Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Reviews

Haven't delved into the Warhammer universe much, but this is a great introduction. Love the story. Basically, you're in service to the God Emperor to explore unknown lands in his name-- seeking resources and adventure. The characters are interesting, and I actually enjoy their banter when we're walking to various locations. Also, I love the leveling system; it's very streamlined. Cool graphics and style. And it's fun! Hard to keep my attention these days, so it's a rare game that immerses me in its world. Additionally, the writing and voice acting is excellent. Overall, would recommend. I'd probably give it a 8.5/10. Maybe 9. Doesn't seem woke.

This was the first game I played set in any kind of Warhammer universe. I had played and very much enjoyed Owlcat's two previous Pathfinder games, so I thought I knew what I would be getting myself into. And it turns out that I did, for the most part. Excellent story, characters and writing. Turn based combat, lots of items and equipment lending themselves to synergising with various skills and builds. What I was not fully prepared for was the difference in systems between Pathfinder/D&D and Warhammer 40K. There was not a huge variety of classes to choose from. Even then, skills and abilities appeared to overlap at times. Also, there was a lot of goddamn math involved! What took me a while to appreciate is that the smaller number of classes and specialisations are augmented by the larger number of skills available to choose from. So there are still a large variety of builds to be made. There is, in fact, so many skills to choose from that it can be overwhelming. I'm sure there are videos and guides out there for how to build characters and how best to level up your companions. Since I go in blind, I started and abandoned several characters as I kept figuring things out and doing the math. That is not a complaint. That's how I play. Would I recommend the game? If you like extremely deep RPG mechanics in your isometric games, yes. If something like BG3 is as deep as you want to get into the RPG weeds, then this isn't the title for you.

Its a great RPG at heart, but its pacing and gameplay frustrations make it exhausting to play. If you have the patience to endure long battles, excessive waiting, and a half useless abilities, the incredible writing and characters might be worth it. But for many, the grind will overshadow the brilliance of its story.

Excellent 10/10 experience. Very narrative heavy. If that's what you're looking for, you will have plenty of hours of top quality art. Attention to lore and setting into the Warhammer 40K universe is impeccable. Even though I encounter the occasional bug, including some game-breaking ones. It's not enough to lower 1 point to the quality of the game, given how vast and complex it is. You should play it if you love CRPGs, Warhammer 40k games, or simply a high quality narrative experience with many interesting characters to love and hate.

This game has a cracking story to it, really enjoyed the over all feel of it, picked it up on sale with all the DLC's. If you like a game you can sit back chill and enjoy the story this one for you. Pros Good story Simple but fun fleet battle mini game Lots of Lore Good voice acting Just being able to kill people you find annoying! I lost a hundred hours in this game on my play through :) Cons Combat feels a touch repetitive have to reapply all the debuffs/buffs every round,

I like 40k, cool, biases out of the way. Now why is this the best cRPG I've ever played? The gameplay loops are the best balanced I've ever experienced. There's rarely more than a couple conversations without at least some combat, and rarely more than a couple combats without some amount of dialogue and/or choices in between. You level up regularly. Inventory is as easy as figuring out what you want to equip or hang on to, no multiple backpacks or weight limits. Vendors are simply a measure of reputation and profit (a stat that goes up and down based on choices), if you can 'afford' an item it's functionally free. All systems are interwoven in such a way that you find yourself interacting with all without getting bogged down in any specific one. Only have an hour to play today? You'll probably level up a couple times, go through a few major and minor story choices, go through a couple minor fights and maybe a boss too. Sure, it's got everything else a good cRPG needs too. Companions are fantastic. Story is great and works for fans of 40k or people fresh to the franchise. Skills have an effect on combat, exploring, and dialogue. Aesthetics are great. But I wish if nothing else, I really want to highlight how well all the game's systems are mixed together.

Long time owlcat games fan, big fan of cRPG games. Great writing, great characters, great story. What ruins the game is how much of a chore it is to play. Out of the 90 hours played, at least 20% was wasted on pointless waiting: loading every screen, pointless walking, disarming traps, waiting for planet scanning animation to finish, waiting for ship to arrive on location, waiting for a route to be established. Even leveling up felt like a repetitive chore, I decided not to level up in the end because how pointlessly bloated the system was - many skills don't make any difference or are never used in game.

[h3]Amazing Story[/h3] The game reminds me a lot of Baldur's Gate 3, but more in a steampunk universe. The story and gameplay are amazing, but keep in mind that you need to read a LOT! I have never played a Warhammer game before or knew anything about the lore, but that did not stop me from enjoying this game. Mini games like colony management and space combat are decent and bring variety. Character development and classes are robust. I can't wait to play more!

This is one of the best isometric 2D CRPGs I have played. It might even be the best. I'm almost stumped at what to say about it because it's hard to think of anything that will do it proper justice, but let me try. The IP is fascinating to explore. Owlcat has constructed a story-rich world with over a hundred hours of gameplay in the main campaign and DLC, and Rogue Trader has never been mined this way in a CRPG. Usually Warhammer 40K products revolve around the Space Marines and their travails, or occasionally larger-scale space battles or 4X type games. I liked the idea of the IP but never really immersed myself in it. Turns out Rogue Traders and their retinue are a great roleplay way to introduce and suck people into the setting. My knowledge of WH40K was peripheral before I played this game and now I'm hooked. The story is well-written with tons of nice lore touches and a great set of companions and NPCs you can lose yourself in. Enough of it is voice-acted so you have a good idea of how major characters are saying their lines even if what you're reading at the time doesn't have voice acting. There are lots of romance opportunities and some of the characters have more unusual romances than others. Storyline choices matter and can have far-reaching effects later in the (long) game. Gameplay is turn-based combat with cover and if you have played XCOM and/or games like it you will be familiar with the system, although melee is more important in the 40K world than it is in most turn-based cover shooters. The mechanics seem to be based on the 2009 Rogue Trader RPG, which in its turn was based on the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay system, using the same stats and a similar way to resolve hits, damage, and skill checks (in and out of combat). I like that system a lot as it is relatively simple and easy to use. If there is a problem with it, it is that early in the game combat is quite tough, but not that much later in the game it's pretty easy to make some broken characters and wipe out most enemy groups on turn one with just one or two of your guys needing to take turns. I finished my game on Daring difficulty with Grim Darkness mode on (after a lot of false starts and failures), and currently I am in an Unfair Grim Darkness game that was pretty tough early on but seems to be sliding into the broken characters deal. (A little aside for your early game - if you use Idira's psy powers she will occasionally summon some horrible daemon that will wipe your party early so consider benching her or turning her into a sniper for the first part of the game!) The character generation is kind of a subset of gameplay but deserves its own paragraph. You have an extensive selection of options and they all matter. You pick an origin and an archetype among other things and in some cases the origin is almost a class in itself (like psyker or navigator). The development of your character goes from there into picking a series of talents every time you level and the list is long even at the very beginning of the game. What you have at the end is a ton of possible builds, and if you back yourself into a corner with a crappy one you can always go to the High Factotum on the bridge and call a do-over, which is very nice. The companions the game gives you will always be better than a mercenary you can generate, as the companions have special talents that you can't otherwise get in character generation, but you still have the option to hire/build mercenaries and may even take it to fill your party ranks early. My personal experience btw if you want help building characters is that there is a lot of dubious advice out there in internet land, so take your time and play around with what is right for you. The graphics are quite good for a 2D game, not anything to write home about but enough to evoke the feeling of the setting and its characters. Character portraits and cosmetic customization is not extensive, but if you pick the right portrait/origin combos you can get portraits that actually match your character's appearance, clothing and all, which I thought was a nice touch. [As I edit this the review right above mine is complaining vociferously about how the game is super buggy and while I did encounter one or two bugs in the DLC I did not encounter anything I would consider an exploit or a major issue. Game seems pretty stable to me and nearly all the time things seem to be working as designed. Owlcat has been working on a bunch of fixes, maybe they addressed most of his complaints, maybe it's machine-based, although my PC is strictly middle of the pack.] Overall I hit this game harder than I have hit an RPG in a very long time, even including Baldur's Gate 3, the current reigning champion of them all. As I write this I am going to go back and try another run as my brain is teeming with character builds I haven't tried and story branches I want to redo the outcomes of. It probably helps Rogue Trader that science fiction CRPGs are relatively rare so if you need to scratch that itch this is a fantastic way to scratch it in a deep and satisfying fashion. As a post-script, the DLC is quite good and has been integrated into the campaign at the very beginning, coming with its own long storyline, a new cool companion, and a couple of solid archetypes. If you buy this game, buy that too.

This is an incredibly good game. A few things: 1. I know nothing about the Warhammer universe. Never played a table top game, read a book, played a video game, prior to this game. 2. I love a good large scale game with scope for different story lines, and tactical combat. So, I bought it on the back of really positive (mostly) reviews. In the process I read websites, forums, guides and help. I noticed in the process a reasonable undercurrent of disdain (hate?) for Owlcat and the 'bugs' in their games, and in reference to Rogue Trader. I laughed at this. Yes, I've only played this one title, but those feelings are ridiculous - at least in the context of Rogue Trader. Seems to me none of those people every played a Bathesda game if they're moaning about bugs and lack of finish... This game, after all the hours I've played, was staggeringly un-glitchy given it's complexity, and story-line gymnastics given choices matter. It's not perfect, and if you wanted to get an ending and missed a less than obvious quest you may never want to go back far enough to change that, but move on. No different from life, right? We don't nail everything, and the story is what it is as a result. The play is fantastic. The options of builds, synergy etc are all a lot of fun to experiment with. Companion synergy (and not), skill builds, item builds. It's. Just. Endless. And... there is not only 'one build' that works. Too many games suffer from that - lots of options but in the end only 1 play style is valid if you want to win. This game absolutely does NOT suffer from that. Which, in itself, shows how well the Dev team did. Is it completely balanced? Possibly not. Some games are easy early game, hard late - others, vice versa. This one, if you get good synergy is definitely easier in late game. But frankly, I loved discovering that with Cassia, a specific Iconoclast skill on my RT and the right build on Marazhai i could win any late game fight before the enemy even had a turn. Including the final boss battle (before the boss froze Marazhai for all of half a round, and then I finished him off). That was simply an insane way to just waltz through late game challenges. 'Here, hold my beer, i'll be back in a moment before the enemy even blinks'. It's fun, it's deep, it has replay, it's great value. If you like large-scale, choices-matter, highly deep tactical battle games, this is right up there with the best of them. And it was a fabulous intro the Warhammer universe for me to throw into the bargain. And the design and artwork was astonishingly impressive. Two thumbs up. Highly recommend. Worth the price of admission!