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

polygon.com:

Good combat is not everything in role-playing games, but it sure doesn’t hurt. And in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, combat is looking pretty damn good.

The upcoming computer role-playing game from Owlcat Games has been in closed beta since June, and thus far, we’ve had a blast digging into its companion recruitment, intergalactic politics, and heaps of grimdark lore. Of the myriad games set in Games Workshop’s sci-fi universe, Rogue Trader’s worldis already shaping up to be one of the most engrossing. And based on what Owlcat showed me during a hands-off demo of late-game content last week, it’s not skimping on the tactical options, either.

“This battle is about 80 hours into the game, so this party is pretty powerful,” Alexander Mishulin, creative director at Owlcat, tells me as he moves the group toward a combat encounter. “It will take a while to upgrade your party this much. But you absolutely can.” His own create-a-character is accompanied by five companions: Abelard, his first officer; Idira, an unsanctioned psyker; Jae, a smuggler and tactician; Pasqual, a tech-priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus faction; and, finally, Marazhai, a previously unannounced Drukhari (dark elf). Taken together, the group is as vibrant as it is imposing — even compared to the group of Necrons waiting in a darkened pit up ahead.

Once the fight starts, Mishulin guides each character into cover (or, in Marazhai’s case, to an empty space at the center of the battlefield, the better to draw enemy fire and rely on his high dodge chance) in preparation. Mishulin voices his thought process alongside every move he makes: Abelard is a sturdy tank and will fare better in close-quarters combat. Pasqual should hang back in order to buff his