailers, new game trailers, new video game trailers, upcoming video games, new video games 2023, upcoming video games 2023

Id: rRHluRhd8pc

Length: 10min 21sec (621 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 16 2023