Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader review
What is it? Mass Effect but isometric, dystopian, turn-based, and not that much like Mass Effect.
Release date: December 8, 2023
Expect to pay: $50/£43
Developer: Owlcat
Publisher: Owlcat
Reviewed on: Windows 11, Ryzen 9 5900X, 32GB RAM, RTX 3080
Multiplayer? Online 6-player co-op
Link: Official website
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'.
When we wrote about our dream 40K games three years ago, my first pick was «A narrative RPG about a Rogue Trader». I got my wish, but the monkey's paw curled and it's been made by Owlcat instead of BioWare, and that means quality writing and depth balanced by questionable encounter design and overcomplicated systems. We'll get to that later on.
Rogue Traders are an ideal
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