Its a great game.
Only giving 4 stars because though it's fantastic, the endgame is riddled with bugs. When its done and I come back to play it I'll re-rate it.
I honestly can't wait to come back to this game because it was so good.

Pros:
- fun combat! you're always outnumbered and feels badass to wipe out hordes of heretics!
- Very well written story and dialogue
- Actions have consequences. You can choose to execute companions, which is great for RP but you feel the consequences of loosing that character from your team.
Cons:
- BUGS. The endgame is broken atm, so I'm going to come back and finish later.
- Complexity - this is both a pro and a con, but i put it in con because though it is great it feels really daunting at first. You eventually get the hang of it and understand the terminology but its A LOT.

I think this game had a lot of potential but there's an incompleteness to the last couple of acts and the large amount of visual, ui and quest killing bugs that holds it back.

On the positive the game really captures the WH40K feeling with the way the characters and environments look and with the writing you can tell that they researched it.

The combat can be fun but there's a lack of choices, particularly near the end, when it comes to builds. For instance you only have 4 starting classes to choose from and once you've chosen one, you're locked in. Compared to Pathfinder where you have a large amount of flexibility to mix and match. But the game does allow you to respec freely so once you find something you like you can change things around as needed.

The systems hold up better than the pathfinder games. The colonies are optional but do give you rewards. Ship battles while not fantastic are better done than Wrath's crusade system.

I think where the game falls apart though is that the last couple of acts were not fleshed out and tested enough. I went heretical and it didn't seem to really impact anything from the story, I was walking around with a Chaos Marine and no one cared at the end, no one commented. It was very disappointing. Also the story wasn't written tight enough at the end and lost a lot of the initial steam in the game, not fitting well together.

And the bugs, as of this review on 12/25 there are so many bugs that hopefully they fix that really effects the enjoyment and I'll have to ding my rating for it.

Overall I feel like this game needs to go back into the oven for another year, do a lot of bug squashing and do some revision/expansion on the story and the paths. It has a lot of potential but the execution at the end of the day is subpar.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

boy oh fuckin boy. we finally got a 40K game that adequately captures a world bigger than snoozy bottle episode conflicts and positions its tonality closer to original intent than unironic fascism endorsement. remember this shit was supposed to be satirical? well,

landing on a new planet, having your lackeys introduce you rather than deign to do it yourself, and behaving like an all around prissy idiot is the vibe here. I know you could play as the emperor's lapdog or a chaotic evil heretic, but I'm always gonna be a condescending, drink swirling, eye rolling, "crime lord" brat if given the opportunity. I like to think when I align with any sorta dogma it's with a camera mugging wink. I'm JUST lying; I am literally always lying; I have no convictions outside of demented egoism. don't think there's an rpg in recent memory that more convincingly backs up your inherent desire to choose the best/funniest/optimal outcomes with a player character that's canonically shitty enough to do just that

it's all pretty much age-of-sail bullshit: show up, colonize, reap the benefits of your exploitation, manage your fucked up evil empire, engage in ship battles; that sorta thing. while I don't think it gets into being as much of a commentary as the material naturally lends itself toward (and was designed to be), it's certainly a game that's at its best when it understands just how awful you and your companions are and leans into it further. there's often an Aw Shucks do-gooder option, but it feels more like a genre vestige than a path worth pursuing; a consolation prize for those who don't mind how much it clashes with all the kidnapping and murder and backstabbing the game expects you to do. no one gonna convince me the "lawful good" bit works in this setting at all, let alone a game where the friendliest dialogue choice might involve threatening to execute someone on the spot, but sure

combat feels real good, real thick and chunky with gratuitous slo-mo and turning people into red goulash via all manner of awful implements. instead of being a fetish monument to baldur's gate (1/2) style prebuffing, RT's homebrewed ruleset focuses more on integrating that stuff directly into the general flow of things. you can make quite a few actions on a given turn, and a good portion's likely gonna be dedicated to setting up wild chains of buffs and debuffs so you can trigger a series of stacked bonuses or maluses — delicately setting up sequences in advance before seeing the plan snap together in a quick burst of catharsis

character progression works similarly: hypergranular in all the right ways to make tinkering fun; a slow roll snowball where you gradually build up passives and synergies with level ups. you never hit X level and get something like a fireball that gives you the popeye spinach all at once, it's more like minute, incremental improvements that inevitably add up to something fucked up down the line. balance is totally out the window, and it's easy to trivialize even harder difficulties with certain roles, but it's a joy to piece everything together and if you (understandably) want more control than something like 5E allows, this is the antidote to that. even before getting into the itemization and all the avenues it opens up, this is 100% math porno for build perverts

on the other hand the encounter design's a mixed bag. owlcat's always been studied devotees of the infinity engine, and these still feel like rtwp fights despite being designed from the ground up for a turn based system. it works on the basis of its core mechanics being (mostly) solid, but owlcat still seems uninterested or unable to take a more economical tack with these things for whatever reason

when its firing on all cylinder's it's fabulous; when some "electro-priest" (me when i listen to drexciya) drops from the ceiling and says something about the "motive force" I don't know what it means, but I know it's pretty sick. and when I parry them six times in a row and hit em with enough debuffs to make an SMT fan puke that's sick too. the bosses, setpieces, and event fights rule, and I'd put at least a handful up there with the best in recent memory, but you could cut out a solid quarter of the lesser fights and no one would complain a bit. trash mobs work in rtwp cos you can carve thru them like it's diablo, but when an equivalent fight take significantly longer and each turn requires 6-12~ actions, the approach starts to look a lot less sound

elsewhere we got the colony management stuff which isn't my favourite thing in the world. it's necessary and consonant with the themes and setting, but as a mechanical endeavor they drag it out in some unpleasant ways. i need a way to throw up Do Not Disturb on my shit. silent mode on my shit. every two seconds I'm getting phone calls. rogue trader, we hate to bother you, but we need your help. rogue trader, is the dress blue or gold? rogue trader, there's this girl I like...

buddy, I'm here to subjugate you. clearly I've made some sort of error if you think I'm going to solve your problems. worst bit is that you gotta warp on over to the colony and the choice will be something like GET AMBUSHED BY 100 DARK ELDAR CBT SHIPS or PAY ONE (1) PROFIT FACTOR. I'm feeling a lot like ricky every time these freaks roll up and it's exhausting

ship combat absolutely rules when you're not outnumbered to the point of losing before getting a turn though. nothing fancy, just the most cozy balmy breezy vibes. you don't know what satisfaction is until you get into a situation like this and I'd buy a standalone spinoff that iterated on this stuff no questions asked. I'd throw on a giant sweater, chug black coffee, and lose an entire winter plinking away at it, easy

but it's about time we get to the biggest issue by far: this game's buggy as fuck, ranging from cute little cosmetic nothings and wonky skills to full on softlocks and run enders. I've managed to avoid the real gamebreaking nightmare outcomes so far, but it'd be real disingenuous not to emphasize how raw it gets — especially when the tutorial's longer than a given 2h refund window

at first I thought the tactical knowledge skill was broken (didn't work at all) but then I realized it was broken (line of sight/tooltip bugs), and then I realized it was broken (obliterates game balance). there's a lot of stuff like this in here; stuff that either works incredibly well, doesn't work at all, works different than suggested, or a mix of the above

I've seen misaligned inventory grids that make entire rows of items inaccessible; t-posing, animation stutters and weird cosmetic glitches; fights that go down to an average of 5 fps on a 3060ti/i5-10400 pc; enemy turns idling for 30+ seconds; ships flying away from the battle and taking 20+ turns to catch up to; zone transitions and movement not working; keyboard disconnections; major fights where allies are stuck with 0AP; combat templates carrying over to the world map; fake cover; and a host of other issues I've forgotten by now — and that's without getting into how quirky line-of-sight and allied AI are on average. you have a better chance of winning the lottery than avoiding friendly NPCs mercilessly unloading full automatic bursts into your party members' spinal columns every turn. enemies WILL shoot you through walls with impunity out of nowhere from time to time and you're gonna have to suck it up when it happens

rogue trader is the most crpg crpg I've played in a long time. a sort of time capsule of busted rulesets, buggy launches, total freedom to break the game over your knee, and some truly great roleplaying and combat hindered by outsized ambitions and developers who might be a little bit too passionate for their own good

a throwback to a bygone era of black isles and troikas making messy masterpieces that sputter and clang and crackle with manic enthusiasm and strange and bizarre malfunctions while being the first 40K game to really nail the setting and show off just how interesting the worldbuilding and lore is when its not being constrained by narrow, unimaginative storytelling

for all its problems — many of which are severe and hard to pardon — it's a weird dream game for me. if owlcat can wrangle it into being a functional piece of software I'd bump the score in a heartbeat, even assuming everything else remains completely deranged. takes all the promise of the setting that I'd been dying to see properly realized in a game and blends it with classic crpg design at its most jittery and electric, proving further (as if there was any doubt) that this style of rpg isn't going anywhere, nor should it

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.

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.

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...

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.

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!

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

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.