It’s truly bizarre that across the nearly 30 years of Warhammer video games, we haven’t had a single one that attempted to channel the tabletop Warhammer experience by utilizing the genre that feels best suited to do so: CRPGs. But that’s all about to change, as Pathfinder developer Owlcats has been cooking up something to fill this void. During an extensive hands-off demo of Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, I checked out its extremely chunky turn-based combat system, drowned in its plethora of dialogue options and social skill checks, and nodded approvingly at its lovingly faithful depiction of Warhammer’s morbid universe. While it’s still very early, so far this CRPG is shaping up to be everything I’ve wanted from a Warhammer video game.
If you’ve ever played (or even glanced at) a game of Warhammer 40K, then you probably know it’s designed for a hyper-specific kind of nerd who loves calculations, large-scale drama, and an incredibly detailed world one could easily get lost in. Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader caters to that same kind of player by being as much of a CRPG as one could imagine.
The first and most immediately obvious example is the combat, which takes a classic turn-based tactics approach that should feel very familiar to Warhammer players and scales it down from a military mass combat encounter to fit a smaller group of ne’er-do-wells that’s more appropriate for a party-based RPG. Galactic scale aside, everything else a Warhammer fan could expect appears to be present and accounted for, whether it’s detailed maps littered with cover, a sandbox of weapons and abilities that allow for slow and strategic engagement of the enemy, and a wide variety of iconic Warhammer factions to fight. If you’re looking to capture the magic of a turn-based Warhammer shootout in video game form, so far Rogue Trader seems to be making all the right moves.
From the nearly two-hour-long demo I was given, there also seems to be a super dense story with more dialogue options and social checks than you can shake a power sword at, and the incredibly detailed environments definitely succeed at recreating the world of Warhammer in all its pessimistic and depressing glory. Playing as a Rogue Trader, one of only a handful of individuals given agency to explore the galaxy and largely do as you please, you’re put in a unique, Commander Shepard-esque position of setting out to chart your own course and make enormously consequential decisions with almost no balances to your power – the perfect setup for an RPG with lots of dramatic choices and consequences, wouldn’t you say?
“You’re put in a unique, Commander Shepard-esque position of setting out to chart your own course and make enormously consequential decisions with almost no balances to your power.”
The world itself is quite a departure from the high fantasy Pathfinder environments for which Owlcats is known, and the environments I saw were largely hideous mechanical structures, draped in ornamental skulls and creepy magical artifacts. And the party members that occupy those spaces and serve as your crew come from all different walks of life in the Imperium. This is one way in which Rogue Traders really takes a departure from the tabletop game – you aren’t picking a faction and going to war against another group in a battle of attrition. Instead, your crew is composed of a ragtag group of misfits who are working together towards a common cause, utilizing the rare level of legally permissible free will that only a Rogue Trader enjoys.
The version of Rogue Trader I saw was clearly still in a very early stage in development, as they’ve not even begun the recently announced beta that will likely influence a lot of development going forward. But so far, the premise has the makings of an ideal Warhammer RPG experience, balancing the joys of the extremely dense Warhammer combat system with a smaller ragtag crew that’s more CRPG friendly. I, for one, will be checking out the beta and will be watching this one’s progress with great interest!
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