I'll enjoy basically any mid-budget or above party crpg, but I think this is the most playable of owlcat's endearing attempts at making an rpg. The writing is kinda bad, the levels are kinda bad, the combat is kinda bad, but if you want to play a crpg as a whole everything works pretty well!

In contrast to owlcat's last two games this one isn't completely impossibly difficult. I think this is a consequence of the rule system (designed by owlcat I think?) being simple enough to be trivial to break, vs the prior games being pathfinder which requires some kind of a super dork phd to keep up with the power curve of absurdly min-maxed enemies.

i don't really know how to start a review for this game. i think it would be as bloated as the game is. or maybe i should not start one, because i don't think the game is actually finished as is

but all of that being said, i figure plenty of people have already talked about how buggy and broken it is (sometimes in a fun way, sometimes not) but i feel what really irked me was the story, the characterization, things that really can't be patched out. i like 40k, not too invested in it, but i like the lore, i love reading articles or listening to podcasts about it, but i could not muster any interesting in the thousands and thousands of words being written here. everything felt flat, uninteresting, i just skipped everything. could not care less about the koronus expanse and everyone living it. i would just skip everything till the next slaughterfest of a battle, level up my dudes and change equipment

i liked a lot of it, but damn, there's a lot to not like it too

Even if it lacks the grand scale of Wrath of the Righteous, I think Rogue Trader has a very good shot at standing neck to neck with it in the future once the inevitable "Enhanced Edition" comes out along with the two future DLCs.

As it is right now, it's still a "good" game with thoroughly entertaining writing with regards to the setting and characters you interact with, character building that feels streamlined compared to Pathfinder but still having plenty of depth and player expression for party composition, and generally good presentation (seriously, this has some of the best voice acting I've heard out of an isometric CRPG, period) but is also your average CRPG launch release (as in, the game feels like it begins falling apart by the seams both technically and mechanically once you get to the last portions of the game).

The only big negative I have unrelated towards the technical side would be the game balance. Unlike both Pathfinder games which even on "Normal" the game would punish the player if they don't pay attention to an enemy's weakness/don't pre-battle buff, there's a point in RT where you just begin steam rolling the majority of battles with some very over powered classes like Officer and specialized companions like Cassia and a certain sniper companion later on. I'm far from a grand strategist but even I was starting to handle fights efficiently enough that some ended within the first turn. That being said, the first big 2024 patch has already nerfed classes like Officer and companions so I assume they're going to be rebalancing a lot before the first DLC drops.

Super fun! I got a lot of enjoyment out of this game, but it is absurdly broken in many different ways. It's very very easy to dominate this game without even trying to, by the end chapter on normal NO fight gave me any trouble at all. The game seems to lean heavily on the concept of giving your teammates extra turns, this can quickly snowball easily into you getting 3 "turns" of attacks on your main attacker that also grants themselves extra attacks on their own turn, which means even being swarmed by 15 or 20 enemies is irrelevant, as you can easily kill all of them and the boss in the span of one "turn". This is a fun power fantasy for the power gamers, personally I am more casual about my games and like the ebb and flow of a difficult encounter even on medium. I would understand if I looked up the most broken builds online and used them, but this was in my casual gameplay session that I ended up nullifying the entire game about halfway through.

The companions are interesting, the world of 40k is very engaging, but the main storyline felt that it dragged quite a bit. It was more swashbuckling adventure, while the main storyline seemed to want me to care about mysteries and intrigue that just weren't engaging.

I cannot give this game 5 stars because it is EXCEPTIONALLY buggy, even after a large patch (which of course introduced more bugs). As an example, my characters have a trait that inflicts damage on enemies in their "aura" because of a storyline decision made at some point. This happens any time the character is near an enemy. The game also gives you a setup phase before most fights, allowing you to move your characters in a limited space around the battlefield before the battle begins to get in optimal cover or place your units intelligently. The "thorns" aura also activates during this phase, but not once. It activates every time you move the characters, which is free and infinite in the setup phase. This means I was able to kill one of the main bosses of the game by just moving my character back and forth in the setup phase, activating the thorns aura, and whittling down their health 20 HP at a time. Meaning, while it was easy to break the game and win any fight in one turn, I could now break the game and win any fight in ZERO turns before the fight even begins.

This is just one very extreme bug, there are numerous others. The game is filled to the brim with bugs at almost every turn. But I still enjoyed it, any CRPG fan will likely enjoy it as well. The combat is busted but fun, and the game can easily last 80+ hours.

Wait for it till its done and the DLC is out. This game is buggy as hell.

but... its a damn good crpg, even with all the bugs, i had an absolute blast. I can not echoe the sentiments that Act 4 and 5 are rubbish, its true that Act 2 and 3 are the peaks of the game but i felt particularly the final part of the game and the little story beats were quite well done.
The combat is broken in a satisfying way, until you get too overpowered. For the last 10 hours i was able to resolve even the boss battles (ignoring scripted enemy turns) in a single turn, having 2 officers + bolter Argenta simply breaks the game if your characters are set up right. The tension in combat that existed for the first 40 hours, evaporated in the end. Nonetheless it is quite fun to dig into all of the mechanics to get your party composition to fly.

But what really makes this game shine is the atmosphere, i would go as far as to say that i have not yet played a game that represents and sells the 40k universe as well as Rogue Trader. I used to be interested in 40k before hand, playing mainly Dawn of War and the Gladius 4X game, but i never really felt that attached to the human empire, it felt a bit tacky to me. But this game made me realize what the setting is really about, by the end of the game i was a paranoid dogmatic who'd rather let a bunch of people die than allow for the slightest opening for chaos to take roots in my demesne. While Chaos is portrayed as a proper threat, that gives credence to all the fanaticism and paranoia that is omnipresent in the empire, what the game kind of lacked was to give us a proper reason as to why Chaos is so alluring. They tried, sort of linking class struggles to it, but i never really felt intruiged to join chaos, it was very obvious that chaos was bad, and the question (for a sane playthrough) was to navigate between keeping chaos at bay and not being too much of a genociding fascist.

But that aside there is a lot of very detailled wonderful writing that, if one loves reading (a lot), really make the setting and all its intricacies shine. Its easy to make fun of 40k but damn, this setting has a lot of deep lore. Absolutely loved and one of the reasons as to why this is one of my favourite cRPG's of all time.

Especially after the Netflix-level writing of Baldurs Gate 3, which made me abandon it in horror, after 20 hours, this game felt like coming home, to where i belong.

The story is okay, it has some good beats, its not very dramatic, but actually surprised me a little in the end. It does a pretty good job at showcasing the universe and building up characters, but its nothing to etch itself into my mind. Reminds me a little of Wasteland 2, another game i loved but that had a story that didnt really make that much of an impact. I think what a story in a game does, is make me care about what i'm doing and this happened not in the way of the plot, but in the way the game manages to bind me emotionally to the fate of the koronus expanse. All i did was for the purpose of making life better there, and the game feeds this very well. Regarding the companions i have to say i quite liked the majority of them (including those 2 who i sadly had to execute to stop chaos from (potentially) corrupting their weak minds) and found them memorable, particularly Pasqal, Yrlet, Heinrix and Argenta stood out to me.

The reactivity in this game is both great and a little lackluster, you can resolve an endless amount of situations differently, primarly through dialogue, and this can change stuff in a serious manner, but in other ways it often feels like the world does not really acknowledge what you do. Major events occur, for example in regards to companions, and you cant hold conversations about it. Major revelations are left uncommented aside from the very dialogue concerning it. That was quite disappointing, although with the scale of the game (took me 90 hours) it is forgivable.

In conclusion: This game is a buggy mess, it has balance issues, it doesnt have an extremely exciting plot, the structure isnt executed perfectly. BUT man did i get sucked into it, the atmosphere of this thing is really something. When i feel that a game is actively expanding my horizon by allowing myself to fully immerse in a foreign, complex world, think and live through its rules and realities, thats when i become very happy. And Rogue trader absolutely did that for me!

88/100

Abelard, informa a este lector de mi opinión del juego, con todo lujo de detalles.

Tras llevar al tablero digital el mundo de Pathfinder con considerable éxito, Owlcat se atreve a aplicar su ya asentada fórmula al crudo universo de Warhammer 40,000. Conservando mucha de la identidad de sus juegos anteriores pero alejándose del sistema ya consolidado y explotado, Rogue Trader hereda la escala, narrativa y complejidad de Kingmaker y Wrath of the Righteous, pero desgraciadamente también algunas de las malas costumbres de la desarrolladora.

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader nos pone en la piel de un Rogue Trader, una suerte de explorador, colono y regente al servicio del Imperio de la Humanidad, con mucho poder e incluso cierta inusual manga ancha para tratar con lo que normalmente se conocen como enemigos de la Humanidad en caso de ser necesario. Este rol no sólo es adecuado por ser el origen del universo de Warhammer 40,000, sino que es el ideal para dejar al jugador rolear, tener autonomía, permitir la exploración tan recurrido en los cRPG e incluso añadir cierta gestión que tanto gusta a Owlcat.

Uno de los mayores retos a los que se enfrentaba Owlcat al abandonar Golarion por el Imperio es la ambientación, desafío que ha superado con creces. El universo, por una parte, es complejísimo; sólo las facciones imperiales se cuentan por decenas, y cada una tiene diferentes facetas, cismas y corrientes. El titánico trabajo de presentar muchas de estas recae en compañeros y personajes que nos van introduciendo tanto en la facción como sus diferentes caras y rencillas. No sin poco texto, Owlcat consigue presentar los aspectos principales de lo que no deja de sentirse como una introducción al vastísimo universo.
Por otra parte, y aquí es donde más fallan la mayoría, tenían que recordar los orígenes de sátira del Imperio. Sorprendentemente han logrado en gran parte cumplir con ello, si no de forma perfecta: opciones de diálogo que nos permiten ejecutar sin compasión castigos desproporcionados ante la mínima transgresión, fanatismo religioso y dogmatismo llevado a su máxima expresión, una burocracia que parece ser la única autoridad por encima de la nuestra, todo bañado en un humor negro que consigue señalar al imperio como algo no deseable. Como dice el propio juego en un momento "Hay algo hilarante en la forma en que te regocijas en tu propia maldad."

El elenco de personajes y compañeros es variado y carismático, siendo laudable la consistencia a lo largo de sus tres juegos. Siempre tendremos algún favorito, pero en ningún momento he sentido que alguno fuera un añadido forzado a mi grupo, y cada uno presenta un punto de vista único de las situaciones.

En cuanto al combate y el sistema de niveles, aunque basado en el del juego de mesa, se aleja mucho de la realidad de este, aprovechando que la máquina puede hacer mucho por nosotros para añadir un gran número de habilidades así como complejidad a éste. El sistema, notablemente más sencillo que el de Pathfinder, si bien permite cierta flexibilidad y combinaciones acaba encasillando a los personajes en varios roles fijos. Es divertido diseñar builds que aprovechan al máximo ciertos estilos de combate, pero por desgracia a partir del mid-game, si uno sabe lo que está haciendo y planifica aunque sea a medio plazo, se llega a un punto donde se crea un efecto bola de nieve y lleva a en bastantes ocasiones terminar el combate sin haber dado oportunidad al enemigo a actuar, reduciendo muchos encuentros a un mero trámite y quitando dramatismo a ciertos combates, particularmente en la recta final del juego.

La gestión de colonias es, por suerte, sencilla, y se reduce a una serie de mejoras y llegados a ciertos puntos, decisiones que nos permiten dar forma al futuro de éstas.

El combate espacial, que por el modo cruzada de WotR temía que se conviertiera en un tedio, me ha sorprendido para bien. Si los primeros enfrentamientos pueden darse en condiciones muy desfavorables para el jugador, una vez equilibrada la balanza tecnológica se convierten en un interesante juego de posicionamiento, objetivos prioritarios y gestión de poderes que hacen los encuentros un agradable cambio de ritmo.

La reactividad es un paso atrás con respecto a WotR, el juego anterior y de referencia a este respecto. Si bien hay muchas, muchísimas opciones; gran cantidad de diálogos a elegir, infinidad de tiradas de habilidad, pequeñas reacciones dependiendo de ciertas decisiones y acciones... a diferencia de WotR, donde daba la impresión de que había infinidad de formas de "rolear", aquí hay tres muy distinguidas (Dogmático, Hereje e Iconoclasta), que por cómo está implementado el sistema de reputación casi fuerzan a jugar escogiendo únicamente éstas elecciones, haciendo que muchas de las opciones sean poco deseables y diluyendo la libertad que ofrece. Tampoco los últimos actos reflejan tan bien como WotR las opciones que hemos ido tomando, generalmente ciñéndose a momentos puntuales más que permear toda la partida con el tono de nuestro camino elegido, dando esa impresión de una reactividad que podría haber sido más.

Finalmente, no se puede hablar de un juego de Owlcat sin hablar de sus bugs. En este caso han sido notables, aunque por suerte y en mi experiencia personal no demasiado graves; incosistencia en registrar algunas misiones secundarias (en particular los rumores), algún diálogo que no respondía adecuadamente, logros no registrados correctamente, falta de consistencia en algunos números de reputaciones, cálculos extraños en los combates y algún problema de pathing son algunos. El último acto en concreto se pasa en un suspiro, y si bien tiene sentido (es una zona cerrada, ya no tiene la libertad de exploración del parte central de la trama) hay ciertos puntos que dan la impresión de haber sido cerrados con demasiada celeridad, sustituyendo catarsis por indiferencia. Hasta que todo esto esté arregaldo, no puedo sino recomendar esperar a que terminen de pulir y equilibrar el juego para que la experiencia sea del todo satisfactoria.

En conclusión, es innegable que le falta pulido y se echa de menos la profundidad de opciones de Wrath of the Righteous; sin embargo, es un excelente punto de entrada en el universo de Warhammer 40,000, con un combate interesante y complejo, especialmente cuando se haya terminado de pulir como se merece, al que esto dispuesto a perdonar el retroceso a niveles de reactividad de Kingmaker si en el futuro Warhammer obitene su propio Wrath of the Righteous.

My experience with Rogue Trader was... utterly transformative that I don't even know where to begin.
I'm a fairly fledgling 40K fan--I practically just started with Darktide when it released and have since played several games and watched countless Lore videos on Youtube. I hold the 40k universe in very high regard and for what it's worth, I think Owlcat does 40k justice with Rogue Trader. If it wasn't a 40k game I'm not sure I could've gotten past its myriad issue but alas, I triumphed.

It's difficult to quantify what I really liked about the game and a lot easier to talk about what drove me insane so let's get the hard part out of the way, first.

The Good: Like I said early, Rogue Trader does 40k very well for well for what it is. You get to amass an awesome retinue with a character from all your favorite factions: A tech priest, a Sister of Battle, an Inquisitor, an OP Navigator qt, a fricking Space Marine(!) an unsanctioned psyker (she's mid), an Aeldari ranger, a Druhkari Kabalite and you even get an old man and old woman (just because.)
I feel like this game is the epitome of Warhammer 40k fanservice, for better or for worse. The more you like 40k, the more I think you'll like this game.

On the other hand, I've heard some people say "Rogue Trader is a great place to get into the 40k universe!" and I couldn't disagree more.
It's time for....

The Bad: Now, I have to give credit where credit is due. Owlcat games is a fairly small and newer studio with only a handful of games under their belt.
If you come into Rogue Trader expecting Baldur's Gate 3 because they're both CRPGs, you're going to be in for a rough time.
The overall production quality of Rogue Trader is not the greatest. The characters models and animations are okay but a little dated. The cutscenes are often laughable and desynchronized. Whenever I see an NPC get shot by a lasgun in a custcene and then react to the shot 4 seconds later I feel a little embarrassed.
Where a game like Baldur's Gate 3 has detailed character animation and the entire game is voice, Rogue Trader has.... text. And a fucking lot of it.

I HOPE YOU LIKE READING!

Rogue Trader might as well be a visual novel, half the time. There is soooo much text and reading and long conversations. Almost everything that happens in that game is told via text, not shown. Again, when you take into account how small a studio is and how grand and ambitious of a game Rogue Trader is, it makes sense but it does make for a bit of tedious experience.
Maybe I'm an idiot for complaining about "too much reading" when I'm playing a CRPG but I digress.

Unfortunately, however, this problem seeps into other areas of the game. I want to talk about the character building and by extension, some problems with the UI.
You accrue levels fairly quickly in Rogue Trader. I think in my 80-ish hour playthrough I finished close to level 50. Each level you to pick different bonuses depending on your class (Archtype) and/or Origin. Most classes follow the same order (A new ability at X level, a trait at Y level, etc) but not always. So far, this is cool and all. HOWEVER, there are a few issues.
1. the difficulty curve kind of evaporated in a neutron star after Act 2 so the first 2 acts feel like they require some pretty precise builds.
2. Whenever you gain a trait in Rogue Trader, you get to pick one from a loooooonggg list of like, 50 traits. This list also changes based on your Archtype. Each trait often has a fat load of text complete with equations and conditions. In concept this is fine but in practice this is Hell. Trying to read through 90+ different traits to try and the best one and make a choice for 6 different characters in your party is maddening. I love a complex game that gives you freedom of choices on how you want to build your character but this ain't it. By the end of the game, you can pretty much pick that's good, anyways so this is only an issue at the start of the game where the difficulty is the highest.
3. Respeccing your characters (eventually) costs a valuable currency (at least in the early game) that can practically brick your run if you respec your entire party in Act 2. My first save I totally gave up because I was straight up Not Having A Good Time and thought it would be more fun to simply min-max from the start of the game, instead.

So now I'm going to rant about my experience with Rogue Trader or at least, the first 2 acts. I think acts 3-5 were pretty good and at the very least, I didn't struggle with any of the issues from Act's 1 or 2.

Alright, so Act 1. The tutorial: Pretty hard to fuck up and it's straight forward. However, once you get out of the tutorial, you are presented with an illusion of choice. You have 3 main places you can visit: Rykad Minoris, a Prison and Eurac V.
If you thought you should go to the prison first because it was closest to your ship: wrong. You go in there, get your ass handed to you in the first fight and then leave. No big deal, at least you can leave to come back later.
If you go to Rykad Minoris first: ALSO, wrong. Not only wrong but potentially dooming.
As soon as you land on the planet you and hereby locked to that planet unless you make it the majority of the way through. You only have 4 out of 6 party members and the fights ahead are BRUTAL. It's like a 4 vs 14 where there are several dudes in the back shooting you and guys run up to you and one shot you. If you someone make it past the first 2 fights, you are at least greeted with a bad ass new party member but the pain isn't over yet.
Keep in mind that you there is no perma-death or anything but if the health of a party member drops to 0 they are inflicted with traumas that can severely reduce the stats and capabilities. These traumas are automatically healed once you return to your ship BUT you cannot go back to your ship until you get 3/4 of the way through this planet. So if you somehow squeek by these two encounters but become badly damaged, you're still not in the clear and could very potentially soft lock yourself or straight up get filtered.

Anyways, how about that last planet, Eurac V? Fortunately, (well, not for me because it was the last planet I went to) it's a cakewalk! And it's how you recruit the most broken party member in the early game.
After that, you can do Rykad Minoris and the Prison and clear act 1 with ease.

The fact that the game gives you this miserable false sense of choice is absolutely mind melting. It very nearly filtered and I'm usually fairly tolerant of dumb bullshit and banging my head against a wall.
Anyways, with Act 1 out of the way, how bad is Act 2?

Well, not quite as bad, I don't think. It is, by far, the longest act in the game but I don't think you're as likely to soft lock yourself or anything, at the very least.
The one thing that does suck at first, however is the voidship combat. It's turn based space combat. And it basically sucks and you suck until you do the correct and obtuse things to get the gear to not suck. I don't want to go into too much detail but you have to get your reputation up with a specific trader but going about this is by no means intuitive.

Alright, what else can I complain about? Oh yeah. The quest log kind of sucks, too. Instead of just clicking on a quest and it showing you in which system and planet it takes place on, you have to read or sometimes it simply won't tell you. Not to mention, it's sometimes hard to know when you're "done" with a quest or planet and the triggers for progressing a quest can be obtuse.

Alright, I've been pretty harsh on the game so let's go over a quick list of things I do like.
-The combat kinda slaps. It's a lot of fun and the weapons and effects are awesome
-The music, atmosphere and environments are pretty good. Especially the environments. There's lots of little details and NPCs that make the small areas feel busy and full of grim dark life.
-While a lot of the companions are relatively one dimensional and mostly serve as representatives of their respective factions, they're still really cool and I liked the majority of them
-I thought the main story and narrative was pretty interesting and engaging, even if longwinded at times.
-Despite my qualms with character builds, I do think the character customization is pretty cool, even if it feels like there's a lot of "objectively best" builds or weapon choices for most characters. You still get to make fun choices, I feel.
-I think the encounter variety of both combat and exploration is really well varied. A good amount of enemy diversity and a lot of unique adventures and events.

And that about does it! I didn't touch on every aspect of the game--it's more just what stood out to me.
If you're curious what my verdict is, I think it's a flawed and maybe even divisive game but it's 40k and 40k rules. That being said, there was clearly a lot of love and passion put into this game and I think my love for Warhammer and the God Emperor guided me forward to finish this awesome game.

The Emperor protects. Peace

I did enjoy my time with this but damn does it also have many problems.

Here are some of them; There are too many broken combos that make the fights an cakewalk. What's up with the Act 3? I don't think this was thought through. So many bugs and technical problems from progression impeding to smaller stuff like skills not doing what they're suppose to do. Space combat being slow and kinda dull.

I did enjoy the world, narrative and even the combat even though we were stupidly overpowered by the end.

Mutant gf = good heresy

Aeldari gf = good hersy

Drukhari bf = kinda good heresy

Selling your soul to chaos = bad heresy

Remember kids, it's only heresy if you can't kiss it

As a fan of Warhammer 40k and CRPGs, I enjoyed Rogue Trader. It was the first Owlcat game I actually finished, but I just can't recommend it to anyone. Because this game is a mess. Here are my thoughts right after reaching the end for the second time.

Let's start with presentation. I wasn't paying attention to the game during Beta stage, but it feels like Owlcat created "just enough" content to push it to release, and this feeling of "just enoughness" never left me. There's lack of... everything, really:
-GFX assets
What's the difference between several unique Medium Armor sets you have? They share the same icon - you have to check the tooltip.
Most of the talents either have no picture at all or share the same one - once again, you gotta check the tooltips.
-Voiceover
In-battle barks are reused so often they became memes inside the community.
Party banter is just... there, existing in a vacuum.
Most dialogues are silent until they are suddenly not. This one hurts because VAs did a pretty good job (especially with Cassia and Argenta), but the amount of spoken lines is so small one can't help but wonder why Owlcat even bothered.
-Polish
Goofy animations, a-posing, interface bugs are so prominent you will learn to ignore them.

It's not like those are game-breaking critical issues, but this really sets the tone of the game.

Let's get to the design.
-It's overwhelming, but also simplistic
The amount of archetypes is ridiculously small. For a good chunk of a game you will have 2 or 3 core abilities to rely upon, but they are surrounded by a plethora of talents to choose from. Talents bombard you with numbers and complex modifiers, making early leveling a chore with unobvious payoff. But that does not matter, because...
-Balance is non-existent
You will eventually pick up 90% of all available talents and start clearing rooms before Turn 1 is concluded. The game tries to counter it by introducing fatter enemies with bullshit abilities.

Story.
-Vastness of a sea, depth of a puddle
There're lots of things happening on the background during your journey and everything neatly ties up in the end, but the way the plot is presented is kinda messy and disjointed.
Your companions' character arcs happen in their own little bubbles and abruptly end without any satisfactory closure.
Reactivity withers up and dies during act 2. World type? Previous Career? Triumph? Darkest Hour? Most of the decisions? Previous events? Rarely (if ever) brought up until the ending slides begin to roll.

It seems that Owlcat had some interesting ideas, but in attempts to make them work they ran out of money and/or time. Still, I think their recreation of Warhammer universe was pretty spot-on, even if some enemies were just too ridiculous for a mere human Rogue Trader. Locations were small, but packed with little things and were pleasant to look at. Sound design was also great. But the rest is... yeah.

Rogue Trader the best, and only, Warhammer RPG on the market. I had some really high highs with this game. Unfortunately, I also had some pretty low lows.

The game is fantastic. The combat, sound, writing, and story are extremely punchy. Owlcat has done an amazing job incorporating the Warhammer setting into an RPG that encapsluates all that makes Warhammer great. There are no happy endings in the grim dark future, and this game does not shy away from making your RT make hard calls. Doing the "right" thing will lead to disasterous consquences while being a self interested money grubbing Rogue Trader will see you standing at the head of the Expanse with no peers to rival your power.

Unfortunately, latter half of the game is still a bit rough. Act 5 in particular seems a little tacted on the end of the story with little explanation as to why exactly you should be interested in participating. The pennaltumiate climax of the story boils down to a long coversation where the villain, ally, whatever explains the plot of the game to you and finally draws all the threads together. The last boss fight is fine, but nothing compared the epic battle that wraps out Act 4. There are also a lot of plot threads just sort of left to the ether, unless the player takes some VERY specific companions to the right dungeons with absolutely no in game clues as to who you should bring where.

TLDR: Rogue Trader is a bit of a mess at the end. My first playthrough took around 105 hours after completing all the quests and picking through each area. 20 hours could have easily been shaved off this game. That being said, I enjoyed every moment in the Kronos Expanse. I'll definitely be back for a second playthrough when the dlc drops.

Incredibly difficult game to rate because like all Owlcat Games, the good is off the chart great but they all have a catastrophic issue with making the game 100 hours when 60 will suffice. People who love it will replay in a different style/difficulty level but for story/rpg players the incessant combat just grinds you down. Maybe in fiuture a skip combat button so you can get back to the bones of a great game.
I loved the world being new to Warhammer, the characters, and running a trading house but the crazy navigation system and combats meant I was always distracted from enjoying how rich the world is.
Owlcat are about three minor changes in all their games from Pathfinder to this from cranking out solid 10's.
For hardcore RPG players only

If you are familiar with Owlcat style RPG's, this game follows the same beats mechanically. This includes the positives and negatives such as a great in-dialogue highlighting system you can click on to give you info on obscure lore (very handy for any 40k newcomers). And a bit of a clunky leveling system. However they definitely get the vibe of being a Rogue Trader in this universe, the characters are all interesting and fun. Its a bit buggy under the hood so expect some goofy shit to happen from time to time but the devs seem keen on fixing important stuff. If you like 40k and enjoy Owlcats Pathfinder series, id definitely recommend!

It was one of the most broken games I've seen in a long time. I played 80 hours but it left me tired as if 80 years had passed. They released the game in an even worse state than Baldur's Gate 3. I guess this is a new trend for game developers. They release buggy as hell and early access games as full versions. After releasing the things that need to be fixed and added before the release, they complete it with updates and additional DLCs. On top of that, they expect extra money for these DLCs. Looking at the current state of the game, it should definitely be avoided. I can easily say that the game was released 1 year early and it will take that long to fix it. The only reason I gave the game this score and was able to finish it is because it's connected to the Warhammer universe, otherwise it really wouldn't have gotten a score higher than 0 from me.

I spent 150 hours of my life playing a Warhammer 40k game, and missed recruiting the Space Marine to my party.

Like Owlcat's Pathfinder games, Rogue Trader is a crunchy and sometimes unforgiving experience. I ran into plenty of minor bugs, and probably didn't really understand all of the mechanics until maybe 149 hours into my game. But despite all of that, I really enjoyed my time in the outer reaches of grimdark space.

But still, that Space Marine thing...

Warhammer has always been an IP that I had a passing interest in, but never one I had fully immersed myself in. When I saw that Owlcat Games was helming a Warhammer CRPG however, I was excited to give it a try.

As someone who only knew the very basics of Warhammer, Rogue Trader is a great jumping off point for the grimdark series. There is so much lore to take in, but the game takes it's time explaining the significance, as well as really setting the scene for the information presented.

As far as gameplay, this game plays quite similarly to Owlcat's Pathfinder games, however with Warhammer rules to it instead. The character building can seem intimidating at first, as many abilities and stats require a bit of research to understand, but once you get the hang of it it is quite intuitive.

As of writing this review I am roughly two-thirds of the way through the main story and it is rather good, although nothing particularly unique about it has jumped out to me. The companions however are always a highlight of RPGs like this, and Rogue Trader is no exception. All of the characters are well rewritten and have many unique and interesting interactions.

Overall, I think Rogue Trader is a fine CRPG, and another good entry from Owlcat games. This game is a must for any 40K fan, and I would say it is definitely worth trying if you have a passing interest in the series.

First three chapters were awesome: Adventure , choice making , colony management. Was actually fun to explore the Koronus expanse , however by the end of chapter 3 i had explored everything except the systems blocked off by story progression. Then Chapter 4 came and I stopped. Chapter 4 is scripted moment after scripted moment. Too much busy work and poor enemy balance. I'll maybe pick it up in like 6 months when it got updated to be better balanced and optimised. Besides those issues, it has other issues. The romance getting forced before you get all companions, some companions not being able to be romance ( cough.. argenta cough... ) , writting getting meh toward the later chapters ( 4 and 5 ). Quests being uncompletable due to bugs.